@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking With your perfect teacher's English you are providing the non -natives the illusion of being fluent in English :) ... In my opinion, you are really fluent when you can understand effortlessly all dialogs in a movie.
@@quinquiry I appreciate the comment but I would not say my English is "perfect teacher" level. But thank you. And I don't think that non-natives will have any illusions about their level of proficiency based on my talk alone. They should, as you say, continue to watch and learn from movies and also practice listening to, and speaking with, a variety of English speakers.
I speak four languages, and English is not even my second language. I understand colloquial American English because I forced myself to learn it. Regarding the statement "English is the only language that gets complex later," I'd say that's an illusion. The problem is that foreigners learn formal English, which is not the kind of language people actually speak in their day-to-day lives. If you learn the formal version of any language, you're going to have issues interacting with people who speak that language naturally. For example, many folks who learn French in school cannot understand two French people speaking informally in a bar. The problem is that many of us have been brainwashed into thinking colloquial language is wrong, so we don't learn it. I learned English because I love watching American movies, and soon I realized that formal and informal language have the same importance. The definitions of right and wrong that we learn in school only hurt our understanding of the language. I know it sounds controversial, but I've seen foreigners who are learning my mother tongue, which is Brazilian Portuguese, and they are learning words and expressions we almost never use. This makes me doubt their teachers' honesty. All in all, I agree with making things simple and focusing on getting our message across instead of alienating our audience. Thanks.
Muito obrigado, Jose. I don't speak much Portuguese-only a handful of phrases-but with French and Italian, I can understand a lot when I read it. If I hear it spoken, I find Brazilian Portuguese much easier than Portuguese from Portugal. I agree with you about colloquial language, especially when that is the language spoken by most people. It can be frustrating, though. I learned Arabic at the United Nations and the Arabic one learns is Classical Arabic. It is used in diplomacy and on the news and in newspapers. But nobody speaks it day to day. Everyone speaks a dialect, of which there are four main ones: the Maghreb, Egyptian, the Levant and the Gulf. An Arab speaking the local dialect of Morocco will not understand an Arab speaking the local dialect in Yemen and vice versa. When I speak Arabic with someone, I ask them to speak in Classical Arabic and THEY have to slow down and think of some of the words. One point of disagreement ... I did not say that English is the ONLY language that gets complex as you go deeper into it but I do believe that it does so when compared to many other languages. This is because, in terms of grammar, it starts off so much easier than many other main languages. Think about English and Portuguese in terms of verb structure, gender, etc. I think Portuguese is much more complicated at the outset. Now, when it comes to spelling and pronunciation, yes, English is a bit of disaster. We put our two daughters in the local French language school in Switzerland but spoke English at home. When they switched to the bilingual programme in the International School, their first written assignments in English came back covered in red ink!
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking Thank you so much for replying to my message in such an elegant way. I love learning languages, and it makes my day when I see an enthusiast like you.
Every language works that way. I am learning Japanese. I understand other foreigners much better than Japanese people. I know some Spanish. I understand the white guy who lived in Spain for 2 years much better than the Mexican man. This video is cringe.
You have to distinguish people learning in class, an people learning just on the street or on tv. Netflix has a huge impact. You can learn every language, like a bay does. And it will not be formal. But it might be a wild mix of Australian, brittish, scottish and american.
US english can be hard to understand sometimes. You can very easily get the quite opposite meaning for the sentence than what is meant. I would describe US English as "loose" language, which is missing necessary bodies and thus is unspecific. Just listen a finnish rally driver speak, words and pronounciation are what they are, but you have a predicate, subject and object.
Completely agree about giving respect. As a plant manager, once a month, I gave factory updates to the entire work force and get them engaged, always started with the summary written in romanized Japanese. Got their undivided attention, b4 I moved on to deliver the rest in English
Dear John, I am an elderly Englishman with a blend of Estuary and RP accent. I have my own RUclips channel, mostly about acoustic guitars and music. Since I had throat and tongue cancer treatment in 2017, my vocal presentation has changed, and I am aware that my speech is not as clear as I would like it to be, especially as most of my followers are from the USA. Your presentation has been a revelation for me. At 76 years old, you have provided me with information to consider to make my videos clearer. Thank you.
Really appreciate the comment, SM. I had a look at your channel and a few of your videos. Even though I do not play guitar, I have subscribed. Good luck with your videos and teaching. At 76, you are just getting started! ✊
Dear Silly…, I hope your fight against cancer is giving you a lot of medals 🥇 (we are in olimpic times…!) ohh let’s rephrase: I wish you are winning lots of medals 🎖️ against cancer!! 😂😂 and congratulations, you just show that we learn everyday! 🙏🏻
@@sergioswedenborg8746 Thank you Sergio, Just the one medal! The wonderful multinational people in the NHS treated me, and whilst the treatment caused much collateral damage, after eight years, I still wake up every morning! Thanks for your kind thoughts.
🇬🇧 Good morning, I have a very similar accent. Estuary English and RP English. I'm 78 years old, brought up in Sittingbourne in Kent. Oddly enough, my Parents and all my family spoke/ speak perfect English. So it's puzzling as to where my accent came from. What is the name of your utube channel ? Then I can watch, allowing me to hear your accent. Many thanks. Sharon
My native English vastly improved when I became fluent in Spanish. A few points regarding English from my learning about learning Spanish. 1. English has a large vocabulary compared to many languages. 2. There is an unlimited availability to hear and read English, therefore unlimited opportunity for comprehensible input. 3. Most native English speakers don't speak any other language, therefore they have no experience of second language aquisition and the empathy that it generates for non native speakers of English who are speaking and listening to English.
While it's true that English has a large vocabulary compared to many languages, it's also true that multilingual people are more aware of the true extent of the vocabulary in their native language than they are in languages they're fluent in that they learned later. I've seen many fluent non-native English speakers say English has a small vocabulary compared to their native language.
There's an old story "Q: What do you call a person who speaks two languages. A: Bi-lingual. Q: What do you call a person who speaks one language. A: English!
@@andrewdunbar828if they say English language has a small vocabulary then they havent learned much just daily basic talk. How I know? I started learning English at 12 and it was my 2nd foreign language and it was super easy for me. I am fluent, the only higher level is a native speaker. To this day I still learn new things from English language because the vocabulary is huge, and all kinds of sayings and proverbs and other stuff. I will always continue learning something new in English. Its my 2nd favorite language after my native, which has a bigger vocabulary than English language!😊
@@British-Bob-s4c Hi, I have a question, that I don't really know. Do you say that English has more vocabulary than Spanish? I thought it was the other way around. If you'd been right, I've learned something new today. Greetings from Argentina.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking it wasnt a dig at you. No one can understand him because hes bri'ish, they speak the wrong kind of English. i was complimenting you. lol
@John, i studied to be an interpreter in germany. I have been living in the US for the last 25 years or so. the one thing i noticed is that not only the non-native speakers struggle to master grammar and more complex sentence structures, the same is true for many native speakers whose job does not require a lot of public speaking, if at all. Americans often do not know basic grammar rules or even spelling. And the ones who do not travel at all never develop an ear for listening to a non-native speaker. They do not know that they do not enunciate. Do not use the passive voice results in head scratching. oh, and yes, not using proper case and such online is intentional. In case you do read this long comment, good speech with many valid points. I tell my american colleagues all the time, you are responsible for what you are saying, not the audience. If they do not understand you, that is your problem.
Vielen Dank, Uli. Great points and great observations as a non-native speaker living in the US. I know what you mean. When working at the United Nations, we occasionally had American consultants work with us. During meetings with consultants from the Middle East on a variety of environmental and public health issues, I often had to interpret from English to English because I knew that the Americans were not expressing themselves in a way that would be easily understood by native Arabic speakers. These were educated people with PhDs, but that did not change the responsibility of the Americans-as you rightly point out-to make themselves understood.
@pjcdm I don't know that English is any harder than french. Sure, german and many other European languages are phonetic, making it easy to read and pronounce just about any word. I doubt any of this has anything to do with linguistics or even teaching English.
@@uliwehner French's difficulties do not impact learning to read (decode) or even pronounce words so much. Its system is a bit more complex than Italian or Finnish, but it mostly regular. The exceptions are usually systematic (final letters not being pronounced, by & large). French learning to read takes a bit more time, but English's delays are counted in years. Mastering spelling takes a lifetime. I'm fluent/bilingual in both languages. English has more than 200 ways of spelling 44 phonemes &, worse, these are irregular. Btw, the French just reformed 5000 spellings. They wisely spared current users to relearn & use them. The anglosphere should wisen up. 2 billion people is not trivial. As the speaker stated, it has a responsibility. Incrementalism & minor tricks mentioned in the video are trivial. Sure, they are more effective than doing nothing.
@@quinquiryThe French reformed 5000 of their words recently & nicely, not forcing current users to relearn or use. Anglophones didn't reform & don't even care to do it. I have been on social media for 1 year now telling them this, asking to sign a petition. Most don't sign & answer. They do not care to abuse their own kids & billions of foreign learners. This is extremely disturbing. It is selfishness or stupidity pushed to its limit. Is it the epitome of entitlement? They love travelling expecting everyone to cater to them in English. Are they mentally sick? Ate they naturally born psychopaths?
I live in France. My french is not very good so I speak English clearly. But, when I return to Glasgow, I sound like a Glaswegian, like my kids. I originally came from Oxfordshire, on the odd occasion I go there, I sound like the locals.
Yes, language is a fascinating thing. I have not been to Glasgow but I have had a speaking engagement on the Isle of Bute (which is beautiful). I was mildly surprised at how well I was able to understand the local accent. A year or two prior, I did some work in Chorley which is in the middle of Lancashire and I found that accent much more challenging. More than once I had to ask someone to repeat what they had said because I did not understand it.
While I have lived most of my life in Virginia I am originally from Nebraska and my accent is more Midwestern than Southern, but get me in a group where it's all southerners like my brother's wife's family and I start to sound like a southerner.
@@gkiltz0 - Yes, it's the same with me when speaking French. I do have a French Canadian accent that is noticeable but slight. However, if I am surrounded by French Canadians, it becomes much stronger.
The problem is that native speakers don't care about it at all. They thought it's my problem to understand them and couldn't even think about help from their side. "Think about the audience" - it's very hard to native speakers.
I agree, Artur, with one difference. I don't believe that most native speakers think, "it's your problem to understand" (although some do). I believe that most native speakers (who do not speak any other language) do not even REALIZE that it might be a problem for non-native speakers to understand. They simply have no experience or understanding of other languages. Unfortunately, the result is the same.
As a non native English speaker I prefer it when native English speakers treat me as an equal and assume I know everything they say. I get flattered. I don’t want them to change their speech when talking to me or treat me any differently.
It's like that with some native speakers when speaking to other native speakers. As with my union rep who moved from Yorkshire decades ago and deliberately uses idiom from there. Like, "I'll put my shirt on". I replied that he was already wearing a shirt. He said it several times and also other idiom I wasn't familiar with. I asked what he meant, but he wouldn't answer my question, he just grinned. Without doubt the most irritating person I'd ever met. Which, I believe, is why he did it: just to be irritating because it made him feel important and not the inadequate, useless waste of space, face like a bell end, sack of shit he undoubtedly is. If someone uses idiom they know you are unfamiliar with, then they are doing it deliberately.
It's like that for some native speakers too if a native speaker from another area insists on using idiom from that area he knows you are unfamiliar with. As with my union rep: moved from Yorkshire decades ago, but who constantly used Yorkshire idiom he knows I don't understand and refused to answer when I asked what he meant. Easily the most irritating person I've ever met in my life.
I am a German, when I moved to England back in the days I always appreciated and tried not to miss the Queen's speeches, for exactly the reasons you described in your presentation. I always had the feeling that her speech was written for me because I was able to understand everything a native speaker said.
Total tragedy that many generations suffered so much from the decision to not teach grammar, aside from absolute basics. Not least that millions of people grew up feeling stupid and less than because i for one, struggled to progress further than 2-3 yrs into any language learning. It's a real challenge to take on new concepts such as brit grammar in one's cintage rich years!! But I'm stepping up😊
Thanks for the comment. I agree with you about the importance of grammar. When I study a new language, I always want to understand the grammar. I know many people say that they just want to be able to speak and don't care about grammar; however, for me, grammar is the foundation of a language. It also gives important insights into the way people think and structure their ideas.
Reminds me of a thing from when I lived in Normandy, France. One time I went out for drinks with a mixed crowd of Europeans and at some point I was saying something about Toronto to a French guy and he couldn't understand what place I was saying. I realized I was saying "Toro'no" - not pronouncing the second "t" as I do in my Northern Ontarian accent - and it cleared everything up immediately after I repeated myself by "correctly" saying Toronto. Being around non-native English speakers was a great experience, forces you to think more about how you say stuff.
I love that story because I lived for many years in Toronto (and I also lived many years in Sudbury). I have had the same experience. I do the same thing. For me, unless I pay attention, it comes out as “Trawna”.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking This is something that cannot happen in Italian. Italian is a very complex language except for the spelling: everyone will pronounce every single letter of any word ( and any letter pronounced ever in the same way). Maybe you cannot understand what a word mean but not how is it written. The main problem in Italy is that we speack natively many dialects that are very different from Italian
@@FrancoFaveroMille grazie, Franco. Mi piace tantissimo la lingua italiana. Provo di parlare o di leggere qualcosa in italiano ogni giorno. I understand very well what you mean about dialects. When I was in my second year of high school, I chose Italian as an elective subject. I was nervous, because everyone else in my class had Italian heritage. The parents of all my friends were from Italy, and they all spoke Italian at home. I was the only non-Italian in the class. However, in the end, I got the highest grade. I believe a big part of it was because all my friends at home spoke a dialect with their parents, and so they found some of the grammar rules learn in class challenging. I was “tabula rasa” and so just learned the principles as we covered them. Now that I live in Switzerland, I am also very familiar with the wide variety of Swiss German dialects.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking You made a mistake ( due to the illogicity of Italian language) Provare regge "a" come particella;: "provo a fare qualcosa o prova a leggere quel libro"
@@FrancoFavero Grazie, Franco. Non so perché ma faccio questo errore (con "provere") spesso. Ci sono verbi per i quali la particella è facile (per me). Per esempio, "cominciare a". Ma ce ne sono altri che sono una sfida per me.
I worked as a service/installation engineer for a Brit company. Most of my work was overseas. On several occasions I was told (by faintly puzzled clients) that they could clearly understand every word I said, but that this was in sharp contrast to the other engineers that had visited their site from my company. I realized then that the reason was simple. Being older and more experienced than most of the other engineers, I spoke carefully, making allowance for the fact that these were not native speakers. I didn't 'dumb it down', I just avoided using any slang and was careful with pronunciation, giving full value to words like 'library' or 'February' instead of slurring (libery and febrery). It's interesting to hear the speaker in this lecture using the same technique.
Thank you for the comment and good for you on how you approached your conversations with non-native speakers. I particularly appreciate that you emphasized that you did not "dumb down" the language. I have always said that the people with whom I am speaking are at least as smart as me. However, because we are meeting on my "home turf" (English), I have an obligation to be careful with my speech.
I too travelled internationally to teach although, in my case, only in English. I had to learn the hard way to adapt my language for the audience, so you are definitely very correct about that need. In particular I found it was beneficial to be very clear when enunciating the final letter of words, which is good advice for native English speakers to any audience, of course. About ten years ago, while I was presenting in Berlin, during a break, we touched on why we were using English - which was the business language of the company I was visiting. The answer was provided by a native German speaker present: "We say that English is easy to learn, but hard to master. Whereas German is hard to learn, but easy to master." Echoing your point precisely.
Thanks for the comment and the anecdote, Gray. You are write about seeing words through to their conclusion. Many native speakers, myself included, have a tendency to "swallow" the ends of our words or sentences. When it comes to German, I am still in the "hard to learn" phase, although I am starting to have glimpses of the "easy to master" phase!
Me too. When I went to Australia years ago, it took me a day or two to get used to the Aussie accent. Different parts of the UK can be very challenging for me. The Lancashire accent (think Manchester and Liverpool region) is a particular challenge when people speak fast.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking I am American and I don't understand 50 percent of Americans. lol Many people think that I am a foreigner because I rarely use contractions. But It is just a habit I acquired working overseas and trying to be understood.
@@handsomeman-pm9vy - Interesting. I understand. It does sound odd (to my ear at least) when a native speaker says, "It is not here" as opposed to "It's not here" even though the former is correct.
