Pratica di Shadowing: Why Are People Afraid To Speak English? - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
Creazione lezione...
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Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
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Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 146 of the Listening Time Podcast.
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I hope you're all doing fantastic and I hope
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that your English learning is going well and that maybe you're starting to speak and have conversations in English.
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I know that it's hard when you first start speaking English and that's actually what we're gonna talk about in today's episode.
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I want to talk about why people are afraid to speak English.
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I think that this episode will be helpful for all of you,
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especially if you're just starting to speak or or maybe you haven't spoken yet,
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you're still waiting, and you're a little bit worried about starting,
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I think that this episode will help you if you're in that situation.
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And I think that it will give you a little bit of motivation to start if you feel like
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you're getting to the point where you're ready to speak because you understand a lot,
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but you're a little bit afraid, I hope that after listening to this,
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you'll feel a little bit more confident to start this process of speaking in English.
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So that's what we'll talk about today, so I'm sure you'll like this episode.
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And if you feel like you understand me really well already, and you want to practice with something more difficult,
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then I recommend that you sign up to become a Listening Time family member
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so you can practice with my advanced episodes in which I speak fast.
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the link to sign up is down below in the episode description.
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That's patreon.com slash listening time.
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And if you want something even more challenging, then you can practice with my U.S.
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Conversations podcast in which I have conversations with different English speakers from around the country.
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They're all teachers who teach English, and we talk about a lot of different topics.
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And with this podcast, you'll also just learn a lot about the country, about the U.S in general.
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It's a lot of fun.
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It's great practice for you.
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So the link is also down below.
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That's patreon.com slash usconversations.
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And as always, please share this podcast with any English learners that you know,
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and please give it a five-star rating and write a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
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All right, let's get started.
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Are your ears ready?
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You know what time it is.
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It's listening time.
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Okay, let's talk about why people are afraid to speak English.
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In this episode, I'm gonna talk about the three main reasons,
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in my opinion, why people are afraid to speak English, and we'll talk about why people have that fear,
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and I'll try to relieve your fears a little bit.
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Hopefully, you won't feel as afraid after listening.
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And before I mention these three reasons why people are afraid to speak,
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I want to note that I still think
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that it's important to be able to understand English pretty well before you start speaking consistently.
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I'm not saying you have to do this Everyone has different philosophies when it comes to language learning,
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and I'm not saying that I'm right and everyone else is wrong.
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However, in my experience, having conversations with people from all over the world,
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students who are learning English from many different countries,
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I've done this for many years I've talked to many people for thousands of hours
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So I'm speaking from experience here When I say that
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when people can't understand me well During our conversation The conversation does not go well
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It's not a very helpful hour or half an hour that we spend when the student can't understand me well.
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However, if they understand me well,
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then that 30 minutes or one hour is very useful for them.
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They get to practice their speaking naturally, and it's beneficial.
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but if they don't understand me, the conversation just doesn't go well.
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It's very unnatural.
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I have to repeat things many times or translate them, and it's just not that fun.
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So, in my opinion, this is only my opinion, but I'm speaking from experience,
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If you can't understand English pretty well, then that should be your focus.
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You should focus on understanding English pretty well.
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Not perfectly, of course, maybe not even to an advanced level,
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but you should be able to understand pretty well.
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And then that will really help you get started with your speaking.
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Okay?
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All right.
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That being said, let's talk about the first reason why many people are afraid to speak,
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and that is they're afraid that they're gonna say the wrong thing.
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In other words, they think that they will make a lot of mistakes, whether it be with grammar or vocabulary.
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They're gonna say the wrong word or use the wrong structure.
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Many people are afraid of this.
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And this is inevitable.
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When we say that something is inevitable, we're saying that it can't be avoided.
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So when you start speaking English,
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it's inevitable that you're gonna say the wrong words many times, okay?
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That's not something you can avoid and it's not something
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that you will avoid when you're fluent even because fluency does not mean perfect accuracy.
