How I Started Speaking English Without Fear | Tips From a Native Speaker @EnglishWithKrisAmerikos

hello guys and welcome back to my YouTube channel  in this video I would like to talk to you about  

losing the fear of speaking English and sharing my  story with you guys how I managed to lose the fear  

of speaking English and to make it a little bit  more interesting I decided to invite Chris who has  

a YouTube channel and who teaches English online  on his channel you will find many videos helping  

non-native speakers become more confident and lose  their fear of speaking English I think the reason  

why I'm especially excited to make this video  with Chris is because he believes that making  

mistakes is fine no one is perfect and we're all  learning together and helping each other Build a  

Better World so let's listen to Chris's story of  learning a foreign language he's a native English  

speaker he's American and he will be talking  about his experience of learning Russian and  

my native language is Russian and I'm learning  English so that's why this collaboration had to  

happen I'll be pausing his video from time  to time to share with you guys my thoughts  

and give you even more tips hey everybody on  YouTube and hello to Veronica thank you so much  

for allowing me to share my story with everyone  on your channel and first of all I want to say  

thank you for making your channel because I think  you're really helping people and showing people  

that you can speak English and you don't have to  be afraid to speak and you know a lot of people  

think that only people who are learning English  are afraid to speak or something like that and  

that's not true you know even English speakers  are afraid to speak sometimes English speakers  

are afraid to speak English right because it's  about confidence and it's about believing that  

you know what you're talking about so when a  person doesn't feel confident about the topic  

that they're speaking about then they might feel  nervous and it it might not be so easy for them to  

speak they might have fear so you're not the only  one and it's not just people who are learning a  

language who have a fear of speaking but today I  want to share my personal story of my own fears I  

feel like it's really good to share your fears  with other people it allows you to put a name  

on them to put specific words to the feelings  that you have and that allows you to say exactly  

what it is to process it mentally and then to  overcome those fears and that's really important  

when you're learning a foreign language and I've  gone through that a few times so I'm going to  

share that with you right now so as you can see  the first thing Chris is talking about is being  

honest about what you're most afraid of for some  people it might be judgment for others it might  

be making mistakes and for me guys believe it or  not I was always so scared that people will judge  

my accent and when I talk people I especially  mean native speakers I was always afraid that  

once I started speaking English to native speakers  I will be like we don't understand thing that will  

start laughing at me they'll be like oh Veronica  your accent is horrible but once I actually face  

this fear when I started speaking English to  native speakers I realized that it was not true  

it was all in my head but being aware of that  fear definitely helped me going out and meeting  

people in real life now that's not an option for  a lot of you out there I mean some of you maybe  

have moved to an English-speaking country or a  country where people speak a different language  

but a lot of people also speak English so maybe  you do have the opportunity to go out and meet  

people in real life who you can practice with now  another way that you can meet people in real life  

is going to speaking clubs International meetings  and things like that where there's a lot of other  

people who are interested in practicing their  spoken English and that's actually not as hard  

to find as you might think but you have to  be open to meeting new people and to having  

conversations with those people and opening  yourself up to other people because if you're  

very closed and you never talk about yourself  and you don't share information about yourself  

it's going to be really hard to make a connection  with anyone who you meet it doesn't matter what  

language you're speaking the second thing he is  sharing is about venturing out there and meeting  

is that not for everyone it's possible but  believe me it is possible because I grew  

up in a very small Russian town and I didn't  have a lot of opportunities to speak English  

to other people but I still found them because  the most important thing is having the will you  

know this expression in English if there is a  will there is a way so it applies to English  

as well even if you're from a small town we  have the internet nowadays and that's what  

I did I used YouTube to improve my English  something that really helped me was putting  

myself in uncomfortable situations you have to  do uncomfortable things if you want to have new  

experiences so I had to kind of reprogram my brain  and train myself to enjoy being uncomfortable  

and that probably sounds really strange but  learning to enjoy uncomfortable situations is part  

of overcoming the fear of speaking because when  you feel uncomfortable it means that you're doing  

something that you haven't done before and that's  how you grow if you always do things that you're  

comfortable with it means that you're always doing  the same things everyone feels uncomfortable when  

they do something new maybe you feel a little  excited but everyone has a little fear when they  

do something new and unknown or when you go to a  new unknown place you know what I'm talking about  

because we're all humans and it works the same for  us we're all the same in this in this aspect in  

this case sure some people feel it more and some  people feel less but everyone has these feelings  

when they do something that's new so that feeling  inside of you of being uncomfortable and not being  

completely confident about what you're doing or  saying that happens to everyone and it's actually  

a necessary step in your journey to becoming more  fluent in any language and not only the language  

but also becoming more fluent in the culture  because every language is also connected to  

the culture of the people who speak that language  when you go to a place or when you meet the people  

who are carriers of that language who speak  that language who are natives of that language  

then they usually have some Expressions that are  related to their culture and where they come from  

and things that people usually do in that culture  and that can make you feel uncomfortable or can  

make you feel like an outsider right because they  have their special group of people who understand  

those cultural things when you don't understand  that it really can make you feel uncomfortable  

it can make you feel like you're not part of the  group to overcome that you have to force yourself  

to go into those uncomfortable situations and  you have to think differently you have to tell  

your brain different things and start to send  different signals inside of your brain so that  