Churchill was a really big advocate for the simplicity of language and that's why it was so hard to understand him speaking 🤣 The overall problem is that those 80% of non-native English speakers including myself where taught one of the 2 English accents: RP - the received pronunciation or the Standard American accent and those two accents are the most used accents on the news or any other media. However, once you come to any English speaking country you would realize there is a huge number of local dialects and accents where people are using glottal stop, t-flapping, twanging, shifting vowels or entirely omitting some sounds. After being an immigrant for almost 10 years and now the citizen of an English speaking country I still don't have an answer on how to break this gap. Listening to as many accents and dialects and some podcasts focusing on their peculiarities seem to help but even after that significant period of time I still occasionally meet some folks whom I can barely understand. After watching a Hot Fuzz comedy movie where there's a scene where the main character being a native speaker can't understand a dude from the West Country in England, I don't feel that bad when I can't understand someone 😆
Great comment and I feel your pain. I was in Chorley (Lancashire) for work a few years ago and I struggled mightily with the accent there. The day I arrived in the hotel, one of the housekeepers asked if I wanted a bottle of water and I had to ask her twice to repeat the question. She smiled and slowed it right down in very "proper" London accent: "Would-you-like-a-baw-til-of-wah-tur?"
This is good advice for speech writing for a native English speaking audience also. I worked for a company that had Japanese customers. The work was technical and I issued apresentations in advance for our translators to review and come back with any questions.
What's funny is that when I speak to a native English speaker, I'd generally find their level of vocabulary, and eloquence in speech to be quite a bit more rudimentary compared to mine, or to my non native English speaking friends. Yet they excelled at using colloquial language and shortening sentences so as to not say much while conveying the same information. And they had what I'd describe as a wanton disregard for the rules of the language, especially if it got them to say what they wanted. So I suppose the difference is we were trained to speak English by academics, while a native speaker is trained by the society. We're constrained by the structure of the language and try to conform our thoughts to the English language, while a native conforms the language to their thoughts.
Valid points. And while I can quickly revert to colloquial English when back in Canada with family and friends there, I do bemoan the general decline of English-at least as I perceive it. Social media and texting and reduced concentration-to read a book, for example-means that many people, especially young people, have not explored the extent to which the language can be stretched.
This presentation stands out as one of the highlights of 2024 for sure! As an Asian American, born in Taiwan and raised in the States, I appreciate the significant advantages I possess by being fluent in both Mandarin and English. Observing the challenges my immigrant friends and relatives face in understanding English reinforces this realization. The message of this presentation resonates deeply with me because I am passionate about clarity over eloquence. In many East Asian countries, including Taiwan, English education often prioritizes sophistication over comprehensibility. This phenomenon is characterized by an emphasis on complex vocabulary and grammar to demonstrate knowledge, rather than focusing on clear communication. I hope the Ministry of Education in Taiwan watches this and gains insight into the ineffective methods used to teach English in schools.
Very true - I used to work as a technical writing tutor helping graduate students with papers and journal articles. The Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean students tended to write in this extremely wordy, overly-technical style using lots of passive voice, verb nominalizations, and jargon - like an uneducated person’s idea of how a scientist might speak. “The measurement of the concentration was accomplished by utilization of the Palmer method” instead of just “We used the Palmer method to measure concentration”. I would challenge myself on how many unnecessary words I could trim from their papers. When we were done revising, sometimes the word count would shrink by almost half! Many of them told me that this was how they were taught to write in school.
@@modalmixture - Thank you for sharing that anecdote. I can imagine your level of frustration but good for you for helping them write more effectively in English. By the way, I recently learned the Korean alphabet. That is a fascinating story in itself. It was invented by one man - King Sejong in the 1400s - because he was concerned that most of his people could not read Korean (which used to be written using Chinese characters). Many of the letters are written to imitate the position of the mouth when making the related sound. You should look it up if you don't know the background; I think you would find it interesting.
I’m also Taiwanese educated in the US. My observation of the result of English language learning in Taiwan is that Taiwanese can read and sometimes write English at a high level, but they are terrified of speaking English in the fear that they’ll be outed as “bad at English”. The source of this seems to be an early focus in the post-WW2 period on technical and scientific applications of English, trying to build the economy and bring in new ideas. This resulted in a generation of Taiwanese who didn’t truly learn how to speak the language, but they could read scientific papers in English. From there it was the blind leading the blind, and subsequent generations of English education have not managed to cure this problem of fluency, but instead focus on correctness, like using the correct verb tense, spelling, subject-verb agreement, etc. This method of teaching is more akin to how Latin used to be taught. It results in students that can translate things to and from English from their native language, but have much more trouble producing English spontaneously in spoken or written form, resulting in this very stilted style of writing and fear of even attempting to speak it. How to fix this? I don’t know. Of course the principle of comprehensible input applies, but the issues with the education are so systemic that it can be hard to know where to start. The issues also extend beyond English as a subject into the misplaced incentives for teachers, cram schools, and the experience that school teaches very little that is useful. And there is also the widespread mistaken concept that native speakers make better teachers even when they have no teaching experience.
@@paradoxmo Thank you for the comment and insights. I have a good friend (American) who is married to a Taiwanese and who lives in Taipei. I will share your comment with him to see what he thinks. Your comment draws attention to the importance of education being practical in addition to inspirational and creative.
sixty years ago, the British education system changed the way English was taught, so that schools stopped teaching all formal study of English grammar. Since that day, every native speaker from an English school who wanted to learn a foreign language was handicapped.
Yes, I am a casualty of that stupid notion. Only discovered that calamity about a year ago, my bestie Greek friend has a far better knowledge of English grammar than I do!! Ridiculous bit then they're civilisation is the cradle of the world... I'm adapting and learning not to take everything personally- our language somehow introduces that concept- others don't as they are inflected and direct
The Indian , English language curriculum had Grammer as an 7:19 important part ( Wren and Martin ) . I am 75yo , I am appalled that Grammer is no longer taught . Even leading English dailies have bad grammar and spelling. So called new age English teaching methods have killed a once fine language. The Americans have totally fucked English, may be seeking revenge for being their rulers.
On phrasal verbs. The largest entry in the dictionary is the three letter word 'set'. Set off, up, to, set a table, a examination, jellymand cakes set, there are many many contextual uses of 'set'
The same is true for Swedish. Same verb and lots of postpositions giving the verb widely different meanings. The Finnish-speakers in particular find this bewildering as Finnish lacks postpositions almost entirely.
As a native Slavic speaker I can just sign everything you have said about contractions and idioms. And, generally I agree that when the audience does not understand the speaker, it is the speaker's fault, so I am trying to follow this rule myself, i.e. to adapt my speech to the audience.
Thank you for your comment. I find Slavic languages fascinating. I only know a very little bit of Russian but am working to expand my knowledge of it. And you are 100% correct about the speaker having the obligation to make himself or herself understood.
Yeah, as a Russian and an English learner for all my life, phrasal verbs are a scourge. My tutor at university said that from her experience English people could speak in phrasal verbs all the way and she wouldn't understand half of what they were saying.
I only realized the complexity of phrasal verbs when I began working at the United Nations. Most native speakers who have never worked in an international setting are oblivious to their complexity.
Good advice for written English too. The sign in the lift at my local library starts 'In the event of entrapment .....' Time I said something about it and got it changed!
All these skills are helpful for communicating to native speakers too. I am a native speaker from the U.K. When in my early 20’s I went to the USA and one day I was having a conversation with an older American man. I remember trying to explain something to him and used an idiom, assuming he would know it. He didn’t. He asked for clarification which I did using another idiom. I think this went on for a while, with me using different British colloquialisms to explain the last one, and in the end gave up. For some reason I couldn’t find the vocabulary to express what I wanted in any other way.
Interesting. I've heard that in-jokes are very common in British English, not so many people understand it if they are not immersed in British culture. Maybe it works the same way with British idioms😊
@@engraver3248 The first time I went to London, I went and saw the play The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾. There were times when the actors would say something and the audience would roar with laughter. I understood the words, but not the meaning.
WoW, even I’m Germany and still learning everyday: I did understand much more than if I listened to other presentations like this. Thank you very much. 💐 I’m exited to see and learn more of you. 😊
You are totally right. As an non native English speaker, I always understand much more English to non native speakers, no matter from where they are, than i do for native speakers
Thank you, Raul. I hope that a few native speakers try to use some of the tips that I have suggested. It will be better for them and for their audiences.
Thats because non-natives speak more slowly, a majority are borderline B1 and tend not to use fillers between sentences like we do. You need to practice conversation more with native speakers to improve your fluency skills.
@@200KCycling - I don't know how many are B1 or not, but I agree that many non-native speakers do speak more slowly. And yes, more conversation can only improve one's language skills.
My friend speaks English so badly that I have to turn into dumb mode if I want him to understand me ("yesterday I go....") and this habit tends to stick! So however comfortable it seems to talk to non-natives I would suggest talking to native speakers instead as much as possible.
Quando, nos EUA, eu tentei falar o mais perfeitamente possível para evitar desencontros, interpretações equivocadas no que se referia à semântica, as pessoas indagavam se eu estava zangado. Eu não consegui explicar isso porque meus interlocutores agiam com se inglês fosse a única língua em uso no mundo inteiro.
Obrigado, Fernando. Unfortunately, many people have little or no interaction with people from other cultures and so it is difficult for them to relate.
This presenter is incompetent in linguistics & teaching English. The English spelling system is the most difficult to learn of all Western spelling systems. Even native speakers are challenged & take years to do what Italians & Finnish grade 1 can master in less than 1 year: the ability to DECODE & ENCODE ALL or ANY words in their language (and decode any book). The research was done by Seymour & link can be found on my channels community note (as well as a petition).
Since I am working and living oversee over twenty years, I had to adjust my english to be more simple and understandable to the collegs and who I am dealing with, therefore my english been limited and different,I noticed back on2019 when I was in LA.(Los Angles) the young latino sales lady asked me if I am foreigner? I said why? She said I am using english book, meaning someone just learned english by study. From there I found out that my english have been changed, I am not saying is good or bad, just saying your experience is real.
As someone learning English as a second language, I strive to learn diligently, although I encounter difficulties and setbacks. Your video makes me feel better. I came across Immersive Translate through comments by RUclipsrs, and it seems fascinating. I plan to test it out, aiming to achieve notable improvement in this field.
Thank you. I am glad that you found it helpful. I can empathize with your approach to learning languages. I still struggle with certain concepts in other languages that I speak. But, as you say, the journey is fascinating. Good luck!
This presenter is incompetent in linguistics & teaching English. The English spelling system is the most difficult to learn of all Western spelling systems. Even native speakers are challenged & take years to do what Italians & Finnish grade 1 can master in less than 1 year: the ability to DECODE & ENCODE ALL or ANY words in their language (and decode any book). The research was done by Seymour & a link can be found on my channel's community note (as well as a petition).
I am a native English speaker (American) and I used to travel a lot in my job. When in the airport in a foreign country, I would frequently meet by chance with other native English speakers. Inevitably, we would chat about everyday things, and it was quite humorous to have the participants, including myself, use colloquialisms in the conversation that we would then have to explain the meaning of to the group. Example, I would say “We would leave early at the end of the game so that we would beat the crowd”. Frequently, I would have to explain what “beating the crowd” meant. A British couple I met in Spain once had to explain to me what they meant when they described someone who was arrested for “pinching” a woman’s purse. So even amongst native English speakers, clear communication can be challenging.
Great examples! And yes, it is true that native English speakers from different parts of the world frequently have difficulty understanding what the other party has said. Living in Geneva, a multinational city given the presence of the United Nations here, I have had the benefit of speaking with native English speakers from all over the world, And so my level of comprehension has increased dramatically.
I love listening to native speakers from different countries speaking to each other being non-native speaker myself. That's the most interesting part when you guys have to translate English to English.😊
Here are more detailed examples of each phonological process in British English: 1. **Concatenation**: - **Example 1**: "Take it" - The /k/ sound at the end of "take" blends smoothly into the /ɪ/ sound of "it," pronounced together as /ˈteɪkɪt/. - **Example 2**: "Hold on" - The /d/ sound at the end of "hold" connects seamlessly with the /ɒ/ sound of "on," resulting in /həʊldɒn/. 2. **Elision**: - **Example 1**: "Library" - Often pronounced /ˈlaɪbri/ instead of /ˈlaɪbrəri/, dropping the second /r/. - **Example 2**: "Suppose" - The /ə/ sound in the middle can be dropped in rapid speech, making it /spəʊz/ instead of /səˈpəʊz/. 3. **Intrusion**: - **Example 1**: "Law and order" - An intrusive /r/ may appear between "law" and "and," making it /lɔːr ənd ɔːdə/. - **Example 2**: "Drawing" - In some British accents, an intrusive /r/ can appear between "draw" and "ing," pronounced as /ˈdrɔːrɪŋ/. 4. **Assimilation**: - **Example 1**: "Good boy" - The /d/ sound in "good" may change to a /b/ sound to match the /b/ in "boy," making it /ɡʊb bɔɪ/. - **Example 2**: "Have to" - The /v/ sound in "have" can assimilate to the /t/ sound in "to," resulting in /ˈhæftə/ instead of /hæv tə/. These examples illustrate how phonological processes work to make speech more fluid and natural in everyday conversation.
I'm a translator (X to English), and these are essential techniques to learn if you want to produce intelligible, cohesive, and coherent texts or speeches. I don’t know why, but the English language seems to prefer the passive voice about 90% of the time. So, I often find myself converting sentences from passive to active voice. Also, keep your sentences as short as possible to avoid confusion; one or two subordinate or coordinate clauses are enough. Choose short, simple words instead of long, complex ones, and avoid repeating the same terms too close to each other. Use synonyms. For example, if you say "when talking to your public" and need to use "public" again with the same meaning, you can replace it with "audience" or use pronouns to refer to a previously mentioned term. Avoid idioms, slangs, lingos, and so on.
I have been a British native English speaker for almost 75 years. I once met an American ( English) speaker, during my many years as a taxi driver. My American passenger was extremely surprised that we actually spoke English in England (I remarked that the clue was in the name of the country)
As an American, I'm not at all surprised. One of John's points about traveling resonated with me, and I dare say that many fellow Americans do not have that luxury, or, if they do, many do not take advantage of the opportunity, so that when they are in places like England, they may be surprised to discover we're all speaking the same language.
@@ajs11201 - Thanks for the comment. Traveling is a game changer in so many ways. It opens one's mind linguistically, culturally, geographically, historically and in many other ways.
I tell my students (learning English as a second or other language) that the reason students should try to get a better level than most British people, is that we (Native speakers) "should" have enough knowledge to rearrange the foreigners English. Whereas when a person learns English as a foreign language and they speak to another learning English as a foreign language, neither may not have the ability to make such automatic adjustmens. @@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking
This reminds me of something that happened when I was an undergraduate at Liverpool University. One of the lecturers had criticised the grammar of one of the students. The student complained, saying he was a scientist, not a literary student. The lecturer said something along the lines of "You can do the best, most wonderful, most significant science experiment and analysis in the world, but if you cannot communicate that clearly to other people then you have wasted your time". Very true - English is a wonderful communication tool, it can be very ambiguous (useful in some forms of literature and comedy) but also it can be very precise. The latter does take some effort, but it is worth it.
Thanks for the comment, Steve. You are right ... the effort is worth the result. And what your lecturer said reminds me of something that Lee Iacocca, the former CEO of Chrysler said: "You can have the greatest ideas in the world, but if you cannot get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere."
The English language, due to the too frequent use of frasal verbs, sounds like strange slang or rural speech. However, official speech is clear and understandable thanks to the frequent use of French vocabulary. Simplified English grammar does not always make it easier to understand either. I have been speaking Polish since birth. It is a language in which we conjugate literally everything, including verbs and nouns. In English, sentences here and there are constructed so simply and without inflections that they seem incorrect, as if they are missing something, and thus create confusion in my head. In addition to English, I also speak Spanish, Italian, French and German at an intermediate level. And even though I know English incomparably better than other languages, I noticed that I think faster and more freely in Spanish, Italian or French than in English. Sentences in Spanish or Italian are simply created in my head without much effort, while in English I have to remember patterns of different sentences and say them as they are, even when they seem to make no sense.
