This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life.
And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
You're listening to the Learning English Conversations podcast from BBC Learning English.
We'll have another episode of The English We Speak soon, but today we're continuing with our special series Beating Speaking Anxiety a podcast to help you fight your fears of speaking English.
This episode is called I'm Scared I Won't Get the Joke.
Do you understand these jokes?
Neil, tell me a joke.
What did the ocean say to the beach?
I don't know.
What did the ocean say to the beach?
Nothing.
It just waved.
Neil, knock, knock.
Who's there?
Lettuce.
Lettuce who?
Lettuce in.
It's cold out here.
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Boo.
Boo who?
Don't cry, it's only a joke.
In today's episode, we're talking about being funny in English.
Hello and welcome to Beating Speaking Anxiety, our special series to help you fight your fears of speaking English.
I'm Georgie.
And I am Hanan.
You can find the transcript of this episode to help you learn on our website, bbclearningenglishcom.
Have you ever been having a conversation with friends and suddenly everyone laughs and you don't know why?
This can happen a lot when you speak a new language.
This happened a lot to me when I lived in Spain.
It feels like everyone's having fun and you can't join in.
Yeah, I actually always have that or experience that around Christmas time, when we pull crackers at the dinner table.
Yeah, so crackers is something we have at the dinner table at Christmas.
It's like a little parcel that two people pull and inside you get a little gift and traditionally, a joke.
So, Hanan, what happened?
Yeah.
So if we are with our Arab or European friends, I feel OK, because none of us get the joke which is usually very has a deep root of like English tradition or like British culture.
But if we are with our British friends, I see that they all got the joke and I didn't.
So sometimes I feel it's easier and quicker to pretend that I am laughing or I'm enjoying it, to save them the embarrassment of explaining the jokes to me.
Because I feel like sometimes explaining the jokes after saying it can kill the vibe a bit.
100%.
Yeah.
Even if you understand the joke in English, it can be even harder to try to make your own jokes.
That's something that Miguel from Spain struggles with as part of his speaking anxiety.
Miguel says he's a shy person even when speaking Spanish.
Even in Spanish I struggle to speak up, not only in a non-family situation, but strangely enough I also get nervous when talking to friends, if more than a few are paying attention to me.
And of course, speaking in English makes Miguel feel even more shy, even with friends.
It's even worse.
Instead of being able to joke or say what I really think, I get stuck trying to find the right words.
And that makes me more anxious.
When he's talking in English.
Miguel wants to be able to participate and make jokes, but his anxiety makes it too difficult.
There are so many different ways of making jokes and playing with a language and until you start learning these things, it's easy to feel excluded from the fun.
Being able to laugh and have a joke with someone can be a really important and useful way to bond with them, especially if you consider yourself a funny person in your first language.
So how can we try to be more confident making and understanding jokes in English?
To find out, let's hear from someone who moved to the UK and has become fluent in English, including making jokes.
My name is Pepa Duarte.
I am originally from Lima, Peru.
I am an actor.
I also work as a theatre maker, so I produce, create, write my own shows.
This is Pepa.
She grew up in Peru and learned some English at school.
I actually didn't feel that I learned anything as I graduate from secondary school.
I didn't think that I was able to express myself in English or that I or I was able to understand it.
Really,
When Pepper decided to do a master's degree in the UK, she studied more English to pass an IELTS exam.
But Pepper says it wasn't until she moved to the UK that she realised how much she still had to learn.
And I came to London not really knowing how to express myself just yet.
More like I passed the exam and I was able to come.
And then I guess the last part of my journey learning English was in the practice of not knowing English, what people were saying and sort of making it you know on the go.
Pepa found it really difficult to have everyday conversations in the UK and communicate with people.
She's grown up hearing more American English in film and TV and found UK accents difficult to understand.
You know, I wasn't even able to tell if something was English.
I was a bit like very lost in everyday conversations.
But Pepa carried on.
Even though she was scared, she realised she had to keep trying to speak to people.
I think it was a change of mindset that happened out of the need of surviving, really.
Because I had already paid for my master's degree.
I was already here.
I was sort of like I came home one day and I was like I haven't done all of these and, you know, made the impossible happen, which was moving to this country, to then just keep my mouth shut because I'm scared of making mistakes.
Pepa decided to change her mindset.
She decided to change the way she thought about speaking in English.
Yes, trying to speak even though she was making mistakes.
Trying to understand even if she found things difficult.
And part of this was making jokes with people, something she would naturally do in her first language, Spanish.
I think one can be funny even when you don't know a language really well.
You can still find a way to bring some comedy into the room, even with a very broken English accent.
Peppa completed her Master's and began working in theatre.
And then she got the opportunity to try comedy on the stage.
Peppa worked with an organisation called No Direction Home, which organises stand-up comedy nights for migrants and refugees in the UK.
Stand-up comedy is where one person stands on a stage and tells jokes to an audience.
It's scary stuff.
Promising the audience that I'm going to make them feel one or another thing.
I think is a really big thing to do.
Promising that you're going to deliver something specifically, which comedy does.
It's kind of like you're coming, you're going to be laughing.
If you don't laugh, you're sort of like failed.
So I found that very, very scary, let alone doing it in another language.
As part of the experience, Pepa got some advice from a professional comedian, which helped her feel more confident.
The process of being part of No Direction Home gave us all a lot of confidence.
Maybe you don't feel that you have as much vocabulary as someone that is native.
You can still find a way to be really funny.
So it was just like a really empowering space and with people from all over the world, which was really exciting as well.
Now, you probably won't be standing on stage telling jokes, right?
But being able to laugh with people can make us feel more relaxed when having everyday conversations.
So what is Pepper's advice for overcoming that nervousness that she felt when she first moved to the UK?
Well, for her it's all about practice, but practice from a, from a playful kind of um starting point, where you are like taking it as a challenge, as a game, as like as a tryout.
Language should be something flexible and fun and, um, And it's quite courageous, I think, as well.
So pushing yourself to try things rather than waiting for things to be perfect.
Georgie.
Some of the jokes that we heard at the start of the program could be quite confusing and even scary.
People might not get them.
Should they be worried?
No, you shouldn't be worried.
These jokes that we heard at the beginning are often based on wordplay and puns.
So words that sound similar or can mean more than one thing.
So one of the examples from the beginning, what did the ocean say to the beach?
Nothing, it just waved.
Well, that's funny.
Can you try and explain why it's funny?
Because it just waved and it plays on the word here, waves as like the ocean waves, but also waving your hand like goodbye or hello.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
But these are always going to be difficult in your second language.
But I think most of us know that humour doesn't have to be about using clever words.
In fact, like Pepper said, you can find fun in the process of trying to communicate.
That's it for this episode.
If you want to learn more about improving your speaking and reducing your fears, Georgie's made a series of videos to go with this podcast, with practical tips and activities.
That's right.
You can find them all on bbclearningenglish.com.
Next time we'll talk about what to do when you feel like you're a bit stuck with your English and you're not getting any better.
See you then.
Bye-bye.
This is not the future we were promised.
Like how about that for a tagline for the show?
From the BBC.
This is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world.
This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews.
It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life.
And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
