How teaching business English in France inspired me to create Speak English with Christina

- Do you wanna feel more confident when you speak English

and you know that better English will help your career,

and maybe you wanna also speak better English

just for your personal satisfaction?

But you feel like your English is limiting you,

that you're missing out.

Well, you know, that's how I felt

when I was starting out in my career,

only I was learning French, not English of course.

But that frustration of being lost,

of feeling blocked, of feeling not so confident,

it was exactly the same,

so I really understand those frustrations

that you're feeling now with English.

I'm Christina, and as you can hear, I'm American.

And when I was a kid back in the USA,

I loved other cultures and languages,

and that's why, after I finished my studies,

I moved to France.

And even though I studied French in high school,

I instantly discovered that native speakers,

they don't speak the way that we learned the language

in language classes.

I always wished that the conversations had subtitles

because it was so hard to understand,

and speaking the different language,

you never feel as funny, as spontaneous,

as natural as in your native language,

and for several years it was really hard

for me to fit in and to make friends

and to just feel like myself.

But now, of course, it's much better,

and over the years and through that experience,

I learned a lot about what it takes

to really feel like yourself in a different language.

And during that time, I started teaching business English

in local companies,

and I saw that people who were older than me,

who were more experienced than me,

who had high positions in their companies,

they had those exact same frustrations and hesitations

and lack of confidence about speaking English.

And I realized, I was like, wow, I'm not alone.

It's not just me who doesn't have this confidence,

who feels like a little kid in conversations

when I can't find my words.

And really came to the understanding

that it's a universal feeling,

so we all feel like that.

And I loved my work, but with business people,

the thing is they're often very busy.

Either last-minute meetings,

or they're away on business trips,

and so they were missing sometimes their English lessons.

And I thought, I was like,

well how can I make it easy for them

to keep learning with me

even if they're not physically with me?

And so I started making video lessons

that I put on the internet for my clients,

and you can see that those first lessons,

they're really pretty bad.

It's a bit like learning a language.

When you start, you're not very comfortable.

You don't feel very natural.

But the more you do it, the better you get.

So, I just went for it,

and after a while, people from around the world

started contacting me for lessons on the internet.

And that's how Speak English With Christina got started.

It all started because I wanted to help my little

handful of clients here in my local city in France.

And that was back in 2015,

and ever since then I've done one lesson a week every week,

so now there are over 200 video lessons

that are for free online.

I have 12 million views on YouTube,

over 400,000 subscribers, and hundreds of clients,

and I'm really happy, in fact,

that I can help more people than I could

when I was just teaching inside those companies,

because we've got online courses,

self-study courses, speaking and coaching programs,

and everything online,

which really allows me to help as many people as possible.

And over the years, Speak English With Christina

has grown from just me and my little videos

to a team of teachers around the world.

For someone who has always loved other cultures,

this is a dream come true for me,

and I realized that through that experience

and that journey, learning a language,

it's not just about the grammar and the vocabulary

and the fluency.

It's really about the opportunities, the doors,

the pathways that will open up to you

because you learned another language

and you went out there, and you did it.

And if I had never learned French,

then maybe Speak English With Christina wouldn't exist,

so it can really open the doors to things

that you never imagined possible in your life.

I love helping you become more confident in English

and sharing my culture with you,

and helping you to open those doors in your life.

But I also love getting to know you too,

so tell me in the comments below,

why are you improving your English?

What is your big plan?

I've shared my story with you

and I would love for you to share your story with me.

So, I hope to see you in a lesson next time

about business English, about American culture,

vocabulary, grammar, all of that,

so that I can help you to speak and understand

real American English.