Thank you for the detailed comment. Dziękuję bardzo! I have several Polish friends and have been to Poland many times for work and pleasure. I know how complex your language is. I believe-and correct me if I am wrong-that you have 7 cases! I learned German on my own and for a long time I found 4 cases challenging. (Side note: I later studied Arabic and it has the same four cases as German and I found that German was a great help in understanding them quickly.) As for simplified grammar being difficult, I will share the same comment that I made to another person on this thread: I suspect that part of the challenge might come from phrasal verbs; i.e., taking a simple verb and then adding a simple word to it. Those two simple words can often create an entirely different meaning. Take the word "get" for example. You can add many other simple words to "get" and the result is a completely different meaning: get ahead, get along, get around to, get back, get back at, get back to, get behind, get on, get out, get over, get through, get together ... I could go on, but you "get" the idea! Thanks for adding to the discussion.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking English can be confusing for me because it has a different structure than other languages. I have been living in the UK for over 25 years and I still have problems with English, especially in difficult situations that require quick thinking. I often make mistakes that take a while to realise. I have problems with correct spelling, so I often use electronics for help. When I need to write formal letters, I always ask my son for help. My son was born in the UK and is currently at university. It's good to have someone at home who is fluent in the language so they can correct you. I am a language lover and have been learning languages as a hobby for many years. Romance languages come to Poles' minds intuitively because they have a lot in common with Polish. Sometimes it's enough for me to analyse Polish sentences to deduce, for example, Italian or Spanish ones. It's interesting that other languages use, for example, the subjunctive form or the future tense, just like we do in Polish. Thanks to this, I feel intuitively when I should use it and, above all, I understand the logic of it. Some forms come to me naturally. However, English is different. I have to remember entire phrases and I don't necessarily understand the logic of the language. I often say something just because I know it's the right thing to say, even though I don't know why. And analysing and comparing it to Polish does not help, it only complicates it. What is fascinating is that while learning other languages, I learned a lot about Polish. I see things in Polish that I had not seen before. By the way, sometimes I dream that someone is speaking to me fluently in another language, and in the morning I wonder how my brain can create a character who is fluent in a language that I consciously cannot speak fluently. Strange. Is it possible that my brain subconsciously knows languages better than I realise? Kind regards.
[ Putting this here, because it seems to be more relevant within @thestuff1014 's comment: ] Sooooooo... it may sound provocative, but why aren't non-native speakers taught actual English instead of simplified, filtered and diluted "language" used during courses and within textbooks, even on advanced levels? I'm not saying that legalese is the "proper" language, but colloquialisms seem to be part and parcel of a language, that seems to be omitted in teaching and hampers communication with native speakers. Of course, I can expect a speaker giving a presentation to adapt his language for a multinational audience, but I can't expect it from most people I'll interact with in an English speaking country outside the lecture room! Glad to hear you mentioned phrasal verbs! I think that the mere distinguishing them in teaching is a grave mistake. They are always put in separate boxes, treated as "advanced" or "optional" material that discourages students from learning them. They are not "phrasal verbs", they are _just_ natural w o r d s with their separate meanings one simply has to learn. "Phrasal verb" seems to be a purely descriptive grammar distinction (the irony!) And I'm saying all this as a non-native speaker (also from Poland), who also knows other languages and feels more comfortable in them despite knowing them worse.
@@kimswabek - Dziękuję bardzo! I have been to Poland several times and love the country. You raise valid questions concerning the teaching of English with which I agree. However, if I have an important message for my audience, I am more concerned about making sure that they understand instead of challenging their grasp of English. As for phrasal verbs, I have to disagree with you. They are indeed a special linguistic construct in English. As Fowler notes in his classic "Modern English Usage" Samuel Johnson in the preface to his dictionary in 1755 wrote, "There is another kind of composition more frequent in our language than perhaps any other, from which arises to foreigners the greatest difficulty. We modify the signification of many verbs by a particle subjoined ..." He then gives a number of examples. I think it critical for people who learn English as a foreign language to grasp this rather unique concept. Thanks for adding to the discussion!
Amazing video. These are things I’ve thought about over the past couple years and it’s amazing to see what I already knew was part of English (but never had the words to explain) be explained so clearly and eloquently. You’re an amazing public speaker, and you’ve earned a sub from me
I very much appreciate the comment, Leonardo. If you are Italian-just a guess based on your name-allora mille grazie! I am glad that you enjoy the video, and thank you for subscribing.
As a non native English speaker who has been speaking English for almost three decades, I applaud this perfectly delivered speech! One minor exception based on my personal in Latin America. I was in a small town in the Andes in Peru and I told my guide that the town was so charming. My guide spoke good English but he didn’t necessarily have a big vocabulary. He asked me what charming meant. Instead of trying to explain the word in a convoluted way, I just said “enchanting”, and he immediately understood, although it’s a more complex word for me, whose native language is Chinese. But since his native language was Spanish, words with Latin roots would be easier to understand than Anglo Saxon words. OK, you may argue that charming and enchanting are not necessarily interchangeable. But I think they are sufficiently similar for this situation.
Thank you for the "charming" comment! I appreciate the story. And yes, there are always exceptions, especially when the complex English world is close to the same word in the other language. Here we have enchanting (English) and encantador (Spanish).
I really appreciate your speech and sympathy with non-native English speakers like me. Most non-native speakers around me approach English via the IELTS test which always prefers "Initially" to "Beginning" =)))
Sometimes longer words are actually better because they are more likely to have a cognate in the language of the audience. Of course this applies mostly to Romance languages and non-Romance European languages that have a lot of Latin and Greek loanwords. "Carry out" - confusion "Implement" - "oh, implementare!"
True, in some cases. Your example of "carry out" is also a perfect example of a phrasal verb that can cause confusion given that "carry" alone means something completely different.
Speaking English allows you to express tremendously complex ideas using exclusively words with Germanic roots, sounding almost like an Anglo-Saxon ancestor. Or if you prefer, give a touch of romance to your speech using only words of Latin origin. That is certainly the aspect I like most about English. My native language is Spanish but I also speak German, so I can clearly differentiate the origin of English words. Thanks for sharing this talk.
The Latin largely came through French in British English, whereas American English has been influenced by Spanish and Italian speaking immigrants. Similarly, British English picked up numerous words from the Indian subcontinent.
Germanic substrate theory. Proto Germanic prob. originated by mixing an indogermanic dialect with dialects of farmers and some huntergatherers. Within germanic there are words that are prob. not indogermanic. King, koning, kong, König. Ship, skip, schip, Schiff. Sea, See, Zee, sjő etc. Linguists do not always agree. In the Bronze age there was a battle in the north of Germany, Mecklenburg Vorpommern near a small river. One group with bronze weapons, the other one's with stone weapons. The bronze people probably spoke an Indoeuropean dialect.
This is such a great talk. John, you explain so well what it's like to work in an international and multicultural organisation. (Speaking from almost 20 years of EU experience here.) It takes effort not to get trapped inside the bubble - especially when it comes to jargon. As a former, long-time conference interpreter, I also really appreciated what you had to say about how speakers can team up with interpreters for successful communication across languages. It's a topic I had the opportunity to talk about at an earlier ESN conference, and the community was very open about it, which I loved.
For 12 years I organised a language exchange group in the large Andalucian village where I live. It was to help Spanish learners of English and English speaking immigrants learning Spanish gain practice and thus confidence in listening and speaking. Formal classes dont afford enough time. Especially for the Spanish to hear spoken English. As our Spanish members advanced in their studies it became obvious to me that I needed more professional skills in order to be able to answer the questions on more complicated uses especially the multiple meanings of several common words. (Bow is a simple example. This also brings in other complications such as bough.) So I did a teaching English as a foreign language course. It does help. But Spanish has also 2 words for the same concept eg to understand. Sonetimes there are subtle differences at others not. As they (in)famously have 2 words for "to be". Each used in different circumstances. The rules are not always logical. Plus not all words ending in 'a' are feminine. Its to do with their having an 'm' as in el problema. I learned French and Latin at my UK grammar school. We had daily lessons. I dont recall any special problems but back then we also learned grammar in our daily English lessons from age 5 or 6. So terminology wasnt a problem. I have met a man in his 50s learning Spanish, whose UK education did not include grammar, who did not know the common words such as noun or verb. Adverb or adjective. He hadnt needed them to be a carpenter.
Thanks for sharing part of your linguistic journey, Helen. Yes, each language has its peculiarities. Because I speak French and Italian, I can understand a lot in Spanish and I understand the distinction between "see" and "estar"! English pronunciation and spelling are nightmare. When we switched our daughters (who were fluent English speakers) from the all-French local school to the bilingual programme in the International School, their initial writing lessons were a sea of red ink. Why "head" but "heat"? Why "dose" but "nose" and "lose"? Then there is the dreaded "ough" as you have noted. Every time I have learned a language, I have wanted to understand the grammar. I know that many people don't, but for me, it is a critical part of the learning process.
Very interesting. I teach English and the more I do, the more I realise how easy English can be to learn to get by but how difficult it is to speak well. I live in Spain so can relate to all of the misunderstandings and over complications you mentioned. Kind regards!
in fact, the language spoken in an informal, relaxed conversation is different from the language spoken in a lecture. There are so-called reductions and connected speeches that make understanding difficult as they form new sounds. this occurs in every language around the world. Congratulations on the lecture, congratulations from Brazil.
Yes, I know, thank you. Someone in the audience told me afterwards. I am pretty good with quote checking, but every now and then, something slips through. There are always things to improve.
Amazingly helpful video!!! I interpret services at my church into American Sign Language for my deaf friends. I wish I watched this video 40 years ago. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Laura. Congratulations for the important work that you are doing. A few years ago, I ate at a restaurant in Toronto with my family. Except for the woman who greeted diners at the entrance, everyone who worked there was deaf. Menus had diagrams of the signs for every dish. You could order by pointing or have a go at sign language. We all used sign language (poorly to be sure). It is a wonderful way to introduce people to an important method of communication.
As a German, I live in Sri Lanka and was shocked when in a conversation with an upper-class native-English speaking Sri Lankan over 40 (Burgher) the word "aristocrat" wasn't known to her. Another friend, a degree holder, didn't know the term "decadence". Suggestions: 1) don't brag with exotic academia words; 2) try to make your point in humanistic philosophy (as an example) by using kindergarten vocabulary; 3) repeat relevant information twice using fresh synonyms and sentence structure.
Interesting story and solid tips. The advantage of a private conversation is that the listener will (usually) ask if they don't understand a word. Your third tip is particularly relevant for speakers on a stage. I sometimes will say, "In Canada, we say ..." and then use the jargon or expression but immediately follow it with an explanation in simple words.
I'm an interpreter with 40 years' experience interpreting both into and out of English in Europe. I am a native speaker of English myself and while I agree with some of what you say about native English speakers not adapting to their non-native audiences, I don't agree with everything in your talk. Things I do agree with are: The importance of clear articulation, avoidance of idioms, slang, puns, excessive jargon, national or regional colloquialisms and cultural references (all of which vary among the core English-speaking nations anyway), and - especially - obfuscation. I particularly agree wholeheartedly with the main message of "think of your audience". I think you would appreciate "The Complete Plain Words" by Sir Ernest Gowers. His motto if I remember correctly was "be clear, be human". Things I do not agree with: The clickbaity and untrue statement that native speakers of English cannot speak English (this leads to many misunderstandings and an unhealthy snobbery and inverse snobbery); trying to make things too simple (which can cost nuance); the avoidance of phrasal verbs.* *) Phrasal verbs are a core feature of all Germanic languages. Since you understand German you will appreciate the multiple differences of meaning in anfahren, auffahren, einfahren, umfahren, überfahren, ausfahren, unterfahren, in their literal and metaphorical uses. Finally, in my experience, the key is not just to think of your audience, but to know your audience.
Thanks for the taking the time to leave such a thoughtful and comprehensive comment, Alice. I very much appreciate it. A few things: 1. I have heard of Gowers and his book but have never investigated the man or his writing. I will do so now. 2. Yes, the title is "clickbaity" - hey, one has to get views when one is an independent consultant - but it was more tongue-in-cheek and definitely not intended to be snobbish or provoke snobbery. 3. On making things simple, I agree. Too much simplicity, like too much of anything, is not good. It reminds me of Albert Einstein's instruction: "Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler." 4. On phrasal verbs, while I agree that we should not avoid them entirely - and, as a native speaker, I cannot avoid them because they just come out naturally - I still maintain that they are a challenge for non-native speakers. While I don't have your experience as an interpreter, I do have 25+ years experience working on a daily basis with people who are not mother-tongue English (including 17 years in the United Nations) and I know from speaking with them that phrasal verbs are often confusing. They have said as much to me. The reason, in my view, is because the construction of phrasal verbs in English tends to involve putting two simple words together to create an entirely different meaning. Your German example of ***fahren is a case in point. Yes, each of the words has a different meaning, but they are all related to the idea of driving or moving. "Fahren" is the anchor. Compare that with English where a phrasal verb has two or more words. Example: get ahead, get along, get behind, get over, get back at, etc. "Get" does not have the same anchor status as "fahren". 5. On the audience, absolutely. You should know your audience, which means that you HAVE thought about them and will be able to think about them as you design and deliver your presentation. Thanks again.
English is my native language. A few years ago I taught myself Russian, and now I can speak and understand it well. It was after I learned a second language when I realized just how unorganized and informal English words can be. English pronunciation is an entirely different subject that is even more confusing because it's so unpredictable. Although I can't fully understand what new english speakers are struggling with, I can understand that its not easy.
Thanks for the comment, Michael. Yes, that's a fair description. As for pronunciation, English is a mess. Why "head" but "heat"? Why "dose" but "nose" and "lose"? And then there are 10 or 12 ways to write the sound "sh". And don't get me started on "ough"! 😂 PS - Good for you with Russian. I am just getting into it now and very much enjoying the language.
I am a technical writer. John Zimmer has just outlined the fundamental principles of my profession. (I’m also a native speaker of Australian English, who has learned and taught several languages, so I’m very familiar with the problems that John describes.)
Thanks for the comment, Noel. Good on ya, mate. She’ll be right. (I would never say “mate” if I were speaking. With my Canadian accent it just sounds bizarre!)
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking Thanks, mate! I’ve also had the reverse situation happen to me when talking or giving a training session. After so many years of keeping my writing clear and concise, I used to leave out a lot of the ‘filler’ words and expressions, in my speech, and I found that native speakers often missed much of what I was saying. Expressions we avoid in writing like “nowadays”, “you often find that…” and so on, can be handy to help native speakers navigate through what you’re saying and give them time to process the important information. These, of course, are not required by non-native speakers, who just need a well-placed pause here and there.
Great presentation, John! I agree 100% it's so important for native speakers to prioritize clarity and make adjustments to ensure understanding. Also, cultural references, idioms, and sports references should be used sparingly and with consideration for non-native audiences, as they may not be familiar with the context or meaning behind them.
Thanks, Patricia. It is very hard to do when one is speaking one's mother tongue, but very important as well. Cultural references are OK, but only if you then take the time to explain them. And time is often a challenge when delivering a talk or presentation.
"cultural references, idioms, and sports references should be used sparingly and with consideration for non-native audiences" - as a non-native speaker I kindly disagree. I wouldn't consider that English, I call that world English. Pretty useful, no doubt about it, but deadly dull.
@@frankgradus9474 - The problem with idioms and sports reference, in my experience, is that native speakers throw them out without explanation and the non-native speaking audience is left confused. So, if you are going to use an idiom or sports reference in front of a non-native audience, you should explain what it means.
Thank you so much for this video! What you stated about phrasal verbs is so accurate. I teach linguistics and language acquisition to primarily native English speaking students and ESL to nonnative speakers of English. I showed this video to the former last month and it really hit home. I plan to show this (and perhaps even use it for a summary and response assignment) to future students. Thank you for helping me to teach English better.
Thank you for the comment. I very much appreciate it. Feel free to use anything you find on my channel or my website - www.mannerofspeaking.org - if it helps with your classes. I just ask that you provide attribution. Best of luck with the important work that you are doing!
I'm still trying to understand what his encounter with a light bulb was. For a second I thought maybe he changed a light bulb very quickly, but his hand gesture suggests he had a light bulb stuck to his head and he removed it! 🤣🤣🤣
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking I used to teach English as a second language and learned to use the same techniques you mentioned in the video. "A light bulb moment" caught my ear because that's the type of expression that would get my students confused. I learned to look at English from the perspective of the students, and adapted my language depending on the students' level. Simple expressions like "how come?" can be confusing. I've heard people answer that with, "I come by bus."
@@mythai05 Great example and yes, expressions like "light bulb" moment slip out of my mouth all the time as I am just so used to them. I do try to remain aware of them and if some jargon comes out and I realize it, I will immediately explain what the term I just said means.
As a Persian, I personally think that English is easier for me eather than Arabic. Though Arabic and Peraian have the same alphabet, Arabic is really hard
Yes, Arabic is a challenge. I was glad that I could speak it when I visited your country because I was able to understand a lot of the signs that I saw. I hope to return to Iran one day. Beautiful country. I wish the geopolitical situation were better.
A lot of native English speakers need to watch this. I've taught ESL for over 20 years and I still have to be conscious about what I am saying to students. Non ESL teachers in international settings often don't moderate their language. Yet, many of them look down upon ESL speakers. I also watch a lot of true crime and I get so frustrated with "police speak". They always opt for a longer,, more complicated word than a simpler one. Not sure why. Do they think it makes them appear more intelligent? BTW , my most hated word is "literally".