you understand that this uncomfortable feeling is  actually the feeling of growth and that that is a  

really good feeling to have tip number three  that Chris is sharing is putting yourself in  

uncomfortable situations because discomfort is  a catalyst of growth growth is uncomfortable  

because you've never been there before it's new  right and our bodies naturally feel really weird  

when we are in a new situation because a very  long time ago something new always meant danger  

or even death right because we didn't have the  tools available to save ourselves and that's why  

deep down our brains are still afraid of being in  a coverable situations but guess it is so crucial  

when it comes to language learning I found that I  took taxis a lot and I had to ride the bus a lot  

and so these times when I was on Transportation  public and private transportation I saw a lot of  

opportunities where people would discuss different  things around me on the bus or in the taxi the  

driver would always try to speak with me and  engage with me now I'm not saying that you have  

to become great friends with these people right  I'm just saying that you have speaking practice  

right there and it's forced and it's difficult  for you to escape you're trapped in this little  

small container with another person and they're  trying to interact with you and engage with you  

that's something that I really found useful when I  went to Argentina a few months ago too because now  

I don't live in Russia now I live in the United  States and now I travel to other countries and  

recently I was in Argentina and I realized hey I  really like this place I really like the people  

I really like the culture I need to learn the  language I didn't know any Spanish when I got  

there really I was walking around I felt like  an idiot I would try to meet people and talk to  

people and I was making all of these gestures  with my hands right I was trying to use body  

language to communicate what I wanted to say and  the few words that I learned I mean I didn't learn  

the past and the future but I used these hand  movements to explain past and future because I  

didn't know how verbs change I didn't know very  many verbs at all so it was really difficult  

to say what I wanted to say and I had to accept  that I could only use the words that I know and  

not try to say complicated things people would  ask me questions and I want to express myself  

but I found it very difficult to express myself  with a limited vocabulary that meant that I had  

to use other resources right so by using hands  gestures and then by using technology I was able  

to communicate and meet new people and then I was  able to find other people who spoke enough English  

that I was able to communicate with them but I  understood the limits that I was faced with right  

I needed to learn more Spanish in order for me to  be able to do the things that I want to do and to  

feel comfortable but that uncomfortable feeling  is what really pushed me to finally after two or  

three days to say what am I doing I'm in Argentina  for two weeks and I haven't studied Spanish at all  

and I started studying and about four days later  I found myself in a taxi going to somebody's  

house and the taxi driver starts to talk to me the  taxi driver doesn't speak any English and I have  

to respond to him and so I started using all the  words that I knew I I think I exhausted my entire  

vocabulary during that taxi drive but I felt  so happy afterwards I felt like I had achieved  

something so great at the end of the ride I got  out of the taxi went up to my apartment that I was  

renting and laid in bed and kept studying Spanish  and I felt so good because I had activated a lot  

of the knowledge that I had passively learned  before tip number four that Chris is sharing with  

us is is using all the resources available to you  if you know a friend who is a native speaker try  

to talk to them in English if you like watching  movies watch them in English if you like listening  

to music listen to music in English so you see  what I mean nowadays we have so many different  

resources and the way to improve your English is  to use as many as you can and that is really why  

you have to overcome the fear of speaking because  if you allow that fear to just trap you in your  

zone of comfort you'll never grow or you'll grow  very very slowly feeling uncomfortable is the same  

feeling as growing and when you can connect those  two things in your mind and you can tell yourself  

inside of you that you feel uncomfortable and  that's exactly how you want to feel when you  

can do that that's progress when you can do that  you'll be able to guide you your growth in the  

language and you'll really get amazing results so  I hope that this short story about talking to taxi  

drivers and about overcoming the fear of speaking  in Russian and in Spanish for me will help give  

you a little bit of motivation to overcome the  fear of speaking English and I know that it's  

scary I know that it's hard when you can't express  exactly what you want to say but really if you're  

watching this video right now you understand  enough of what I'm saying and that means that  

you know enough vocabulary where you can already  Express so many things you don't have to know  

every word in order for you to speak speaking  isn't about being correct speaking is about  

communication and speaking is about understanding  each other so I hope that you understand what I've  

just said and I want to thank you so much for  watching this video for letting me tell my story  

and now I'm going to send it back to Veronica  Veronica you can take it from here bye everybody  

and tip number five that Chris is talking about  is don't allow the fear fear to take hold of you  

it kind of ties back together with the first tip  right knowing what you're afraid of and once you  

know what you're most afraid of please don't stop  don't stop learning English just because of that  

you are in control of your fear not vice versa so  thank you Chris so much for coming to my channel  

and sharing your experiences with me I really hope  you guys learned something new because again for  

Chris it wasn't English it was Russian and as  you can see our paths were so similar learning  

a foreign language is very similar you can apply  all of these tips to different languages believe  

me guess because I studied French in the past  Chinese and now I'm studying Spanish and I'm  

using all of the tips mentioned above if you want  to watch me sharing my experience of losing the  

fear of speaking English make sure to go to  Chris's YouTube channel and watch his most  

recent video and I'll be sharing my experience  there if you like this video make sure to give  

it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel and  if you want to watch more collabs on my YouTube  

channel make sure to click right here here is the  playlist with all of the videos that I filmed with  

other people and the interviews there are amazing  guys and I'll see you in my next video bye [Music]

thank you