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Fluency and accuracy are two different things.
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So even when you become fluent in English you're still gonna make mistakes sometimes, okay?
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So don't have this idea that some people
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when they learn English they don't make mistakes and you make a lot of mistakes.
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No, that's not reality.
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We all make mistakes.
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We all say things wrong.
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We all use the wrong words when we're learning a language, okay?
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And most mistakes aren't significant.
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That's something really important that I want you to remember.
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Most of your mistakes aren't that significant.
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Some of them are, of course, but most of them aren't.
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If you use the wrong form of a verb,
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for example, maybe you used the wrong verb tense or you just didn't know how to use the verb tense correctly,
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that's usually not gonna be a huge problem, okay?
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If you used the present perfect when in reality it would have been better to use the past simple.
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Sometimes it's significant but most of the time it's not.
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Okay, so the important thing to remember is that native speakers just want to understand you.
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That's what we're focused on.
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We're not focused on all of your mistakes, we just want to understand what you're saying.
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And so if your mistake isn't significant, if it doesn't change our understanding of what you're saying,
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then it doesn't really matter that much.
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Okay?
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I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to get better and correct your mistakes.
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Of course, you should do that.
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However, don't be afraid to make mistakes
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because as long as these mistakes don't affect the native speaker's understanding of what you're saying,
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then they're not significant.
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Focus on the significant mistakes for sure.
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For example, a really big one is
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that some people have the tendency of saying she when they really want to say he.
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That's a big mistake.
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That's something that will cause a lot of problems, so focus on those big mistakes,
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but to be honest, the majority of your mistakes aren't big, so don't worry, okay?
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how do you get better at this and not make as many mistakes, not say the wrong thing?
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Well, you need to have more conversations.
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If you can already understand pretty well, of course, you need to continue listening.
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That will help you too.
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That always helps, of course,
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but having more conversations will also eventually teach you the correct way to speak.
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Okay, you're gonna develop that memory of what to say and what sounds natural if you speak a lot
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and have conversations and you hear the other person say things to you
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and over time the natural correct way to say things will become automatic for you.
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But it takes time and it's little by little, right?
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So just start having conversations if you can understand English pretty well and just know that you'll make mistakes,
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but the conversations themselves are the training that you need to eventually not make as many mistakes, right?
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Pretty simple.
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So let's talk about another reason why people are afraid to speak English,
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and that is that they are afraid that they have bad pronunciation or that they have a big accent,
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a heavy accent.
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And I talked about this recently in an episode, so some of this you've already heard me say before,
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but just know that we all have pronunciation problems and we all have an accent.
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Again, we're all in the same boat here.
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That phrase, we're all in the same boat, means that we're all in the same situation, okay?
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It's not different for some of us.
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We don't say things the way that native speakers say them when we're learning that language,
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especially as an adult.
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We don't have the same muscle memory of how to make the correct sounds and all of that.
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Okay, and I have this problem big time in French.
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When we say the phrase big time, this is used to emphasize something,
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like I'm saying really, very.
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So I have this problem big time in French.
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My accent isn't that bad in Spanish or Portuguese or maybe even Italian even though I just started learning.
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But in French, it's awful, okay?
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It's something that I really need to work on.
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But I know that most other people, when they learn French, they also have a really big accent,
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a really heavy accent when they speak.
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And I used the word awful to describe my accent,
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but I really shouldn't say that because I don't want you to think that your accent is awful or bad.
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I'm just making fun of myself.
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When you make fun of someone,
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this means that you laugh at them because of something negative about them.
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So I'm just making fun of myself by saying that my accent is awful.
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But really, don't think of accents as being awful, good, bad.
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Just think of the language and the sounds as being a system that you will get better at over time.
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And don't think that your accent is terrible,
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just accept that you have an accent and you'll work on that over time, right?
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And just like I talked about before with saying the wrong words,
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saying things the wrong way in terms of your pronunciation or your accent,
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usually this isn't too significant either.