I'm catalan and I work for an international company. Many times we do international meetings with colleagues from all around Europe, and we talk in English. Any problem to understand all kind of accents, from everywhere. But, everytime an English person comes, that person look at us as if he would be listening klingon. The difference is that we understand him so well. My conclusion is that international english has become a different language than original english
Thank you for the comment. Gràcies. (I often work in Barcelona so I know a little bit about the Catalan culture 👍). Your comment about international English is one that several people have made. As a native speaker, it is hard for me to assess. But to your point about English people thinking you speak Klingon (😂), I think that in many cases, it is because such people don't speak any other language and / or have limited experience speaking with those whose English is not mother tongue.
"Less is more" works in lots if aspects, not just in speeches: whether it's a book, a programming code, or schematics for a new home. Do not forget to optimize your work, check for abundant parts. Helps a lot. I once saw an Australian trying to get a fruit juice from locals in Thailand - he was trying to be as clear and polite as possible, though his struggle to reduce his fluent English to simple phrases was almost physical. It seems much easier for me as a non-native English speaker to talk to other non-native speakers it situations like this.
I love what Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (who wrote The Little Prince") said: "Perfection is not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away."
I'm an English learner and at the beginning it was so hard then I understood that there are formal and spoken English and this helped me to focus my effort to learn both of them, nowadays I found English language like a good experience.
Wow, what a wonderful talk. As an ESL teacher who also teaches Maritime English (English for special purposes) I totally agree with him. English is like learning to play the musical instrument, the recorder, very easy to learn basic tunes, but extremely difficult to master on a professional level. He makes all the valid points that I myself have observed over the years as a teacher of adult students, who are not native speakers of English. In fact, for most of them, English was their second foreign language. I’m a native speaker of English, Danish, and Swedish and I’ve worked as a simultaneous translator as well. Once, I had to translate for a Swedish scientist who gave his presentation in English. It was a bit of a disaster. His pronunciation was poor, but worse, he spoke in a very low, monotonous voice making it difficult to understand and translate. Now if he had spoken in his native Swedish language, it would have been much easier for me as the translator. I often refer to Churchill’s line: separated by a common language, because there are some ghastly pitfalls which can cause confusion, misunderstandings and considerable embarrassment if used among the wrong English speaking crowd. British English speakers are more familiar with American English expressions due to all the films, tv series, music etc. but most Americans are not familiar with a lot of specific phrases in British English. F.ex. almost every gadget or piece on a car has a different word in British English or American English: windshield, windscreen, hood, bonnet, trunk, boot, glove compartment, chubby box, transmission, gearbox, etc. etc. French fries in the US are chips in Britain, but chips in the US are crisps in Britain. A cookie in the US is a biscuit in Britain, but in the US it’s a savory cracker. And some of the embarrassing stuff: a rubber in Britain is an eraser in the US, but a rubber in the US is a slang expression for a condom. In the US to be spunky means someone who is high spirited and brave. In the UK, it is a slang expression for being stained or covered in semen. Heard about a high level business meeting between a group of Americans and a group of British people. A man on the American team told the lead British negotiator, who was a woman, that he admired her because she “had a lot of spunk”. The very shocked and silent expressions on the faces of the British group left the Americans dumbfounded. They didn’t know what was wrong. To them he had given the woman a compliment. Neither group understood the meaning of “spunk” in the “other language”. Idioms are another huge stumbling block for English learners. As native speakers we use them all the the time, but even we don’t know all the more than three thousand idioms out there, and even learning fifty to a hundred of them is a challenge for a non-native speaker.
Thank you for such a detailed comment. I very much appreciate it. Your examples made me laugh, even though I knew almost all of them. ("Chubby box" was a new one for me.) The "spunk" story reminds me of another example ... In North America, to root for a team means to cheer for it. The famous "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" song has the line "And we'll root, root, root for the home team ...". Australians double over laughing at this because in Australia, "to root" means to have sex.
Many people think that if they use simple words, they will look dumb, but that is not the case. Yes, complex words are necessary, but simple words can be the most powerful.
They way I see it with double words basically having the same underlying meaning like "brief summary" or "new innovation" is that it adds emphasic. I say that because I'm learning japanese and this kind of structure to emphasis something is very common, which to be fair, confused me a lot at the beginning of my journey. But how are you suppost to learn it when you avoid it. Language is all about understand most things on a wimp
Thanks for the comment. We will have to disagree on redundant words, at least in English. As for learning English, I am all for people becoming comfortable with the different things I mention in the talk. But when I am the speaker, my priority is to make sure that they understand me. I am not there to give them an English lesson.
What surprises me with native English speakers is how difficult they find it to understand us non natives. I ve had plenty of great conversations with people from all over Europe always successfully (even when their English is bad) but being able to communicate with natives is a hit or miss for me
Efcharisto for the comment. I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes it's because the English speakers have had little or no experience speaking with "foreigners"; sometimes it's just laziness. I admit that I have had the privilege of working in the United Nations and now live in Europe, so I have had lots of exposure to different accents when people speak English.
As an American, I've been guilty of this. I've talked about having college professors I couldn't understand when in fact the international students didn't have as many problems understanding as I did.
@@hezekiahthompson6817 I've been guilty of the same things and I often do some of them without thinking because it is so natural for me. But I am much more aware of it these days.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking thanks for your reply, your presentation is very distinguished, your experiences in dealing with language and cultural barrier help us a lot. I love learning different languages and cultures, by the way English is my third language, I still think in my first language then I use my second language to translate to English.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking my first language is Javanese, my second language is Bahasa Indonesia. Indonesia is the 4th most populous country in the world, it has 17500 islands, 1340 ethnic groups, 800 languages.
@@l0g1c4lth1nk1ng Nice. I know a bit about Indonesia because I am interested in geography and cultures and am alway reading up on things. Are you in Jakarta? Interesting thing about your flag: It is the same colour pattern as Monaco (but different dimensions) and the reverse of the Polish flag.
No offence, but "English is the only language that gets complex later" is something only a native English speaker would say. All languages get increasingly nuanced, complicated, rich, expressive at higher levels, it's just you haven't noticed it as a non-native speaker.
You've misquoted me. I never said it is the only language that gets complex later. My point is that whereas many languages are complex (for non-native speakers) at the outset, English is relatively easy. As you delve deeper into the language, the complexities increase. Because so many people master English to a decent level, many native speakers incorrectly assume that everything they say will be understood. I found French and Italian very complex at the outset, but easier as I went along. Sure, some of that is clearly due to me studying and losing the language; still the overall structure of the languages had an impact. Thanks for the comment. I am enjoying the discussion on this video.
@@MarAdriatnePC - I never underestimate anyone in terms of intelligence, but I can tell you from experience that many was the time, especially when I worked in the UN system, that I had to translate (interpret) from English to English because colleagues who worked in English and spoke in English could not understand what a speaker was saying. This usually occurred with outside experts who did not have much experience speaking in an international context.
@@sambrown5172 - I know many people whose English is superb and who have worked in English for years. They now find it easier to present in English than their mother tongue, especially on technical topics.
I liked the title of the video, so I opened it 😂. Great speech, even I'm not a native speaker, I love these things. A lof good quotes, good pace, clear speech. Many things are obvious for me, but it might help others so ok ;) I enjoyed it, thanks. Well done.
@@marvelouss719 - Thank you. I also think that English is a beautiful language and I love to stretch it to its full dimensions. But if eloquence makes it hard for people to understand my message, I will favour clarity.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking My friend, who is also learning English and lived in Cyprus, said that: "I cannot speak English fluently with the locals, on the other hand, I do not understand British)))"
Note that I might be wrong but I think that there are two "versions" of English: The international simplified English, that is English used in international media (like RUclips) or when giving speeches to multicultural audiences, and local varities of English used in distinct countries. It's very difficult to grasp any English dialect fully, when you are always consuming media that is created by speakers who speak in simplified version of English (using less sophisticated vocabulary, simpler grammar, etc.). It's not bad for obvious reasons (being able to reach bigger audiences), but I think it gives a false assumption that someone is on a higher level that he really is. 10 years ago I would say that I am pretty good in English, right now I am aware that I still have much more to learn, and I cannot even confidently say that I am a good English speaker, because I am definitely not.
Thank you for the comment, Marcin. It’s an interesting perspective. The quality of English, as well as that of other languages, certainly does very depending on the context in which it is spoken.
An excellent video!!! Many of the points the speaker mentioned ALSO apply to speaking in general, regardless of the language and the audience. His last point of saying something in the local language can also be called an "ice breaker" - an idiom primarily known to native English speakers!😀
As a non native speaker, i think there is an important point you are missing and in fact it kind goes against your first point of prefering clarity to eloquence. Although that depends on what you call clarity and eloquence. But i will give you an example... If you had recorded you talking with your friends in the hockey stadium, I bet there would be VERY FEW Latin derived words. When speaking in a more formal setting, including this speech in the video, the number of Latin words skyrocket. Now, while Latin words are usually consided more formal language in English, and high usage might be considered "eloquence", it also turns out the SAME words are very similar in dozens of different languages. It becomes a common ground even for many germanic languages.
Yes, I had the same thought. The Latin / Romance words are clearer and more eloquent simultaneously. Using Anglo-Saxon phrasal verbs is really confusing for non-native speakers
Thanks for raising an interesting point. Yes, there are lots of words in English that are derived from Latin. There are also lots of words derived from other languages, particularly Greek. (Of course, Greek is the basis for many languages other than English.) Is the use of words derived from Latin more eloquent than not? It's hard to say. Some Latin-based words are undoubtedly more eloquent, but some are quite common. Here's an interesting list I found: www.proofreadingservices.com/pages/english-words-that-originated-from-latin I do agree that Latin-based words do provide some common ground, but in many cases, the stress or pronunciation is significantly different. Combine that with speaking quickly, not pausing, idioms, etc., and it quickly becomes challenging for many people. But your comment has prompted me to investigate further. Thanks for adding to the discussion.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking this dawned on me long ago, when watching I don´t remember WHICH American sitcom... where there was this foreign dude, from France or Italy... but played by an American actor, and he would fail to understand some words that were very similar in his language, at which point the American would use a simpler word, of angle saxon origin, which sincerely, would be much harder for the foreign to know the meaning. as all things in life, it's probably a little of each, nor black nor white. In the end, a mixture of several different factors. but as a personal experience, and also noticing what my compatriots and my kids have difficulty in learning English, it's usually the simpler words that we completely don´t know the meaning and in a conversation, may confuse us when speaking fast. But yes, don´t take my comment for certain. Investigation can lead to insights even when the hypothesis fails.
@@rogeriopenna9014 - Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Concerning your final point about simple words, while I cannot be 100% sure, I suspect that part of the challenge could come from phrasal verbs; i.e., taking a simple verb and then adding a simple word to it. Those two simple words can often create an entirely different meaning. Take the word "get" for example. You can add many other simple words to "get" and the result is a completely different meaning: get ahead, get along, get around to, get back, get back at, get back to, get behind, get on, get out, get over, get through, get together ... I could go on, but you "get" the idea!
Notice that he is giving this presentation in the way you would speak to non-native speakers. A little slower, a little more careful with pronunciation.
Let's be honest. If listeners cannot understand natural native English spoken at speed then they are at best high-intermediate learners. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this. It's the point where many language learners stall. But a speaker isn't obliged to default to this level, unless it suits their needs. Clearly that's the context of this speech. It's a little surprising there was no reference to intonation. Sentence stress is, for me, the principal abiding difference between native and highly proficient non-native speech. It's both a rich source of meaning for natives and a near-insurmountable, possibly imperceptible, obstacle for non-natives. I'm married to a native Mandarin speaker and professional interpreter whose English far exceeds that of many native speakers but who simply has no ear for tone. (Incidentally, she'd be a big fan of the advice to share scripts in advance - this is a major bugbear...) Interestingly, spoken Mandarin Chinese exceeds English in morphological simplicity and syntactical straightforwardness. Indeed its vagueness and flexibility are one of the major sticking points for a beginning learner, another being the phonemic poverty that produces so many homophones (and so much lexical redundancy). Until you get into the script, Chinese is in many ways an incredibly easy language to learn (of course, with the exception of... tone).
Thank you for the comment. I appreciate you taking the time. You raise a number of points to which I would like to respond. 1. I don't disagree with your assessment of the lingustic abilities of those who cannot understand English spoken at speed. However, I disagree with your view that the speaker should not adjust his or her English. In many (most?) global fora without simultaneous interpretation, English is the spoken language. So you have people coming to English from all kinds of other languages. I am not suggesting that English speakers "dumb down" the language, just that they adapt it a bit so as to be better understood. Because if people cannot understand what I am saying, how does that help me? I want to get my message across. 2. I agree with you about intonation. There are also other points that I could have raised, but I only had a limited amount of time and had to be selective. Better to cover fewer things in some detail than to try and cover everything. But yes, tone and emphasis are important. 3. Interesting that your spouse does not have an ear for tone (in English) given that Mandarin is, as you know, a tonal language. I find that fascinating. I know a little about Chinese - Wǒ huì shuō yīdiǎn zhōngwén ... Bu tai hao! - and know that tone are hugely important for the meaning of words. But perhaps tone less important for overall sentence structure. 4. Finally, as someone who loves languages, I find Chinese very interesting. Behind the complexity of the writing and the tones lies an incredibly simple grammar, insofar as what I know of it.
This is the first time I can hear a whole conference in english language,I understood full context,thanks.
Thank you for the comment.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking With your perfect teacher's English you are providing the non -natives the illusion of being fluent in English :) ... In my opinion, you are really fluent when you can understand effortlessly all dialogs in a movie.
@@quinquiry I appreciate the comment but I would not say my English is "perfect teacher" level. But thank you. And I don't think that non-natives will have any illusions about their level of proficiency based on my talk alone. They should, as you say, continue to watch and learn from movies and also practice listening to, and speaking with, a variety of English speakers.
I totally agree with that English seems easy to learn for beginners but it gets more and more difficult as you progress.
Your English is very beautiful, clear, and understandable. I enjoy hearing it again and again.❤❤❤
You are very kind. Thank you. I am glad that you enjoyed the talk.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking ❤🙏
I speak four languages, and English is not even my second language. I understand colloquial American English because I forced myself to learn it. Regarding the statement "English is the only language that gets complex later," I'd say that's an illusion. The problem is that foreigners learn formal English, which is not the kind of language people actually speak in their day-to-day lives. If you learn the formal version of any language, you're going to have issues interacting with people who speak that language naturally. For example, many folks who learn French in school cannot understand two French people speaking informally in a bar.
The problem is that many of us have been brainwashed into thinking colloquial language is wrong, so we don't learn it. I learned English because I love watching American movies, and soon I realized that formal and informal language have the same importance. The definitions of right and wrong that we learn in school only hurt our understanding of the language.
I know it sounds controversial, but I've seen foreigners who are learning my mother tongue, which is Brazilian Portuguese, and they are learning words and expressions we almost never use. This makes me doubt their teachers' honesty.
All in all, I agree with making things simple and focusing on getting our message across instead of alienating our audience. Thanks.
Muito obrigado, Jose. I don't speak much Portuguese-only a handful of phrases-but with French and Italian, I can understand a lot when I read it. If I hear it spoken, I find Brazilian Portuguese much easier than Portuguese from Portugal.
I agree with you about colloquial language, especially when that is the language spoken by most people. It can be frustrating, though. I learned Arabic at the United Nations and the Arabic one learns is Classical Arabic. It is used in diplomacy and on the news and in newspapers. But nobody speaks it day to day. Everyone speaks a dialect, of which there are four main ones: the Maghreb, Egyptian, the Levant and the Gulf. An Arab speaking the local dialect of Morocco will not understand an Arab speaking the local dialect in Yemen and vice versa. When I speak Arabic with someone, I ask them to speak in Classical Arabic and THEY have to slow down and think of some of the words.
One point of disagreement ... I did not say that English is the ONLY language that gets complex as you go deeper into it but I do believe that it does so when compared to many other languages. This is because, in terms of grammar, it starts off so much easier than many other main languages. Think about English and Portuguese in terms of verb structure, gender, etc. I think Portuguese is much more complicated at the outset.
Now, when it comes to spelling and pronunciation, yes, English is a bit of disaster. We put our two daughters in the local French language school in Switzerland but spoke English at home. When they switched to the bilingual programme in the International School, their first written assignments in English came back covered in red ink!
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking Thank you so much for replying to my message in such an elegant way. I love learning languages, and it makes my day when I see an enthusiast like you.
Every language works that way. I am learning Japanese. I understand other foreigners much better than Japanese people. I know some Spanish. I understand the white guy who lived in Spain for 2 years much better than the Mexican man. This video is cringe.
You have to distinguish people learning in class, an people learning just on the street or on tv. Netflix has a huge impact. You can learn every language, like a bay does. And it will not be formal.
But it might be a wild mix of Australian, brittish, scottish and american.
US english can be hard to understand sometimes. You can very easily get the quite opposite meaning for the sentence than what is meant. I would describe US English as "loose" language, which is missing necessary bodies and thus is unspecific.
Just listen a finnish rally driver speak, words and pronounciation are what they are, but you have a predicate, subject and object.
