speaking English if you've learnt it as a foreign language. Coming from someone who's learnt English

as a foreign language, I know it's not easy and you constantly doubt yourself

especially if you feel like your level of English is still not where you want it to be.

And I've struggled with it for a while, whilst I built up my confidence to speak English,

but nowadays I find that I can communicate and I can speak to other native speakers of English

without feeling too intimidated. I still would feel intimidated if I had to go and have

a conversation with the Queen or Prime Minister, but I think that, overall,

on day-to-day life, day-to-day situations I feel very confident speaking English

The only times where I struggle still is talking on the phone, because although

I understand everything and I know that people understand me, I still feel that

pressure that I can't see the person that I'm talking to.

So I'm hoping to give you some tips and maybe kind of point you in the right direction

of helping you build your own confidence and to feel like you've got this,

that you don't have to be scared, you don't have to be afraid.

Just by sharing some of my experiences and things that have helped me.

So if you don't know anything about me and you just stumbled upon this video,

my name is Ysis, I'm originally from Brazil and I live in the UK, I've been living here for the last

nearly seven years now and I learnt English as a foreign language in Brazil,

so when I came here I already knew I'd say ninety percent of the English

that I know now, but I've spoken about my story and my background on previous videos before,

so I won't bore you with the details again. I'll just leave my English Language playlist here

for you to go and have a look at my previous videos, and they have helped a lot of people out there

which I'm really happy about, so I'm hoping to make some more videos

which will be even more helpful to you all.

My first kind of general tip to help build your confidence to make you

feel more comfortable speaking English as a foreign language is to remember

that everybody is going to make mistakes in every language, either it be English

Spanish, Portuguese. If you're a native

speaker, if you're a foreign speaker, if you are

student, if you are teacher, even if you're

the most professional speaker of a

language, you will still make mistakes,

and so you're not gonna be the only

person in that conversation in that

situation making mistakes. Making grammar

mistakes, making speaking mistakes,

making kind of like pronunciation

mistakes. I make mistakes all the time,

and if they were to stop me from feeling

confidence and carrying on a

conversation, I would never have become

fluent in English, and that is something

that I think I had to accept before I

moved on and decided “You know what?

even though I'm making some mistakes, it

doesn't mean that I have a bad level of

English, it doesn't mean that I can't

speak English.

It just means that i will get over these

mistakes and the people that I'm talking

to, they still understand me, and they will.

I think you have to remember as

well that people are not as critical and

judgmental of your own english as you are.

That was a huge problem for me. I'm a big

perfectionist, so it was a big issue for

me when I knew had made a mistake. When I

knew that I didn't know something, I felt

as though people were judging me just as

harshly as I judged myself.

So just remember that the majority of people are

not going to judge you for your mistakes.

Also if you make YouTube videos, and you

put yourself out there, and you're

worried that people are mocking you or

that they are talking about your accent

as being funny or weird, or that they

don't think you know enough English,

just remember that you're the only person

that has the right to analyze your level

of English, that other people's

perception of your English doesn't

matter as much as long as you're happy,

that you're progressing, that you're

doing well that you're being understood,

and that's all that matters.

I get a lot of lovely comments from you

guys on my english videos, complimenting

me on the level of my English and my accent, and all

of these things which are all really

nice to hear and really important to me,

because I put a lot of effort and time

and money into learning English as a

foreign language and becoming fluent, so

it means a lot to me when people say

your English is really good. And, but I

also get a few comments from people here

on YouTube saying that my English is

nothing special, that my accent is

rubbish, that... you know, just people

criticizing basically the way that I speak.

I know it's their opinion and

they're entitled to it, but it doesn't

mean that I have to agree with them, and

it doesn't mean that their opinion is

the truth, or that it's more important than

what I think about myself. So, don't let

the fear of being judged knock you down

and feel like you can't progress with

your English level, if you know what I

mean. My second tip is to stop treating

yourself as a student, and that's

something that I still do till this day,

and I've got to kind of like... stop myself

when I'm doing it because it's really

counterproductive, and what I mean by

this is that sometimes when I'm talking

to someone about something that I don't

have a great knowledge of, I kind of give

people a bit of a disclaimer, and I say

oh English is not my first language, and...

you know, if I make a few mistakes here

and there... and although that does lighten

up the mood of the conversation,

it already brings my own confidence down,

because I feel like the person that I'm

talking to is that a higher level than me

If I just believed in myself,

that conversation would have flowed a lot

more equally. It's not so much about how

the person feels, it is about how I feel

towards the person that I'm talking to.

