Uploaded May 2021 | Updated September 2026, 5 days ago
Julian Northbrook is on a mission to change the way people learn English for the better. Subscribe to this channel for videos about learning English and the psychology of the "Good Language Learner": doeng.co/SUBSCRIBE
Go here to get the free training:
doeng.co/FREETRAINING
Sign up for daily email tips:
doeng.co/EMAILS
Read the Good Shadowin Guide:
doeng.co/SHADOWING
Transcript:
I think you're overthinking this far too much. And we had this conversation quite extensively last week. You might want to have a look at the recording from that if you've got time or if it didn't already. I think it was Wendy. Wendy, you're on. Hello Wendy can't see you. Really asked about a mistake that she was making. And she said, oh, I keep getting the tense wrong. And I keep saying the wrong thing, but I'm listening to it and thinking, that's how any native speaker would probably say it. And I think what tends to happen is people tend to overthink and over assume the quantity of mistakes that they make. And really just get into this situation where they believe that they are making all these mistakes. And my speech is full of errors. Nobody's ever going to be able to understand it.
Whereas the reality is one-half of the things that they believe to be mistakes, or believe to be errors are actually perfectly normal, even for native speakers. It's just that we don't really speak how the grammar book tells us that we should. That's also part of the problem is that people tend to have spent so much time with grammar dictionaries and formalized versions of the language that they tend to think those how they go to speak. And it's not really true because again, most native speakers simply don't do that. The other thing is... basically nobody apart from perhaps other non-native speakers, if they are also trying to improve their English and also worried about the same problems, basically, nobody is sitting there listening to you and looking for the mistakes that you're making. They're engaged with the content that you're talking about and the vast majority of mistakes, if you do make them, will simply go unnoticed.
Now, if you do make mistakes and it's obvious that you've made a mistake, of course you want to learn from that, but it will be obvious from, certainly in terms of public speaking, it'll be obvious from the audience that you've said something in a very strange way and you haven't been understood because people will look confused. So in that sense, that kind of situation is actually the perfect way to stop making those kind of mistakes because you've got instantaneous feedback from people, but I do think you are probably just overthinking it. And I think really, instead of worrying too much about this now, really you should just stop doing it and just aim to make fewer mistakes. If that's really what you believe to be the problem with each and every presentation of public speaking situation that you do. That's it. We are going to talk about this extensively for next week and week nine.
It's quite a philosophical session, perhaps not what you expect, but we're really going to start talking about the connection between fault and the things that we're saying and what it actually means to be accurate in English. And I think it's a greatly misunderstood topic. The way English is taught in schools has a lot to answer for, for that again, for all the reasons that I've just talked about, don't overthink it. I think you certainly are fine and the priority should always, anyway be on what is the message that I'm delivering to these people? What is the best way to deliver it? And am I doing it in a concise, clear, easy to understand way. And that's always going to be more important than simply being so-called correct. Anyway, it makes sense.
#DoingEnglish #JulianNorthbrook #learnEnglish
Julian Northbrook is on a mission to change the way people learn English for the better. Subscribe to this channel for videos about learning English and the psychology of the "Good Language Learner": doeng.co/SUBSCRIBE
Go here to get the free training:
doeng.co/FREETRAINING
Sign up for daily email tips:
doeng.co/EMAILS
Read the Good Shadowin Guide:
doeng.co/SHADOWING
Transcript:
I think you're overthinking this far too much. And we had this conversation quite extensively last week. You might want to have a look at the recording from that if you've got time or if it didn't already. I think it was Wendy. Wendy, you're on. Hello Wendy can't see you. Really asked about a mistake that she was making. And she said, oh, I keep getting the tense wrong. And I keep saying the wrong thing, but I'm listening to it and thinking, that's how any native speaker would probably say it. And I think what tends to happen is people tend to overthink and over assume the quantity of mistakes that they make. And really just get into this situation where they believe that they are making all these mistakes. And my speech is full of errors. Nobody's ever going to be able to understand it.
Whereas the reality is one-half of the things that they believe to be mistakes, or believe to be errors are actually perfectly normal, even for native speakers. It's just that we don't really speak how the grammar book tells us that we should. That's also part of the problem is that people tend to have spent so much time with grammar dictionaries and formalized versions of the language that they tend to think those how they go to speak. And it's not really true because again, most native speakers simply don't do that. The other thing is... basically nobody apart from perhaps other non-native speakers, if they are also trying to improve their English and also worried about the same problems, basically, nobody is sitting there listening to you and looking for the mistakes that you're making. They're engaged with the content that you're talking about and the vast majority of mistakes, if you do make them, will simply go unnoticed.
Now, if you do make mistakes and it's obvious that you've made a mistake, of course you want to learn from that, but it will be obvious from, certainly in terms of public speaking, it'll be obvious from the audience that you've said something in a very strange way and you haven't been understood because people will look confused. So in that sense, that kind of situation is actually the perfect way to stop making those kind of mistakes because you've got instantaneous feedback from people, but I do think you are probably just overthinking it. And I think really, instead of worrying too much about this now, really you should just stop doing it and just aim to make fewer mistakes. If that's really what you believe to be the problem with each and every presentation of public speaking situation that you do. That's it. We are going to talk about this extensively for next week and week nine.
It's quite a philosophical session, perhaps not what you expect, but we're really going to start talking about the connection between fault and the things that we're saying and what it actually means to be accurate in English. And I think it's a greatly misunderstood topic. The way English is taught in schools has a lot to answer for, for that again, for all the reasons that I've just talked about, don't overthink it. I think you certainly are fine and the priority should always, anyway be on what is the message that I'm delivering to these people? What is the best way to deliver it? And am I doing it in a concise, clear, easy to understand way. And that's always going to be more important than simply being so-called correct. Anyway, it makes sense.
#DoingEnglish #JulianNorthbrook #learnEnglish