That's a professional giving the best advice. I learnt a few new words from your speech. "Respect is the best place to start" I couldn't agree more.
Thank you very much, Rustem. Çok teşekkür ederim!
Completely agree about giving respect. As a plant manager, once a month, I gave factory updates to the entire work force and get them engaged, always started with the summary written in romanized Japanese. Got their undivided attention, b4 I moved on to deliver the rest in English
@@subramanyandakshinamoorthy2477 Well done! 👏
As a person that not even fluent in English I was completely surprised that I understood the whole speech the first time.
Wonderful performance ❤
Thank you for the comment. I am glad that I was clear enough for you to understand.
Dear John, I am an elderly Englishman with a blend of Estuary and RP accent. I have my own RUclips channel, mostly about acoustic guitars and music. Since I had throat and tongue cancer treatment in 2017, my vocal presentation has changed, and I am aware that my speech is not as clear as I would like it to be, especially as most of my followers are from the USA. Your presentation has been a revelation for me. At 76 years old, you have provided me with information to consider to make my videos clearer. Thank you.
Really appreciate the comment, SM. I had a look at your channel and a few of your videos. Even though I do not play guitar, I have subscribed. Good luck with your videos and teaching. At 76, you are just getting started! ✊
Dear Silly…, I hope your fight against cancer is giving you a lot of medals 🥇 (we are in olimpic times…!) ohh let’s rephrase: I wish you are winning lots of medals 🎖️ against cancer!! 😂😂 and congratulations, you just show that we learn everyday! 🙏🏻
@@sergioswedenborg8746 Thank you Sergio, Just the one medal! The wonderful multinational people in the NHS treated me, and whilst the treatment caused much collateral damage, after eight years, I still wake up every morning! Thanks for your kind thoughts.
@@RonnyNguyen-n3k Thank you. If you play acoustic guitar, please let me know if I can help you, with one to one tuition.
🇬🇧 Good morning,
I have a very similar accent. Estuary English and RP English. I'm 78 years old, brought up in Sittingbourne in Kent. Oddly enough, my Parents and all my family spoke/ speak perfect English. So it's puzzling as to where my accent came from.
What is the name of your utube channel ? Then I can watch, allowing me to hear your accent.
Many thanks.
Sharon
My native English vastly improved when I became fluent in Spanish. A few points regarding English from my learning about learning Spanish.
1. English has a large vocabulary compared to many languages.
2. There is an unlimited availability to hear and read English, therefore unlimited opportunity for comprehensible input.
3. Most native English speakers don't speak any other language, therefore they have no experience of second language aquisition and the empathy that it generates for non native speakers of English who are speaking and listening to English.
While it's true that English has a large vocabulary compared to many languages, it's also true that multilingual people are more aware of the true extent of the vocabulary in their native language than they are in languages they're fluent in that they learned later. I've seen many fluent non-native English speakers say English has a small vocabulary compared to their native language.
There's an old story "Q: What do you call a person who speaks two languages. A: Bi-lingual. Q: What do you call a person who speaks one language. A: English!
@@andrewdunbar828 I wasn't just guessing that there are more words in English, it's a linguistic fact.
@@andrewdunbar828if they say English language has a small vocabulary then they havent learned much just daily basic talk. How I know? I started learning English at 12 and it was my 2nd foreign language and it was super easy for me. I am fluent, the only higher level is a native speaker. To this day I still learn new things from English language because the vocabulary is huge, and all kinds of sayings and proverbs and other stuff. I will always continue learning something new in English. Its my 2nd favorite language after my native, which has a bigger vocabulary than English language!😊
@@British-Bob-s4c Hi, I have a question, that I don't really know. Do you say that English has more vocabulary than Spanish? I thought it was the other way around. If you'd been right, I've learned something new today. Greetings from Argentina.
I'm a native English speaker and most the time, when I speak in English, I don't even understand myself very well.
😂
well sad !
Dont worry the majority of the world doesnt understand you 😂 its not a you problem
@@JoshPecks500lbDad 😂 Suddenly, it's all so clear! Thanks, Josh!
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking it wasnt a dig at you. No one can understand him because hes bri'ish, they speak the wrong kind of English.
i was complimenting you. lol
@John, i studied to be an interpreter in germany. I have been living in the US for the last 25 years or so. the one thing i noticed is that not only the non-native speakers struggle to master grammar and more complex sentence structures, the same is true for many native speakers whose job does not require a lot of public speaking, if at all. Americans often do not know basic grammar rules or even spelling. And the ones who do not travel at all never develop an ear for listening to a non-native speaker. They do not know that they do not enunciate. Do not use the passive voice results in head scratching. oh, and yes, not using proper case and such online is intentional. In case you do read this long comment, good speech with many valid points. I tell my american colleagues all the time, you are responsible for what you are saying, not the audience. If they do not understand you, that is your problem.
Vielen Dank, Uli. Great points and great observations as a non-native speaker living in the US. I know what you mean. When working at the United Nations, we occasionally had American consultants work with us. During meetings with consultants from the Middle East on a variety of environmental and public health issues, I often had to interpret from English to English because I knew that the Americans were not expressing themselves in a way that would be easily understood by native Arabic speakers. These were educated people with PhDs, but that did not change the responsibility of the Americans-as you rightly point out-to make themselves understood.
@pjcdm I don't know that English is any harder than french. Sure, german and many other European languages are phonetic, making it easy to read and pronounce just about any word. I doubt any of this has anything to do with linguistics or even teaching English.
@@uliwehner French's difficulties do not impact learning to read (decode) or even pronounce words so much. Its system is a bit more complex than Italian or Finnish, but it mostly regular. The exceptions are usually systematic (final letters not being pronounced, by & large). French learning to read takes a bit more time, but English's delays are counted in years. Mastering spelling takes a lifetime. I'm fluent/bilingual in both languages. English has more than 200 ways of spelling 44 phonemes &, worse, these are irregular. Btw, the French just reformed 5000 spellings. They wisely spared current users to relearn & use them. The anglosphere should wisen up. 2 billion people is not trivial. As the speaker stated, it has a responsibility. Incrementalism & minor tricks mentioned in the video are trivial. Sure, they are more effective than doing nothing.
@@PeterDMayr yes spelling in English is a nightmare, me being French , im used to complex non-logic pellings, it helped me .
@@quinquiryThe French reformed 5000 of their words recently & nicely, not forcing current users to relearn or use. Anglophones didn't reform & don't even care to do it. I have been on social media for 1 year now telling them this, asking to sign a petition. Most don't sign & answer. They do not care to abuse their own kids & billions of foreign learners. This is extremely disturbing. It is selfishness or stupidity pushed to its limit. Is it the epitome of entitlement? They love travelling expecting everyone to cater to them in English. Are they mentally sick? Ate they naturally born psychopaths?
I agree with you... clarity is the most important thing when you speak or write. I do that with my poems, anyone can understand them...
Thank you. Of course, one can be clear AND eloquent as long as the audience can understand.
I live in France. My french is not very good so I speak English clearly. But, when I return to Glasgow, I sound like a Glaswegian, like my kids. I originally came from Oxfordshire, on the odd occasion I go there, I sound like the locals.
Yes, language is a fascinating thing. I have not been to Glasgow but I have had a speaking engagement on the Isle of Bute (which is beautiful). I was mildly surprised at how well I was able to understand the local accent. A year or two prior, I did some work in Chorley which is in the middle of Lancashire and I found that accent much more challenging. More than once I had to ask someone to repeat what they had said because I did not understand it.
While I have lived most of my life in Virginia I am originally from Nebraska and my accent is more Midwestern than Southern, but get me in a group where it's all southerners like my brother's wife's family and I start to sound like a southerner.
@@gkiltz0 - Yes, it's the same with me when speaking French. I do have a French Canadian accent that is noticeable but slight. However, if I am surrounded by French Canadians, it becomes much stronger.
Zelig 😂
The problem is that native speakers don't care about it at all. They thought it's my problem to understand them and couldn't even think about help from their side. "Think about the audience" - it's very hard to native speakers.
I agree, Artur, with one difference. I don't believe that most native speakers think, "it's your problem to understand" (although some do). I believe that most native speakers (who do not speak any other language) do not even REALIZE that it might be a problem for non-native speakers to understand. They simply have no experience or understanding of other languages. Unfortunately, the result is the same.
As a non native English speaker I prefer it when native English speakers treat me as an equal and assume I know everything they say. I get flattered. I don’t want them to change their speech when talking to me or treat me any differently.
Of course, there's the adage, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
It's not the most blithe subject in my nation right now.
It's like that with some native speakers when speaking to other native speakers. As with my union rep who moved from Yorkshire decades ago and deliberately uses idiom from there. Like, "I'll put my shirt on". I replied that he was already wearing a shirt.
He said it several times and also other idiom I wasn't familiar with. I asked what he meant, but he wouldn't answer my question, he just grinned. Without doubt the most irritating person I'd ever met. Which, I believe, is why he did it: just to be irritating because it made him feel important and not the inadequate, useless waste of space, face like a bell end, sack of shit he undoubtedly is.
If someone uses idiom they know you are unfamiliar with, then they are doing it deliberately.
It's like that for some native speakers too if a native speaker from another area insists on using idiom from that area he knows you are unfamiliar with. As with my union rep: moved from Yorkshire decades ago, but who constantly used Yorkshire idiom he knows I don't understand and refused to answer when I asked what he meant. Easily the most irritating person I've ever met in my life.
I am a German, when I moved to England back in the days I always appreciated and tried not to miss the Queen's speeches, for exactly the reasons you described in your presentation. I always had the feeling that her speech was written for me because I was able to understand everything a native speaker said.
She really did speak the Queen's English. 😉 Danke für Ihren Kommentar. Ich liebe die deutsche Sprache und übe sie jeden Tag ein bisschen.
Total tragedy that many generations suffered so much from the decision to not teach grammar, aside from absolute basics. Not least that millions of people grew up feeling stupid and less than because i for one, struggled to progress further than 2-3 yrs into any language learning. It's a real challenge to take on new concepts such as brit grammar in one's cintage rich years!! But I'm stepping up😊
Thanks for the comment. I agree with you about the importance of grammar. When I study a new language, I always want to understand the grammar. I know many people say that they just want to be able to speak and don't care about grammar; however, for me, grammar is the foundation of a language. It also gives important insights into the way people think and structure their ideas.
Im convinced it aids brain agility....
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking
Reminds me of a thing from when I lived in Normandy, France. One time I went out for drinks with a mixed crowd of Europeans and at some point I was saying something about Toronto to a French guy and he couldn't understand what place I was saying. I realized I was saying "Toro'no" - not pronouncing the second "t" as I do in my Northern Ontarian accent - and it cleared everything up immediately after I repeated myself by "correctly" saying Toronto. Being around non-native English speakers was a great experience, forces you to think more about how you say stuff.
I love that story because I lived for many years in Toronto (and I also lived many years in Sudbury). I have had the same experience. I do the same thing. For me, unless I pay attention, it comes out as “Trawna”.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking This is something that cannot happen in Italian. Italian is a very complex language except for the spelling: everyone will pronounce every single letter of any word ( and any letter pronounced ever in the same way). Maybe you cannot understand what a word mean but not how is it written. The main problem in Italy is that we speack natively many dialects that are very different from Italian
@@FrancoFaveroMille grazie, Franco. Mi piace tantissimo la lingua italiana. Provo di parlare o di leggere qualcosa in italiano ogni giorno.
I understand very well what you mean about dialects. When I was in my second year of high school, I chose Italian as an elective subject. I was nervous, because everyone else in my class had Italian heritage. The parents of all my friends were from Italy, and they all spoke Italian at home. I was the only non-Italian in the class.
However, in the end, I got the highest grade. I believe a big part of it was because all my friends at home spoke a dialect with their parents, and so they found some of the grammar rules learn in class challenging. I was “tabula rasa” and so just learned the principles as we covered them.
Now that I live in Switzerland, I am also very familiar with the wide variety of Swiss German dialects.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking You made a mistake ( due to the illogicity of Italian language) Provare regge "a" come particella;: "provo a fare qualcosa o prova a leggere quel libro"
@@FrancoFavero Grazie, Franco. Non so perché ma faccio questo errore (con "provere") spesso. Ci sono verbi per i quali la particella è facile (per me). Per esempio, "cominciare a". Ma ce ne sono altri che sono una sfida per me.
Brilliand speaker.
Every public figure in Canada should pass English language exam with this guy before they can start working in Government.
😂 I am not sure that that would be a good idea, but I very much appreciate the comment!
I worked as a service/installation engineer for a Brit company. Most of my work was overseas. On several occasions I was told (by faintly puzzled clients) that they could clearly understand every word I said, but that this was in sharp contrast to the other engineers that had visited their site from my company.
I realized then that the reason was simple. Being older and more experienced than most of the other engineers, I spoke carefully, making allowance for the fact that these were not native speakers. I didn't 'dumb it down', I just avoided using any slang and was careful with pronunciation, giving full value to words like 'library' or 'February' instead of slurring (libery and febrery).
It's interesting to hear the speaker in this lecture using the same technique.
Thank you for the comment and good for you on how you approached your conversations with non-native speakers. I particularly appreciate that you emphasized that you did not "dumb down" the language. I have always said that the people with whom I am speaking are at least as smart as me. However, because we are meeting on my "home turf" (English), I have an obligation to be careful with my speech.
I too travelled internationally to teach although, in my case, only in English. I had to learn the hard way to adapt my language for the audience, so you are definitely very correct about that need. In particular I found it was beneficial to be very clear when enunciating the final letter of words, which is good advice for native English speakers to any audience, of course.
About ten years ago, while I was presenting in Berlin, during a break, we touched on why we were using English - which was the business language of the company I was visiting.
The answer was provided by a native German speaker present: "We say that English is easy to learn, but hard to master. Whereas German is hard to learn, but easy to master."
Echoing your point precisely.
Thanks for the comment and the anecdote, Gray. You are write about seeing words through to their conclusion. Many native speakers, myself included, have a tendency to "swallow" the ends of our words or sentences.
When it comes to German, I am still in the "hard to learn" phase, although I am starting to have glimpses of the "easy to master" phase!
I am also fascinated by native English speakers who don't understand each others
Me too. When I went to Australia years ago, it took me a day or two to get used to the Aussie accent. Different parts of the UK can be very challenging for me. The Lancashire accent (think Manchester and Liverpool region) is a particular challenge when people speak fast.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking
I am American and I don't understand 50 percent of Americans. lol
Many people think that I am a foreigner because I rarely use contractions. But
It is just a habit I acquired working overseas and trying to be understood.
Oh, I always thought native speakers can handle the accent issue, LOL
@@handsomeman-pm9vy - Interesting. I understand. It does sound odd (to my ear at least) when a native speaker says, "It is not here" as opposed to "It's not here" even though the former is correct.
@@钟靖高 - Not at all. The English accent varies so much as one moves across the world or even across a single country.
Churchill was a really big advocate for the simplicity of language and that's why it was so hard to understand him speaking 🤣 The overall problem is that those 80% of non-native English speakers including myself where taught one of the 2 English accents: RP - the received pronunciation or the Standard American accent and those two accents are the most used accents on the news or any other media. However, once you come to any English speaking country you would realize there is a huge number of local dialects and accents where people are using glottal stop, t-flapping, twanging, shifting vowels or entirely omitting some sounds. After being an immigrant for almost 10 years and now the citizen of an English speaking country I still don't have an answer on how to break this gap. Listening to as many accents and dialects and some podcasts focusing on their peculiarities seem to help but even after that significant period of time I still occasionally meet some folks whom I can barely understand. After watching a Hot Fuzz comedy movie where there's a scene where the main character being a native speaker can't understand a dude from the West Country in England, I don't feel that bad when I can't understand someone 😆
Great comment and I feel your pain. I was in Chorley (Lancashire) for work a few years ago and I struggled mightily with the accent there. The day I arrived in the hotel, one of the housekeepers asked if I wanted a bottle of water and I had to ask her twice to repeat the question. She smiled and slowed it right down in very "proper" London accent: "Would-you-like-a-baw-til-of-wah-tur?"
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking😂😂😂
This is good advice for speech writing for a native English speaking audience also. I worked for a company that had Japanese customers. The work was technical and I issued apresentations in advance for our translators to review and come back with any questions.
Thank you. Yes, many of the tips would benefit any speech in any language.
What's funny is that when I speak to a native English speaker, I'd generally find their level of vocabulary, and eloquence in speech to be quite a bit more rudimentary compared to mine, or to my non native English speaking friends. Yet they excelled at using colloquial language and shortening sentences so as to not say much while conveying the same information. And they had what I'd describe as a wanton disregard for the rules of the language, especially if it got them to say what they wanted.
So I suppose the difference is we were trained to speak English by academics, while a native speaker is trained by the society. We're constrained by the structure of the language and try to conform our thoughts to the English language, while a native conforms the language to their thoughts.