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Most of your pronunciation errors aren't super significant.
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They don't affect the native speaker's understanding of what you're saying.
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Some of your mistakes are significant when it comes to your pronunciation or your accent.
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Some of them are, that is true, but most of them aren't.
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Again, I'm trying to help you be less afraid here.
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I'm not saying that there aren't significant mistakes.
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Of course there are, but most of your mistakes aren't significant.
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So you need to have a little more confidence and don't be afraid of making mistakes with vocabulary or grammar, or pronunciation.
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However, you should focus on the significant mistakes that you do make,
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and especially if these mistakes can be easily corrected.
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I think in the episode about pronunciation, I gave the example of stressing the wrong syllable in a word.
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This can be very easily corrected,
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And it can make a big difference in helping the native speaker understand you.
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I remember hearing this employee at a Chinese restaurant asking this native speaker if he wanted any appetizers.
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And she wasn't a native speaker, this worker.
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And she stressed the wrong syllable.
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She said appetizer.
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And the way she said it was very hard to understand for the native speaker
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because he was expecting her to say appetizer.
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That's the correct way to say it.
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And he misunderstood her and she had to repeat it.
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And in that situation, it was a significant error because he couldn't understand her,
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but it's easily correctable.
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She just needs to stress the right syllable.
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So of course to get better at things like this,
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we need to do a lot of listening and to listen with the intention of hearing the way that things are pronounced.
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Maybe some of your listening practice can be dedicated to focusing on the sounds of the language
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and not just on understanding the words.
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So listening with that intention can be really helpful.
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And of course, I'm someone who trains people to pronounce English better.
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So of course, with my membership, if you have signed up for a certain level,
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a certain tier of the membership, you'll get my pronunciation training as well.
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So of course you have that resource and other people have resources and can teach you pronunciation as well,
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but just know
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that it isn't as natural to improve your pronunciation as it is to improve your vocabulary
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and grammar so it might be a little bit harder to improve in this area
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but you can okay it's possible and with the right resources and
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dedicating the time to actually practicing this and listening intently to the sounds that you hear,
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this will help.
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It's not easy, but you can get better over time.
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But just know that all of us have pronunciation issues
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and all of us have issues with our accent when we speak foreign languages.
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And we English speakers actually expect you to have an accent
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when this isn't your first language and we hear accents all the time
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because many people learn English as a second language and so we're really accustomed to this.
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Don't be afraid that we're gonna make fun of you and criticize your accent.
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No, don't be afraid of that.
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Just know that this is normal and try to correct the significant errors, okay?
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But most of your pronunciation errors are not significant, okay?
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And one other reason why people are afraid to speak English is because they feel that they get stuck,
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like they freeze and they can't say anything, or they don't know how to say things.
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And again, this is normal.
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This is something that is gonna happen to you when you first start speaking, even if you can understand pretty well.
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I always talk about how understanding English well will help you speak and get started speaking,
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and that's true, however, you're still gonna feel like you get stuck often when you first start speaking,
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even if you understand well.
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And this is similar to learning how to drive.
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I talked about this recently in a YouTube video, and I think there will be a bonus episode about this topic,
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if I'm not mistaken, and that's
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because I'm teaching my wife how to drive right now
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so this is on my mind and this is a great comparison
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because for example my wife she read the whole handbook
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that talks about all the rules that you need to know
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when driving in California and she had to memorize all of these things,
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and she had to pass a test where she answered questions about the rules,
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and she sees me drive almost every day because we drive places,
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and she sees what I do, what I don't do.
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She sees all of the different maneuvers that I make.
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A maneuver is some type of movement that you make with some intention.
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So she sees my maneuvers.
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She sees what other drivers do.
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She can feel everything being in the car.
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So she has all of that experience of learning how to drive,
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but when she actually first started driving, it was like she was frozen.
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She felt stuck even though she knows where the brake pedal is,
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how to accelerate, she She knows the rules of the road.