So, I mean general day-to-day

conversations it's fine to be humbling

to say: oh I don't know this or I don't

know much about that or my English is

not very good in that particular field

but I think it's kind of like a way to

bring your own confidence down, is not a

good thing to do. Don't kind of discard

your own level of English just because

you're a student and you're a foreign

speaker. My third tip is to not play it

safe.

Try your best to use those words that you're

not confident about, because they are the

ones that are going to give you the

confidence that you need. Get stuck into

the difficult conversations. Don't shy

away from them

You'll have plenty of everyday basic

conversations with things like "how you

doing?" and "what's your day been like?" and

"what's the weather like?" and "what's your

name?" and "where are you from?" You need to

step up and get out of that kind of

comfort zone and going to questions

there are a little bit trickier. To me it

was talking about things that I knew

really well in Portuguese but I wasn't

confident I knew enough of my vocabulary

in English. Things like talking about law,

which is my background and talking about

politics and something that I'm really

interested in. I used to shy away from

those conversations, because I thought my

level of English wasn't good enough to

carry on a conversation on that topic.

But now I find that if I just push

myself and I fight... just dive into the

deep end and ask a question on that

topic, and just see how I go, that, I feel

a lot more confident. I know that i've

already had seven years living in the UK,

which has obviously boosted my

confidence a lot, and boosted my fluency

a lot, but I'm giving tips based on the

the things that I think helped me the

most to feel confident. My next tip is

to pay a great deal of attention to the

questions that you're being asked,

because often the answers to these

questions will be in the questions themselves.

If you're talking to someone

for the first time and they're asking

your questions about yourself, about your

work about general things,

and you're kind of like having a mild panic attack,

because you're thinking, "oh my god what

if i don't know the answer to what

they're asking me, especially if it's

something important like a job interview

Just a really great attention to the

questions, and you'll be able to find

usually a little bit of the answer or a

clue of what the answer is with within

the question. And to keep this short and

sweet, I'm going to move onto my last tip,

because i don't want to bore you any longer,

this video is going to be too long otherwise.

And so my last tip is to

not worry too much about grammar, and

I've touched on this probably on all of

my previous English tips videos, because

I think it

so important to remind ourselves as

students of english as a foreign

language, that grammar is important for

building up your vocabulary, for building

up your language in your head but

grammar is not the most important thing

of a conversation in English. I think a

good understanding good listening skills

good pronunciation, all of these things

go hand in hand with grammar. If you get

too stuck on your grammar and wanting to

get every single sentence perfectly,

you're not going to flow in a

conversation. You're going to doubt

yourself a lot, you're going to think

that people are not understanding you

because you kind of like misplaced or

mispronounced something. I still

struggled a lot with the in on at, and

make a lot of mistakes when it comes to

these three.

It's just a block on my brain that

prevents me from learning. They used to

kind of like give myself such a hard

time for not knowing those three

perfectly

Nowadays, I know I've probably made about

20 mistakes in this video with regards

to in on and at, and with regards to other

things as well, but I'm sure that the

majority of you have been able to

understand me, and even thought that I

have a good level of English, even though

I know I made those mistakes.

So don't get stuck on your grammar thinking that

that is the most important or the one

thing that you've got to get right in.

Most everyday situations you're not

going to need perfect grammar to feel

confident and be understood in English

So that wraps up my tips on building up

your confidence and speaking English as

a foreign language. I hope this video was

helpful to you, and if it was make sure

to give this video a thumbs up so that I

know you guys have found in these videos

helpful. And don't forget to subscribe to

my channel so that you don't miss my

future videos. And if you have any tips,