Valid points. And while I can quickly revert to colloquial English when back in Canada with family and friends there, I do bemoan the general decline of English-at least as I perceive it. Social media and texting and reduced concentration-to read a book, for example-means that many people, especially young people, have not explored the extent to which the language can be stretched.
This presentation stands out as one of the highlights of 2024 for sure! As an Asian American, born in Taiwan and raised in the States, I appreciate the significant advantages I possess by being fluent in both Mandarin and English. Observing the challenges my immigrant friends and relatives face in understanding English reinforces this realization. The message of this presentation resonates deeply with me because I am passionate about clarity over eloquence. In many East Asian countries, including Taiwan, English education often prioritizes sophistication over comprehensibility. This phenomenon is characterized by an emphasis on complex vocabulary and grammar to demonstrate knowledge, rather than focusing on clear communication. I hope the Ministry of Education in Taiwan watches this and gains insight into the ineffective methods used to teach English in schools.
I appreciate the comment. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Very true - I used to work as a technical writing tutor helping graduate students with papers and journal articles. The Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean students tended to write in this extremely wordy, overly-technical style using lots of passive voice, verb nominalizations, and jargon - like an uneducated person’s idea of how a scientist might speak. “The measurement of the concentration was accomplished by utilization of the Palmer method” instead of just “We used the Palmer method to measure concentration”. I would challenge myself on how many unnecessary words I could trim from their papers. When we were done revising, sometimes the word count would shrink by almost half! Many of them told me that this was how they were taught to write in school.
@@modalmixture - Thank you for sharing that anecdote. I can imagine your level of frustration but good for you for helping them write more effectively in English. By the way, I recently learned the Korean alphabet. That is a fascinating story in itself. It was invented by one man - King Sejong in the 1400s - because he was concerned that most of his people could not read Korean (which used to be written using Chinese characters). Many of the letters are written to imitate the position of the mouth when making the related sound. You should look it up if you don't know the background; I think you would find it interesting.
I’m also Taiwanese educated in the US. My observation of the result of English language learning in Taiwan is that Taiwanese can read and sometimes write English at a high level, but they are terrified of speaking English in the fear that they’ll be outed as “bad at English”. The source of this seems to be an early focus in the post-WW2 period on technical and scientific applications of English, trying to build the economy and bring in new ideas. This resulted in a generation of Taiwanese who didn’t truly learn how to speak the language, but they could read scientific papers in English. From there it was the blind leading the blind, and subsequent generations of English education have not managed to cure this problem of fluency, but instead focus on correctness, like using the correct verb tense, spelling, subject-verb agreement, etc. This method of teaching is more akin to how Latin used to be taught. It results in students that can translate things to and from English from their native language, but have much more trouble producing English spontaneously in spoken or written form, resulting in this very stilted style of writing and fear of even attempting to speak it.
How to fix this? I don’t know. Of course the principle of comprehensible input applies, but the issues with the education are so systemic that it can be hard to know where to start. The issues also extend beyond English as a subject into the misplaced incentives for teachers, cram schools, and the experience that school teaches very little that is useful. And there is also the widespread mistaken concept that native speakers make better teachers even when they have no teaching experience.
@@paradoxmo Thank you for the comment and insights. I have a good friend (American) who is married to a Taiwanese and who lives in Taipei. I will share your comment with him to see what he thinks. Your comment draws attention to the importance of education being practical in addition to inspirational and creative.
Thank you John. I learned a lot and your pace and voice makes it so easy to follow. Also something native speakers should consider.
Much appreciated.
Your speech flows like a river
I have never been told that before! Thank you.
sixty years ago, the British education system changed the way English was taught, so that schools stopped teaching all formal study of English grammar. Since that day, every native speaker from an English school who wanted to learn a foreign language was handicapped.
Yes, I am a casualty of that stupid notion. Only discovered that calamity about a year ago, my bestie Greek friend has a far better knowledge of English grammar than I do!! Ridiculous bit then they're civilisation is the cradle of the world... I'm adapting and learning not to take everything personally- our language somehow introduces that concept- others don't as they are inflected and direct
The Indian , English language curriculum had Grammer as an 7:19 important part ( Wren and Martin ) . I am 75yo , I am appalled that Grammer is no longer taught .
Even leading English dailies have bad grammar and spelling.
So called new age English teaching methods have killed a once fine language. The Americans have totally fucked English, may be seeking revenge for being their rulers.
On phrasal verbs. The largest entry in the dictionary is the three letter word 'set'. Set off, up, to, set a table, a examination, jellymand cakes set, there are many many contextual uses of 'set'
Yes, “set” is a big little word.
The same is true for Swedish. Same verb and lots of postpositions giving the verb widely different meanings. The Finnish-speakers in particular find this bewildering as Finnish lacks postpositions almost entirely.
. . . set aN examination?
Another one is "get", apparently..
@@engraver3248 Indeed. "Get" can "get" complicated quickly.
As a native Slavic speaker I can just sign everything you have said about contractions and idioms. And, generally I agree that when the audience does not understand the speaker, it is the speaker's fault, so I am trying to follow this rule myself, i.e. to adapt my speech to the audience.
Thank you for your comment. I find Slavic languages fascinating. I only know a very little bit of Russian but am working to expand my knowledge of it. And you are 100% correct about the speaker having the obligation to make himself or herself understood.
Yeah, as a Russian and an English learner for all my life, phrasal verbs are a scourge. My tutor at university said that from her experience English people could speak in phrasal verbs all the way and she wouldn't understand half of what they were saying.
I only realized the complexity of phrasal verbs when I began working at the United Nations. Most native speakers who have never worked in an international setting are oblivious to their complexity.
Good advice for written English too. The sign in the lift at my local library starts 'In the event of entrapment .....' Time I said something about it and got it changed!
Very true. Some of the signs that I have seen make me shake my head.
Great speech! I will be taking lessons from this talk into my life and career
Thank you! Glad you found it useful.
All these skills are helpful for communicating to native speakers too.
I am a native speaker from the U.K. When in my early 20’s I went to the USA and one day I was having a conversation with an older American man. I remember trying to explain something to him and used an idiom, assuming he would know it. He didn’t. He asked for clarification which I did using another idiom. I think this went on for a while, with me using different British colloquialisms to explain the last one, and in the end gave up. For some reason I couldn’t find the vocabulary to express what I wanted in any other way.
Very true. Many of these ideas are useful when communicating to native speakers.
Interesting. I've heard that in-jokes are very common in British English, not so many people understand it if they are not immersed in British culture. Maybe it works the same way with British idioms😊
@@engraver3248 The first time I went to London, I went and saw the play The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾. There were times when the actors would say something and the audience would roar with laughter. I understood the words, but not the meaning.
WoW, even I’m Germany and still learning everyday: I did understand much more than if I listened to other presentations like this. Thank you very much. 💐
I’m exited to see and learn more of you. 😊
Vielen Dank! Tatsächlich habe ich gerade meinen Deutschunterricht für heute beendet!
You are totally right. As an non native English speaker, I always understand much more English to non native speakers, no matter from where they are, than i do for native speakers
Thank you, Raul. I hope that a few native speakers try to use some of the tips that I have suggested. It will be better for them and for their audiences.
Thats because non-natives speak more slowly, a majority are borderline B1 and tend not to use fillers between sentences like we do. You need to practice conversation more with native speakers to improve your fluency skills.
@@200KCycling - I don't know how many are B1 or not, but I agree that many non-native speakers do speak more slowly. And yes, more conversation can only improve one's language skills.
My friend speaks English so badly that I have to turn into dumb mode if I want him to understand me ("yesterday I go....") and this habit tends to stick! So however comfortable it seems to talk to non-natives I would suggest talking to native speakers instead as much as possible.
For me, it 's the OPPOSITE.
Quando, nos EUA, eu tentei falar o mais perfeitamente possível para evitar desencontros, interpretações equivocadas no que se referia à semântica, as pessoas indagavam se eu estava zangado. Eu não consegui explicar isso porque meus interlocutores agiam com se inglês fosse a única língua em uso no mundo inteiro.
Obrigado, Fernando. Unfortunately, many people have little or no interaction with people from other cultures and so it is difficult for them to relate.
This video is so spot-on it is a summary of how to interact in English, thanks for sharing, great content.
Appreciate the comment. Thank you.
This presenter is incompetent in linguistics & teaching English. The English spelling system is the most difficult to learn of all Western spelling systems. Even native speakers are challenged & take years to do what Italians & Finnish grade 1 can master in less than 1 year: the ability to DECODE & ENCODE ALL or ANY words in their language (and decode any book). The research was done by Seymour & link can be found on my channels community note (as well as a petition).
Since I am working and living oversee over twenty years, I had to adjust my english to be more simple and understandable to the collegs and who I am dealing with, therefore my english been limited and different,I noticed back on2019 when I was in LA.(Los Angles) the young latino sales lady asked me if I am foreigner? I said why? She said I am using english book, meaning someone just learned english by study.
From there I found out that my english have been changed, I am not saying is good or bad, just saying your experience is real.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
As someone learning English as a second language, I strive to learn diligently, although I encounter difficulties and setbacks. Your video makes me feel better. I came across Immersive Translate through comments by RUclipsrs, and it seems fascinating. I plan to test it out, aiming to achieve notable improvement in this field.
Thank you. I am glad that you found it helpful. I can empathize with your approach to learning languages. I still struggle with certain concepts in other languages that I speak. But, as you say, the journey is fascinating. Good luck!
This presenter is incompetent in linguistics & teaching English. The English spelling system is the most difficult to learn of all Western spelling systems. Even native speakers are challenged & take years to do what Italians & Finnish grade 1 can master in less than 1 year: the ability to DECODE & ENCODE ALL or ANY words in their language (and decode any book). The research was done by Seymour & a link can be found on my channel's community note (as well as a petition).
I am a native English speaker (American) and I used to travel a lot in my job. When in the airport in a foreign country, I would frequently meet by chance with other native English speakers. Inevitably, we would chat about everyday things, and it was quite humorous to have the participants, including myself, use colloquialisms in the conversation that we would then have to explain the meaning of to the group. Example, I would say “We would leave early at the end of the game so that we would beat the crowd”. Frequently, I would have to explain what “beating the crowd” meant. A British couple I met in Spain once had to explain to me what they meant when they described someone who was arrested for “pinching” a woman’s purse. So even amongst native English speakers, clear communication can be challenging.
Great examples! And yes, it is true that native English speakers from different parts of the world frequently have difficulty understanding what the other party has said. Living in Geneva, a multinational city given the presence of the United Nations here, I have had the benefit of speaking with native English speakers from all over the world, And so my level of comprehension has increased dramatically.
I love listening to native speakers from different countries speaking to each other being non-native speaker myself. That's the most interesting part when you guys have to translate English to English.😊
Here are more detailed examples of each phonological process in British English:
1. **Concatenation**:
- **Example 1**: "Take it" - The /k/ sound at the end of "take" blends smoothly into the /ɪ/ sound of "it," pronounced together as /ˈteɪkɪt/.
- **Example 2**: "Hold on" - The /d/ sound at the end of "hold" connects seamlessly with the /ɒ/ sound of "on," resulting in /həʊldɒn/.
2. **Elision**:
- **Example 1**: "Library" - Often pronounced /ˈlaɪbri/ instead of /ˈlaɪbrəri/, dropping the second /r/.
- **Example 2**: "Suppose" - The /ə/ sound in the middle can be dropped in rapid speech, making it /spəʊz/ instead of /səˈpəʊz/.
3. **Intrusion**:
- **Example 1**: "Law and order" - An intrusive /r/ may appear between "law" and "and," making it /lɔːr ənd ɔːdə/.
- **Example 2**: "Drawing" - In some British accents, an intrusive /r/ can appear between "draw" and "ing," pronounced as /ˈdrɔːrɪŋ/.
4. **Assimilation**:
- **Example 1**: "Good boy" - The /d/ sound in "good" may change to a /b/ sound to match the /b/ in "boy," making it /ɡʊb bɔɪ/.
- **Example 2**: "Have to" - The /v/ sound in "have" can assimilate to the /t/ sound in "to," resulting in /ˈhæftə/ instead of /hæv tə/.
These examples illustrate how phonological processes work to make speech more fluid and natural in everyday conversation.
Thank you for taking the time to give us some great example. I studied the phonological process when learning French and I found it very helpful.
I'm a translator (X to English), and these are essential techniques to learn if you want to produce intelligible, cohesive, and coherent texts or speeches. I don’t know why, but the English language seems to prefer the passive voice about 90% of the time. So, I often find myself converting sentences from passive to active voice. Also, keep your sentences as short as possible to avoid confusion; one or two subordinate or coordinate clauses are enough. Choose short, simple words instead of long, complex ones, and avoid repeating the same terms too close to each other. Use synonyms. For example, if you say "when talking to your public" and need to use "public" again with the same meaning, you can replace it with "audience" or use pronouns to refer to a previously mentioned term. Avoid idioms, slangs, lingos, and so on.
Thank you for the tips and insights. As a translator, you have invaluable experience.
I have been a British native English speaker for almost 75 years. I once met an American ( English) speaker, during my many years as a taxi driver. My American passenger was extremely surprised that we actually spoke English in England (I remarked that the clue was in the name of the country)
It's impossible, I'm sure you're lying 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
As farfetched as that sounds, I have heard stranger things.
As an American, I'm not at all surprised. One of John's points about traveling resonated with me, and I dare say that many fellow Americans do not have that luxury, or, if they do, many do not take advantage of the opportunity, so that when they are in places like England, they may be surprised to discover we're all speaking the same language.
@@ajs11201 - Thanks for the comment. Traveling is a game changer in so many ways. It opens one's mind linguistically, culturally, geographically, historically and in many other ways.
I tell my students (learning English as a second or other language) that the reason students should try to get a better level than most British people, is that we (Native speakers) "should" have enough knowledge to rearrange the foreigners English. Whereas when a person learns English as a foreign language and they speak to another learning English as a foreign language, neither may not have the ability to make such automatic adjustmens. @@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking
This reminds me of something that happened when I was an undergraduate at Liverpool University. One of the lecturers had criticised the grammar of one of the students. The student complained, saying he was a scientist, not a literary student. The lecturer said something along the lines of "You can do the best, most wonderful, most significant science experiment and analysis in the world, but if you cannot communicate that clearly to other people then you have wasted your time". Very true - English is a wonderful communication tool, it can be very ambiguous (useful in some forms of literature and comedy) but also it can be very precise. The latter does take some effort, but it is worth it.
Thanks for the comment, Steve. You are right ... the effort is worth the result. And what your lecturer said reminds me of something that Lee Iacocca, the former CEO of Chrysler said: "You can have the greatest ideas in the world, but if you cannot get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere."
The English language, due to the too frequent use of frasal verbs, sounds like strange slang or rural speech. However, official speech is clear and understandable thanks to the frequent use of French vocabulary. Simplified English grammar does not always make it easier to understand either. I have been speaking Polish since birth. It is a language in which we conjugate literally everything, including verbs and nouns. In English, sentences here and there are constructed so simply and without inflections that they seem incorrect, as if they are missing something, and thus create confusion in my head. In addition to English, I also speak Spanish, Italian, French and German at an intermediate level. And even though I know English incomparably better than other languages, I noticed that I think faster and more freely in Spanish, Italian or French than in English. Sentences in Spanish or Italian are simply created in my head without much effort, while in English I have to remember patterns of different sentences and say them as they are, even when they seem to make no sense.
Thank you for the detailed comment. Dziękuję bardzo!
I have several Polish friends and have been to Poland many times for work and pleasure. I know how complex your language is. I believe-and correct me if I am wrong-that you have 7 cases! I learned German on my own and for a long time I found 4 cases challenging. (Side note: I later studied Arabic and it has the same four cases as German and I found that German was a great help in understanding them quickly.)
As for simplified grammar being difficult, I will share the same comment that I made to another person on this thread: I suspect that part of the challenge might come from phrasal verbs; i.e., taking a simple verb and then adding a simple word to it. Those two simple words can often create an entirely different meaning.
Take the word "get" for example. You can add many other simple words to "get" and the result is a completely different meaning: get ahead, get along, get around to, get back, get back at, get back to, get behind, get on, get out, get over, get through, get together ... I could go on, but you "get" the idea!