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She knows all of that,
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but right now, because she just started driving actually behind the wheel as we say,
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she's the one driving, it's like she has to develop this muscle memory
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learn how to do these different things even
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if she kind of already knows them
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because she's seen me do these things she's read about them she knows them
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but she hasn't actually done them herself and now she's driven probably like six
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or seven times in total
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and she's already improved a ton she's already doing very very well compared to her first day driving
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because on her first day she felt like she didn't know
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what she was doing even though she had already learned a lot of this
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and that's exactly how it feels when you first start speaking after you can already understand well.
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You've heard so many words and phrases and sentences and grammatical structures and you understand them perfectly,
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but you haven't actually spoken yet.
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And so the first time you speak, you're frozen.
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You don't know how to speak very well because you don't have that muscle memory yet.
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You haven't said these things out loud yet.
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But after a few sessions of speaking, you already start to feel more comfortable.
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You already start to feel like you're making some improvement
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and then the process and the progress continue after that and you eventually become a good speaker.
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It works like that, just like learning how to drive.
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My wife, she gets all this passive knowledge first, and then she has to actually do it, and it's new for her,
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and it's hard at the beginning, but she's developing this muscle memory
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and after like a week of driving she's doing fantastic
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so that's how I want you to think about this topic
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when you feel stuck at the beginning
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when you don't know how to say things just know
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that that's normal and that you're gonna develop this ability through consistent speaking okay of course tons of listening as well,
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but also consistent speaking.
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Okay, this is normal and it's supposed to happen and you'll get through it if you just commit to speaking consistently.
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Okay, all right, hopefully this episode was interesting for you and hopefully it motivates you to speak if you can already understand
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pretty well.
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And don't be afraid.
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Don't think you're the only one with these issues.
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We all have these issues, okay?
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And if you want to practice with something a little bit harder than this podcast,
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make sure to become a Listening Time family member to get my advanced episodes, and you can also sign up for my U.S.
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Conversations podcast to practice with my conversations with other English speakers.
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So both of those links are in the episode description below this episode.
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And the transcript for this episode is down there as well.
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And please share this podcast, give it a five-star rating, and write a review if you can.
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All right, thank you for listening to this episode, and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
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Obiettivi di parlato per questo video
Questo video è perfetto per chi vuole superare la paura di parlare inglese e approfondire la shadowspeak, una tecnica efficace per migliorare la pronuncia e la fluidità. L'obiettivo è aiutarti a capire le ragioni della tua ansia e a iniziare a conversare con più confidenza, un traguardo chiave per chi impara l'inglese con i video.
Banca di frasi utili
- "I hope you're all doing fantastic" – Un modo caloroso per salutare e mostrare interesse.
- "I think that this episode will be helpful for all of you" – Perfetto per esprimere fiducia in un contenuto.
- "You're getting to the point where you're ready to speak" – Utile per descrivere il momento di passaggio alla pratica orale.
- "The conversation does not go well" – Una frase semplice per esprimere difficoltà in una conversazione.
Correggi i tuoi punti deboli
Il video aiuta a lavorare sulla shadowing in inglese, una tecnica dove ripeti immediatamente le frasi ascoltate, migliorando la pronuncia, l'intonazione e il ritmo. Molti apprendisti hanno paura di sbagliare, ma il video spiega che capire bene prima di parlare è normale, non un ostacolo. Con la shadow speak, puoi esercitarti a imitare le sonorità e a superare la timidezza, perché la pratica regolare rafforza la confidenza. Ricorda: anche gli esperti hanno iniziato con piccoli passi!
La grammatica di questo video
Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:
| Struttura | Nel video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adesso | haven't spoken · I've done · you've already heard |
| Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo fa | being said · can't be avoided · can be easily corrected |
| Frasi relative who / which + frase — un’informazione in più su una persona o una cosa | teachers who teach · students who are · someone who trains |
Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?
Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.