Thanks for adding to the discussion.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking English can be confusing for me because it has a different structure than other languages. I have been living in the UK for over 25 years and I still have problems with English, especially in difficult situations that require quick thinking. I often make mistakes that take a while to realise. I have problems with correct spelling, so I often use electronics for help. When I need to write formal letters, I always ask my son for help. My son was born in the UK and is currently at university. It's good to have someone at home who is fluent in the language so they can correct you. I am a language lover and have been learning languages as a hobby for many years. Romance languages come to Poles' minds intuitively because they have a lot in common with Polish. Sometimes it's enough for me to analyse Polish sentences to deduce, for example, Italian or Spanish ones. It's interesting that other languages use, for example, the subjunctive form or the future tense, just like we do in Polish. Thanks to this, I feel intuitively when I should use it and, above all, I understand the logic of it. Some forms come to me naturally. However, English is different. I have to remember entire phrases and I don't necessarily understand the logic of the language. I often say something just because I know it's the right thing to say, even though I don't know why. And analysing and comparing it to Polish does not help, it only complicates it. What is fascinating is that while learning other languages, I learned a lot about Polish. I see things in Polish that I had not seen before. By the way, sometimes I dream that someone is speaking to me fluently in another language, and in the morning I wonder how my brain can create a character who is fluent in a language that I consciously cannot speak fluently. Strange. Is it possible that my brain subconsciously knows languages better than I realise? Kind regards.
[ Putting this here, because it seems to be more relevant within @thestuff1014 's comment: ]
Sooooooo... it may sound provocative, but why aren't non-native speakers taught actual English instead of simplified, filtered and diluted "language" used during courses and within textbooks, even on advanced levels?
I'm not saying that legalese is the "proper" language, but colloquialisms seem to be part and parcel of a language, that seems to be omitted in teaching and hampers communication with native speakers. Of course, I can expect a speaker giving a presentation to adapt his language for a multinational audience, but I can't expect it from most people I'll interact with in an English speaking country outside the lecture room!
Glad to hear you mentioned phrasal verbs! I think that the mere distinguishing them in teaching is a grave mistake. They are always put in separate boxes, treated as "advanced" or "optional" material that discourages students from learning them. They are not "phrasal verbs", they are _just_ natural w o r d s with their separate meanings one simply has to learn. "Phrasal verb" seems to be a purely descriptive grammar distinction (the irony!)
And I'm saying all this as a non-native speaker (also from Poland), who also knows other languages and feels more comfortable in them despite knowing them worse.
@@kimswabek - Dziękuję bardzo! I have been to Poland several times and love the country.
You raise valid questions concerning the teaching of English with which I agree. However, if I have an important message for my audience, I am more concerned about making sure that they understand instead of challenging their grasp of English.
As for phrasal verbs, I have to disagree with you. They are indeed a special linguistic construct in English. As Fowler notes in his classic "Modern English Usage" Samuel Johnson in the preface to his dictionary in 1755 wrote, "There is another kind of composition more frequent in our language than perhaps any other, from which arises to foreigners the greatest difficulty. We modify the signification of many verbs by a particle subjoined ..." He then gives a number of examples.
I think it critical for people who learn English as a foreign language to grasp this rather unique concept.
Thanks for adding to the discussion!
Amazing video. These are things I’ve thought about over the past couple years and it’s amazing to see what I already knew was part of English (but never had the words to explain) be explained so clearly and eloquently. You’re an amazing public speaker, and you’ve earned a sub from me
I very much appreciate the comment, Leonardo. If you are Italian-just a guess based on your name-allora mille grazie! I am glad that you enjoy the video, and thank you for subscribing.
Thank you so much, professor.
Thank you for the comment.
As a non native English speaker who has been speaking English for almost three decades, I applaud this perfectly delivered speech!
One minor exception based on my personal in Latin America. I was in a small town in the Andes in Peru and I told my guide that the town was so charming. My guide spoke good English but he didn’t necessarily have a big vocabulary. He asked me what charming meant. Instead of trying to explain the word in a convoluted way, I just said “enchanting”, and he immediately understood, although it’s a more complex word for me, whose native language is Chinese. But since his native language was Spanish, words with Latin roots would be easier to understand than Anglo Saxon words.
OK, you may argue that charming and enchanting are not necessarily interchangeable. But I think they are sufficiently similar for this situation.
Thank you for the "charming" comment! I appreciate the story. And yes, there are always exceptions, especially when the complex English world is close to the same word in the other language. Here we have enchanting (English) and encantador (Spanish).
I really appreciate your speech and sympathy with non-native English speakers like me. Most non-native speakers around me approach English via the IELTS test which always prefers "Initially" to "Beginning" =)))
Thank you, Linh. I am glad that you found it helpful.
Sometimes longer words are actually better because they are more likely to have a cognate in the language of the audience. Of course this applies mostly to Romance languages and non-Romance European languages that have a lot of Latin and Greek loanwords.
"Carry out" - confusion
"Implement" - "oh, implementare!"
True, in some cases. Your example of "carry out" is also a perfect example of a phrasal verb that can cause confusion given that "carry" alone means something completely different.
I thought I spoke English at an almost native level,.... Then i travelled to Liverpool.....
Don't feel bad. English is my mother tongue and I had trouble understanding people when I was in Lancashire not far from Liverpool.
Dialect and pronunciation are quite different in different areas. I speak as an East Midlander.
@@postiepaul - I am constantly fascinated by the wide variety of accents in an area that is as small as the UK and Ireland.
I'm British. It's English Jim, but not as we know it.
@@philipcurnow7990 - I see what you did there! 👍
GREAT speech and GREAT SPEAKER! Thank you!
Thank you very much! 🙏
Speaking English allows you to express tremendously complex ideas using exclusively words with Germanic roots, sounding almost like an Anglo-Saxon ancestor. Or if you prefer, give a touch of romance to your speech using only words of Latin origin. That is certainly the aspect I like most about English. My native language is Spanish but I also speak German, so I can clearly differentiate the origin of English words. Thanks for sharing this talk.
Thank you for comment and insight, Pablo. Muchas gracias!
The Latin largely came through French in British English, whereas American English has been influenced by Spanish and Italian speaking immigrants. Similarly, British English picked up numerous words from the Indian subcontinent.
Germanic substrate theory. Proto Germanic prob. originated by mixing an indogermanic dialect with dialects of farmers and some huntergatherers. Within germanic there are words that are prob. not indogermanic. King, koning, kong, König. Ship, skip, schip, Schiff. Sea, See, Zee, sjő etc. Linguists do not always agree. In the Bronze age there was a battle in the north of Germany, Mecklenburg Vorpommern near a small river. One group with bronze weapons, the other one's with stone weapons. The bronze people probably spoke an Indoeuropean dialect.
I m from Bangladesh. I love U because your English is easy, understandable and I'm try to learning English with fluency from yor channel.
Thank you so much. I wish you much success with your English.
This is such a great talk. John, you explain so well what it's like to work in an international and multicultural organisation. (Speaking from almost 20 years of EU experience here.) It takes effort not to get trapped inside the bubble - especially when it comes to jargon. As a former, long-time conference interpreter, I also really appreciated what you had to say about how speakers can team up with interpreters for successful communication across languages. It's a topic I had the opportunity to talk about at an earlier ESN conference, and the community was very open about it, which I loved.
Many thanks, Alexander. Given your experience at the EU as an interpreter, I value your insights.
For 12 years I organised a language exchange group in the large Andalucian village where I live. It was to help Spanish learners of English and English speaking immigrants learning Spanish gain practice and thus confidence in listening and speaking. Formal classes dont afford enough time. Especially for the Spanish to hear spoken English.
As our Spanish members advanced in their studies it became obvious to me that I needed more professional skills in order to be able to answer the questions on more complicated uses especially the multiple meanings of several common words. (Bow is a simple example. This also brings in other complications such as bough.) So I did a teaching English as a foreign language course. It does help.
But Spanish has also 2 words for the same concept eg to understand. Sonetimes there are subtle differences at others not. As they (in)famously have 2 words for "to be". Each used in different circumstances. The rules are not always logical.
Plus not all words ending in 'a' are feminine. Its to do with their having an 'm' as in el problema.
I learned French and Latin at my UK grammar school. We had daily lessons. I dont recall any special problems but back then we also learned grammar in our daily English lessons from age 5 or 6. So terminology wasnt a problem. I have met a man in his 50s learning Spanish, whose UK education did not include grammar, who did not know the common words such as noun or verb. Adverb or adjective. He hadnt needed them to be a carpenter.
Thanks for sharing part of your linguistic journey, Helen. Yes, each language has its peculiarities. Because I speak French and Italian, I can understand a lot in Spanish and I understand the distinction between "see" and "estar"! English pronunciation and spelling are nightmare. When we switched our daughters (who were fluent English speakers) from the all-French local school to the bilingual programme in the International School, their initial writing lessons were a sea of red ink. Why "head" but "heat"? Why "dose" but "nose" and "lose"? Then there is the dreaded "ough" as you have noted.
Every time I have learned a language, I have wanted to understand the grammar. I know that many people don't, but for me, it is a critical part of the learning process.
An interesting presentation, John!
Thanks, Julie!
I have been a teacher since 1977. A heartfelt thankyou for the reminder.
Thanks, Douglas. Glad to help. You are doing important work.
Very interesting. I teach English and the more I do, the more I realise how easy English can be to learn to get by but how difficult it is to speak well. I live in Spain so can relate to all of the misunderstandings and over complications you mentioned.
Kind regards!
Thank you for the comment. Muchas gracias!
in fact, the language spoken in an informal, relaxed conversation is different from the language spoken in a lecture. There are so-called reductions and connected speeches that make understanding difficult as they form new sounds. this occurs in every language around the world. Congratulations on the lecture, congratulations from Brazil.
Muito obrigado! You are right about the context in which the language is being spoken having an impact on that language.
The quote is from George Bernard Shaw, Churchill 'retweeted' it.
Yes, I know, thank you. Someone in the audience told me afterwards. I am pretty good with quote checking, but every now and then, something slips through. There are always things to improve.
Amazingly helpful video!!!
I interpret services at my church into American Sign Language for my deaf friends. I wish I watched this video 40 years ago. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Laura. Congratulations for the important work that you are doing. A few years ago, I ate at a restaurant in Toronto with my family. Except for the woman who greeted diners at the entrance, everyone who worked there was deaf. Menus had diagrams of the signs for every dish. You could order by pointing or have a go at sign language. We all used sign language (poorly to be sure). It is a wonderful way to introduce people to an important method of communication.
As a German, I live in Sri Lanka and was shocked when in a conversation with an upper-class native-English speaking Sri Lankan over 40 (Burgher) the word "aristocrat" wasn't known to her. Another friend, a degree holder, didn't know the term "decadence". Suggestions: 1) don't brag with exotic academia words; 2) try to make your point in humanistic philosophy (as an example) by using kindergarten vocabulary; 3) repeat relevant information twice using fresh synonyms and sentence structure.
Interesting story and solid tips. The advantage of a private conversation is that the listener will (usually) ask if they don't understand a word. Your third tip is particularly relevant for speakers on a stage. I sometimes will say, "In Canada, we say ..." and then use the jargon or expression but immediately follow it with an explanation in simple words.
I'm an interpreter with 40 years' experience interpreting both into and out of English in Europe. I am a native speaker of English myself and while I agree with some of what you say about native English speakers not adapting to their non-native audiences, I don't agree with everything in your talk.
Things I do agree with are:
The importance of clear articulation, avoidance of idioms, slang, puns, excessive jargon, national or regional colloquialisms and cultural references (all of which vary among the core English-speaking nations anyway), and - especially - obfuscation. I particularly agree wholeheartedly with the main message of "think of your audience". I think you would appreciate "The Complete Plain Words" by Sir Ernest Gowers. His motto if I remember correctly was "be clear, be human".
Things I do not agree with:
The clickbaity and untrue statement that native speakers of English cannot speak English (this leads to many misunderstandings and an unhealthy snobbery and inverse snobbery); trying to make things too simple (which can cost nuance); the avoidance of phrasal verbs.*
*) Phrasal verbs are a core feature of all Germanic languages. Since you understand German you will appreciate the multiple differences of meaning in anfahren, auffahren, einfahren, umfahren, überfahren, ausfahren, unterfahren, in their literal and metaphorical uses.
Finally, in my experience, the key is not just to think of your audience, but to know your audience.
Thanks for the taking the time to leave such a thoughtful and comprehensive comment, Alice. I very much appreciate it. A few things:
1. I have heard of Gowers and his book but have never investigated the man or his writing. I will do so now.
2. Yes, the title is "clickbaity" - hey, one has to get views when one is an independent consultant - but it was more tongue-in-cheek and definitely not intended to be snobbish or provoke snobbery.
3. On making things simple, I agree. Too much simplicity, like too much of anything, is not good. It reminds me of Albert Einstein's instruction: "Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler."
4. On phrasal verbs, while I agree that we should not avoid them entirely - and, as a native speaker, I cannot avoid them because they just come out naturally - I still maintain that they are a challenge for non-native speakers. While I don't have your experience as an interpreter, I do have 25+ years experience working on a daily basis with people who are not mother-tongue English (including 17 years in the United Nations) and I know from speaking with them that phrasal verbs are often confusing. They have said as much to me.
The reason, in my view, is because the construction of phrasal verbs in English tends to involve putting two simple words together to create an entirely different meaning. Your German example of ***fahren is a case in point. Yes, each of the words has a different meaning, but they are all related to the idea of driving or moving. "Fahren" is the anchor. Compare that with English where a phrasal verb has two or more words. Example: get ahead, get along, get behind, get over, get back at, etc. "Get" does not have the same anchor status as "fahren".
5. On the audience, absolutely. You should know your audience, which means that you HAVE thought about them and will be able to think about them as you design and deliver your presentation.
Thanks again.
English is my native language. A few years ago I taught myself Russian, and now I can speak and understand it well. It was after I learned a second language when I realized just how unorganized and informal English words can be. English pronunciation is an entirely different subject that is even more confusing because it's so unpredictable. Although I can't fully understand what new english speakers are struggling with, I can understand that its not easy.
Thanks for the comment, Michael. Yes, that's a fair description. As for pronunciation, English is a mess. Why "head" but "heat"? Why "dose" but "nose" and "lose"? And then there are 10 or 12 ways to write the sound "sh". And don't get me started on "ough"! 😂
PS - Good for you with Russian. I am just getting into it now and very much enjoying the language.
Ohmy, as a native Russian speaker I find English extremely organized 😁😁 Russian stress or endings dependent on 3 genders, it is something, I guess))
And read George Orwell's essay 'Politics and the English Language'.
Indeed I have. Everyone should. I wrote a post about it years ago: mannerofspeaking.org/2011/06/28/sound-advice-from-george-orwell/
I am a technical writer. John Zimmer has just outlined the fundamental principles of my profession. (I’m also a native speaker of Australian English, who has learned and taught several languages, so I’m very familiar with the problems that John describes.)
Thanks for the comment, Noel. Good on ya, mate. She’ll be right. (I would never say “mate” if I were speaking. With my Canadian accent it just sounds bizarre!)
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking Thanks, mate! I’ve also had the reverse situation happen to me when talking or giving a training session. After so many years of keeping my writing clear and concise, I used to leave out a lot of the ‘filler’ words and expressions, in my speech, and I found that native speakers often missed much of what I was saying. Expressions we avoid in writing like “nowadays”, “you often find that…” and so on, can be handy to help native speakers navigate through what you’re saying and give them time to process the important information. These, of course, are not required by non-native speakers, who just need a well-placed pause here and there.
Great presentation, John! I agree 100% it's so important for native speakers to prioritize clarity and make adjustments to ensure understanding. Also, cultural references, idioms, and sports references should be used sparingly and with consideration for non-native audiences, as they may not be familiar with the context or meaning behind them.
Thanks, Patricia. It is very hard to do when one is speaking one's mother tongue, but very important as well. Cultural references are OK, but only if you then take the time to explain them. And time is often a challenge when delivering a talk or presentation.
"cultural references, idioms, and sports references should be used sparingly and with consideration for non-native audiences" - as a non-native speaker I kindly disagree. I wouldn't consider that English, I call that world English. Pretty useful, no doubt about it, but deadly dull.
@@frankgradus9474 - The problem with idioms and sports reference, in my experience, is that native speakers throw them out without explanation and the non-native speaking audience is left confused. So, if you are going to use an idiom or sports reference in front of a non-native audience, you should explain what it means.
Thank you so much for this video! What you stated about phrasal verbs is so accurate. I teach linguistics and language acquisition to primarily native English speaking students and ESL to nonnative speakers of English. I showed this video to the former last month and it really hit home. I plan to show this (and perhaps even use it for a summary and response assignment) to future students. Thank you for helping me to teach English better.
Thank you for the comment. I very much appreciate it. Feel free to use anything you find on my channel or my website - www.mannerofspeaking.org - if it helps with your classes. I just ask that you provide attribution. Best of luck with the important work that you are doing!
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking Will do. Thanks!
Great presentation. Thank you.
Much appreciated. Thank you.
Gracias.... I really enjoyed it..
Thank you... so true everything you explained.. thanks..
Greets from Argentina.
Muchas gracias! Glad you enjoyed it. I went to Argentina for work a few years ago. I very much enjoyed Buenos Aires. 🇦🇷👍
I'm still trying to understand what his encounter with a light bulb was. For a second I thought maybe he changed a light bulb very quickly, but his hand gesture suggests he had a light bulb stuck to his head and he removed it! 🤣🤣🤣
😂 Another example of a native speaker (me) not being clear for a non-native audience.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking I used to teach English as a second language and learned to use the same techniques you mentioned in the video.
"A light bulb moment" caught my ear because that's the type of expression that would get my students confused.
I learned to look at English from the perspective of the students, and adapted my language depending on the students' level.
Simple expressions like "how come?" can be confusing.
I've heard people answer that with, "I come by bus."
@@mythai05 Great example and yes, expressions like "light bulb" moment slip out of my mouth all the time as I am just so used to them. I do try to remain aware of them and if some jargon comes out and I realize it, I will immediately explain what the term I just said means.
As a Persian, I personally think that English is easier for me eather than Arabic. Though Arabic and Peraian have the same alphabet, Arabic is really hard
Yes, Arabic is a challenge. I was glad that I could speak it when I visited your country because I was able to understand a lot of the signs that I saw. I hope to return to Iran one day. Beautiful country. I wish the geopolitical situation were better.
A lot of native English speakers need to watch this. I've taught ESL for over 20 years and I still have to be conscious about what I am saying to students. Non ESL teachers in international settings often don't moderate their language. Yet, many of them look down upon ESL speakers.
I also watch a lot of true crime and I get so frustrated with "police speak". They always opt for a longer,, more complicated word than a simpler one. Not sure why. Do they think it makes them appear more intelligent?
BTW , my most hated word is "literally".
Thank you for the comment. And I feel your pain concerning the word “literally“.
Thanks for the hand 🖐️ movements. They really helped.
👋👍🙏
Merci de comprendre ma difficulté à écouter et suivre un discours englais.
Merci à vous. J'apprécie votre commentaire.
I'm glad to learn the presentation skills you are teaching. Thanks.
Thank you, Albert.
I'm catalan and I work for an international company.
Many times we do international meetings with colleagues from all around Europe, and we talk in English.
Any problem to understand all kind of accents, from everywhere.
But, everytime an English person comes, that person look at us as if he would be listening klingon.
The difference is that we understand him so well.
My conclusion is that international english has become a different language than original english
Thank you for the comment. Gràcies. (I often work in Barcelona so I know a little bit about the Catalan culture 👍). Your comment about international English is one that several people have made. As a native speaker, it is hard for me to assess. But to your point about English people thinking you speak Klingon (😂), I think that in many cases, it is because such people don't speak any other language and / or have limited experience speaking with those whose English is not mother tongue.
"Less is more" works in lots if aspects, not just in speeches: whether it's a book, a programming code, or schematics for a new home. Do not forget to optimize your work, check for abundant parts. Helps a lot.
I once saw an Australian trying to get a fruit juice from locals in Thailand - he was trying to be as clear and polite as possible, though his struggle to reduce his fluent English to simple phrases was almost physical. It seems much easier for me as a non-native English speaker to talk to other non-native speakers it situations like this.
I love what Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (who wrote The Little Prince") said: "Perfection is not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away."
I'm an English learner and at the beginning it was so hard then I understood that there are formal and spoken English and this helped me to focus my effort to learn both of them, nowadays I found English language like a good experience.
Thanks for the comment, Bart. I’m glad that you are enjoying English now. What is your mother tongue?
Wow, what a wonderful talk. As an ESL teacher who also teaches Maritime English (English for special purposes) I totally agree with him.
English is like learning to play the musical instrument, the recorder, very easy to learn basic tunes, but extremely difficult to master on a professional level.
He makes all the valid points that I myself have observed over the years as a teacher of adult students, who are not native speakers of English.
In fact, for most of them, English was their second foreign language. I’m a native speaker of English, Danish, and Swedish and I’ve worked as a simultaneous translator as well. Once, I had to translate for a Swedish scientist who gave his presentation in English. It was a bit of a disaster. His pronunciation was poor, but worse, he spoke in a very low, monotonous voice making it difficult to understand and translate. Now if he had spoken in his native Swedish language, it would have been much easier for me as the translator.
I often refer to Churchill’s line: separated by a common language, because there are some ghastly pitfalls which can cause confusion, misunderstandings and considerable embarrassment if used among the wrong English speaking crowd.
British English speakers are more familiar with American English expressions due to all the films, tv series, music etc. but most Americans are not familiar with a lot of specific phrases in British English. F.ex. almost every gadget or piece on a car has a different word in British English or American English: windshield, windscreen, hood, bonnet, trunk, boot, glove compartment, chubby box, transmission, gearbox, etc. etc.
French fries in the US are chips in Britain, but chips in the US are crisps in Britain. A cookie in the US is a biscuit in Britain, but in the US it’s a savory cracker.
And some of the embarrassing stuff: a rubber in Britain is an eraser in the US, but a rubber in the US is a slang expression for a condom.
In the US to be spunky means someone who is high spirited and brave. In the UK, it is a slang expression for being stained or covered in semen. Heard about a high level business meeting between a group of Americans and a group of British people.
A man on the American team told the lead British negotiator, who was a woman, that he admired her because she “had a lot of spunk”. The very shocked and silent expressions on the faces of the British group left the Americans dumbfounded. They didn’t know what was wrong. To them he had given the woman a compliment. Neither group understood the meaning of “spunk” in the “other language”.
Idioms are another huge stumbling block for English learners. As native speakers we use them all the the time, but even we don’t know all the more than three thousand idioms out there, and even learning fifty to a hundred of them is a challenge for a non-native speaker.
Thank you for such a detailed comment. I very much appreciate it. Your examples made me laugh, even though I knew almost all of them. ("Chubby box" was a new one for me.) The "spunk" story reminds me of another example ... In North America, to root for a team means to cheer for it. The famous "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" song has the line "And we'll root, root, root for the home team ...". Australians double over laughing at this because in Australia, "to root" means to have sex.
One's ego interferes with the use of simple words thus comprimising clarity 🤔
Many people think that if they use simple words, they will look dumb, but that is not the case. Yes, complex words are necessary, but simple words can be the most powerful.
Super interesting! Tip number 11 is my favorite. 😊 Thanks for sharing and greetings from Israel.
Thank you, Iana. Shalom.
Very happy I randomly stumbled upon this video
They way I see it with double words basically having the same underlying meaning like "brief summary" or "new innovation" is that it adds emphasic.
I say that because I'm learning japanese and this kind of structure to emphasis something is very common, which to be fair, confused me a lot at the beginning of my journey.
But how are you suppost to learn it when you avoid it. Language is all about understand most things on a wimp
Thanks for the comment. We will have to disagree on redundant words, at least in English. As for learning English, I am all for people becoming comfortable with the different things I mention in the talk. But when I am the speaker, my priority is to make sure that they understand me. I am not there to give them an English lesson.
What surprises me with native English speakers is how difficult they find it to understand us non natives. I ve had plenty of great conversations with people from all over Europe always successfully (even when their English is bad) but being able to communicate with natives is a hit or miss for me
Efcharisto for the comment. I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes it's because the English speakers have had little or no experience speaking with "foreigners"; sometimes it's just laziness. I admit that I have had the privilege of working in the United Nations and now live in Europe, so I have had lots of exposure to different accents when people speak English.
As an American, I've been guilty of this. I've talked about having college professors I couldn't understand when in fact the international students didn't have as many problems understanding as I did.
@@hezekiahthompson6817 I've been guilty of the same things and I often do some of them without thinking because it is so natural for me. But I am much more aware of it these days.
Language is a bridge in communication, understanding the point each other should be priority in communication.
A bridge is an excellent metaphor.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking thanks for your reply, your presentation is very distinguished, your experiences in dealing with language and cultural barrier help us a lot. I love learning different languages and cultures, by the way English is my third language, I still think in my first language then I use my second language to translate to English.
@@l0g1c4lth1nk1ng Well done. What are your first two languages?
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking my first language is Javanese, my second language is Bahasa Indonesia. Indonesia is the 4th most populous country in the world, it has 17500 islands, 1340 ethnic groups, 800 languages.
@@l0g1c4lth1nk1ng Nice. I know a bit about Indonesia because I am interested in geography and cultures and am alway reading up on things. Are you in Jakarta? Interesting thing about your flag: It is the same colour pattern as Monaco (but different dimensions) and the reverse of the Polish flag.
Perfect presentation. I clearly understood almost every single thing despite the Afghanistan accent.
Many thanks! And glad that my accent was not too strong! 😂
Stellar presentation.
Much appreciated, thank you.
No offence, but "English is the only language that gets complex later" is something only a native English speaker would say. All languages get increasingly nuanced, complicated, rich, expressive at higher levels, it's just you haven't noticed it as a non-native speaker.
I agree with you. I even feel like he is just underestimating non-native English speakers and putting English like being the most of the most
Having worked in international companies concider english/globish the easiest 😀especially for technical support
You've misquoted me. I never said it is the only language that gets complex later. My point is that whereas many languages are complex (for non-native speakers) at the outset, English is relatively easy. As you delve deeper into the language, the complexities increase. Because so many people master English to a decent level, many native speakers incorrectly assume that everything they say will be understood. I found French and Italian very complex at the outset, but easier as I went along. Sure, some of that is clearly due to me studying and losing the language; still the overall structure of the languages had an impact. Thanks for the comment. I am enjoying the discussion on this video.
@@MarAdriatnePC - I never underestimate anyone in terms of intelligence, but I can tell you from experience that many was the time, especially when I worked in the UN system, that I had to translate (interpret) from English to English because colleagues who worked in English and spoke in English could not understand what a speaker was saying. This usually occurred with outside experts who did not have much experience speaking in an international context.
@@sambrown5172 - I know many people whose English is superb and who have worked in English for years. They now find it easier to present in English than their mother tongue, especially on technical topics.
I liked the title of the video, so I opened it 😂.
Great speech, even I'm not a native speaker, I love these things.
A lof good quotes, good pace, clear speech. Many things are obvious for me, but it might help others so ok ;)
I enjoyed it, thanks.
Well done.
Great video.
English without its fantastic eloquence and is a boring language.
@@marvelouss719 - Thank you. I also think that English is a beautiful language and I love to stretch it to its full dimensions. But if eloquence makes it hard for people to understand my message, I will favour clarity.
Thank you Vlad. Spasiba! Much appreciated.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking
Thank you)
But I'm Ukrainian, dykooyou)
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking
My friend, who is also learning English and lived in Cyprus, said that:
"I cannot speak English fluently with the locals, on the other hand, I do not understand British)))"
What's that up in the road ahead? What's that up in the road, a head?
😂 Reminds me of that great book on punctuation: "Eats, Shoots and Leaves".
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking Then there is the famous: it was and I said not but
Very useful, thank you.
Also, the “put down” joke was top tier.
Glad you liked it!
Note that I might be wrong but I think that there are two "versions" of English: The international simplified English, that is English used in international media (like RUclips) or when giving speeches to multicultural audiences, and local varities of English used in distinct countries. It's very difficult to grasp any English dialect fully, when you are always consuming media that is created by speakers who speak in simplified version of English (using less sophisticated vocabulary, simpler grammar, etc.). It's not bad for obvious reasons (being able to reach bigger audiences), but I think it gives a false assumption that someone is on a higher level that he really is. 10 years ago I would say that I am pretty good in English, right now I am aware that I still have much more to learn, and I cannot even confidently say that I am a good English speaker, because I am definitely not.
Thank you for the comment, Marcin. It’s an interesting perspective. The quality of English, as well as that of other languages, certainly does very depending on the context in which it is spoken.
An excellent video!!!
Many of the points the speaker mentioned ALSO apply to speaking in general, regardless of the language and the audience.
His last point of saying something in the local language can also be called an "ice breaker" - an idiom primarily known to native English speakers!😀
Thank you for the comment. Much appreciated.
As a non native speaker, i think there is an important point you are missing and in fact it kind goes against your first point of prefering clarity to eloquence. Although that depends on what you call clarity and eloquence.
But i will give you an example... If you had recorded you talking with your friends in the hockey stadium, I bet there would be VERY FEW Latin derived words.
When speaking in a more formal setting, including this speech in the video, the number of Latin words skyrocket.
Now, while Latin words are usually consided more formal language in English, and high usage might be considered "eloquence", it also turns out the SAME words are very similar in dozens of different languages. It becomes a common ground even for many germanic languages.
Yes, I had the same thought. The Latin / Romance words are clearer and more eloquent simultaneously. Using Anglo-Saxon phrasal verbs is really confusing for non-native speakers
Thanks for raising an interesting point. Yes, there are lots of words in English that are derived from Latin. There are also lots of words derived from other languages, particularly Greek. (Of course, Greek is the basis for many languages other than English.) Is the use of words derived from Latin more eloquent than not? It's hard to say. Some Latin-based words are undoubtedly more eloquent, but some are quite common. Here's an interesting list I found: www.proofreadingservices.com/pages/english-words-that-originated-from-latin
I do agree that Latin-based words do provide some common ground, but in many cases, the stress or pronunciation is significantly different. Combine that with speaking quickly, not pausing, idioms, etc., and it quickly becomes challenging for many people. But your comment has prompted me to investigate further. Thanks for adding to the discussion.
@@JohnZimmer-MannerofSpeaking this dawned on me long ago, when watching I don´t remember WHICH American sitcom... where there was this foreign dude, from France or Italy... but played by an American actor, and he would fail to understand some words that were very similar in his language, at which point the American would use a simpler word, of angle saxon origin, which sincerely, would be much harder for the foreign to know the meaning.
as all things in life, it's probably a little of each, nor black nor white. In the end, a mixture of several different factors.
but as a personal experience, and also noticing what my compatriots and my kids have difficulty in learning English, it's usually the simpler words that we completely don´t know the meaning and in a conversation, may confuse us when speaking fast.
But yes, don´t take my comment for certain. Investigation can lead to insights even when the hypothesis fails.
@@rogeriopenna9014 - Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Concerning your final point about simple words, while I cannot be 100% sure, I suspect that part of the challenge could come from phrasal verbs; i.e., taking a simple verb and then adding a simple word to it. Those two simple words can often create an entirely different meaning.
Take the word "get" for example. You can add many other simple words to "get" and the result is a completely different meaning: get ahead, get along, get around to, get back, get back at, get back to, get behind, get on, get out, get over, get through, get together ... I could go on, but you "get" the idea!
English is harder as you go deeper ..it is very subtle at the advanced level.
Notice that he is giving this presentation in the way you would speak to non-native speakers. A little slower, a little more careful with pronunciation.
That might partially be because that's how speeches are usually given too
Exceptional wisdom. Would find it a privilege to meet him.
Thank you.
Thank you, Gene. I appreciate the comment.
Let's be honest. If listeners cannot understand natural native English spoken at speed then they are at best high-intermediate learners. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this. It's the point where many language learners stall. But a speaker isn't obliged to default to this level, unless it suits their needs. Clearly that's the context of this speech.
It's a little surprising there was no reference to intonation. Sentence stress is, for me, the principal abiding difference between native and highly proficient non-native speech. It's both a rich source of meaning for natives and a near-insurmountable, possibly imperceptible, obstacle for non-natives. I'm married to a native Mandarin speaker and professional interpreter whose English far exceeds that of many native speakers but who simply has no ear for tone. (Incidentally, she'd be a big fan of the advice to share scripts in advance - this is a major bugbear...)
Interestingly, spoken Mandarin Chinese exceeds English in morphological simplicity and syntactical straightforwardness. Indeed its vagueness and flexibility are one of the major sticking points for a beginning learner, another being the phonemic poverty that produces so many homophones (and so much lexical redundancy). Until you get into the script, Chinese is in many ways an incredibly easy language to learn (of course, with the exception of... tone).
Thank you for the comment. I appreciate you taking the time. You raise a number of points to which I would like to respond.
1. I don't disagree with your assessment of the lingustic abilities of those who cannot understand English spoken at speed. However, I disagree with your view that the speaker should not adjust his or her English. In many (most?) global fora without simultaneous interpretation, English is the spoken language. So you have people coming to English from all kinds of other languages. I am not suggesting that English speakers "dumb down" the language, just that they adapt it a bit so as to be better understood. Because if people cannot understand what I am saying, how does that help me? I want to get my message across.
2. I agree with you about intonation. There are also other points that I could have raised, but I only had a limited amount of time and had to be selective. Better to cover fewer things in some detail than to try and cover everything. But yes, tone and emphasis are important.
3. Interesting that your spouse does not have an ear for tone (in English) given that Mandarin is, as you know, a tonal language. I find that fascinating. I know a little about Chinese - Wǒ huì shuō yīdiǎn zhōngwén ... Bu tai hao! - and know that tone are hugely important for the meaning of words. But perhaps tone less important for overall sentence structure.
4. Finally, as someone who loves languages, I find Chinese very interesting. Behind the complexity of the writing and the tones lies an incredibly simple grammar, insofar as what I know of it.