The Level Up English Podcast
The Level Up English Podcast
#7 Teacher Interview - Pronunciation With Emma
Show notes page - https://levelupenglish.school/podcast7
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Transcript - https://levelupenglish.school/transcripts (Members Only)
In this podcast, I talk with Emma, a fellow online English teacher.
We discuss the difficulties of learning languages, pronunciation problems, embarrassing moments and more!
You can see what Emma's up to on her website and social media.
Her Website
Facebook
Youtube
Instagram
Resources
Pronunciation in Use Book by Mark Hancock
My Phrasal Verbs & Expressions Online Courses
The Podcast
2:10: Emma's introduction & history as a teacher
9:28: Why did you choose to teach?
16:33: My history
17:38: English accents
26:01: Learning foreign languages
29:31: What would you learn if you had more time?
34:55: Embarrassing language stories
48:26: Tips for English learners
54:29: Language resources
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Hello and welcome to the English with Michael Podcast, the best place to come to study English as a second language as well as to practice the British accent with me, Michael Lavers as your teacher. Hello English learners and welcome back to episode seven of the English with Michael podcast. It's great to be back with you here again on another Wednesday and I have a very special podcast today because I have my first guest joining me. So today I'm talking with Pronunciation with Emma. She is an online teacher and she specialises in pronunciation classes. She has a very popular Instagram and youtube page and you can also find her on Facebook as well. English pronunciation really is something you have to study if you want to teach it as a native speaker. And it's not something that I am so familiar with, I can teach a little bit, but Emma is much more knowledgeable than I am in this area and you hear about that a little bit today. So I really hope you enjoy our talk. So without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Emma. Hello Emma, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?
Emma:I'm very well, thank you. How are you?
Michael:Yes, I'm also very good. Um, so I've been following you on Instagram and Youtube and social media for a while. You've got, you've become very popular. It looks like.
Emma:I grew pretty quickly. Yeah.
Michael:Yeah. And I think most of all I'm very envious of your articulation, the way you pronounce things, cause it's not something that I'm so good at. I would say. Yeah. Maybe could you give us a bit of an introduction as to what you do and what you're, what you're working on right now. Okay.
Emma:Okay. Oh God, I'm working on so many things, but I'll start with the introduction because I know how to do that. So my name's Emma. I'm originally from England. I'm originally from the city of York in Yorkshire, but now I live in Bristol. Um, I know quite a few people ask me, well, do you have a Yorkshire accent or a Bristolian accent? And I don't really have either. It's kind of this weird neutral accent. It's neither from the north or the south. Um, people can't place where I'm from, which is kind of good. Um, in terms of things that I do now, I work basically just teaching online. That's what I do now. I also make videos for Youtube, uh, or I try every week. I mean we know how time consuming and energy draining it is to make videos even just for Instagram. So for Youtube it's, you know, it takes hours to edit. But uh, just knowing that I'm helping people, you know, it, it brings me some happiness, which is nice. Yeah,
Michael:Absolutely. I can tell you put a lot of hard work into it as well, which is great.
Emma:Uh, yeah, I mean my editing skills are still pretty rubbish even one year later, but um,(be)cause I've only been doing my youtube channel for one year and when I started I just had no idea how to edit. I started using new, uh, editing software, so I had no idea how to really use that. And I had no idea how to use youtube as well. It's just a completely different world. It's not like you make a video, then you just put it on youtube and bam, you know, it's, there's so much more to it. Um, Instagram was a lot easier I think because, you know, people find you, you can do collabs a lot easier lives and so on, which I love doing and that's pretty much what I do now. It's, I'm planning on doing more because I haven't done lives and things for a while and I miss interacting with people. Like I miss interacting with, uh, followers and you know, my audience, they are the people who follow me and wanting to learn and they want to know me and I missed that. So I definitely want to do more of that in the future.
Michael:Yeah, I imagine live videos are a great way to do that. So you also, am I right in believing that you also do online classes as well? You do like pronunciation classes?
Emma:Yes, I do pronunciation classes and I'm actually working on a course as well. Um, I'm trying to find the best way of doing the course because I don't just want to, you know, like just make the course and just put it on the Internet and then I get people to buy it. I don't want to do that. I really, really want to create something that's going to actually help people, you know, if my video is able to help, I could take those videos to another level where I can give more detail and explain things more, maybe in a clearer, better way, give more examples and activities, pack those into a course and then, um, and then help people, you know, help more people. That's my plan. But, courses are just as time consuming as making youtube videos,
Michael:If not more, right? I love courses. I think they're are a great way to learn, but it does take a lot to put into it as well. But yeah, it's a fantastic learning resource. If you can, you can make it right, which I'm sure you can.
Emma:Yeah, no, definitely. I hope so. Anyway. Would it be my first time creating an online course. I've created courses in person and they've always been successful and have loved them. Um, the only feedback I had actually the negative feedback was, was there not long enough or something like that or they were packed too closely. Like you for example, you know, I did two lessons a week and some people found it overwhelming cause it's like no, no we're learning too much in too little amounts of time. Okay, well I guess this is a good thing.
Michael:Yeah not bad feedback to have, you know, make it longer. We want more but over a longer time maybe.
Emma:Exactly. That's it. So it was nice to have that feedback cause if people said, oh that was rubbish, then yeah, I would probably not be doing an online course.(I've) been working on the, you know, try to perfect the covered ones that I have in Bristol.
Michael:Yeah, no, definitely. That's great. I've made two courses in the past. I've got one on phrasal verbs and one on English idioms and expressions.
Emma:Oh Wow. Yeah, that's great.
Michael:They're like little mini courses. But I think I'm quite proud of them. But yeah, I'm planning to make a big one in the future. Like some kind of, I don't know, really long course that you can use for a long time, but it's a, it is a lot of work and a lot of planning that goes into it
Emma:A lot. Yeah. I think people as well, including myself before I started doing all of this, I mean just before we, we hit record on this podcast, I told you that five years ago I was not running my own business and you know, I was actually working in a care home, uh, taking care of older people basically. And so at that time I didn't realise how much work went into these things. I just used to watch youtube videos and think like, oh, okay, that's five minutes of my life, God watching this cat video. I never appreciated the work and the time and the effort that went into these cat videos or maybe not the cat video. You know what I mean?
Michael:I think most cat videos are quite easy. But yeah, it is. Especially when you're filming yourself, you think you think all they do is press record. But there's so much more that goes into it.
Emma:It's so much more. I mean imagine you wake up that day and you just, I don't know, you're not in the mood to record. You know, you have to make yourself be in the mood to record and this, there's so much to it. You know, it's, it's pretty mentally exhausting as well, recording, I find.
Michael:Yeah. Cause you have to be 100% focused and switched on for the entire thing. Don't you can't zone out as you would a normal job.
Emma:No, exactly. Yeah. And as well on camera, you have to be like 10 times more animated and bigger if you, I don't know if you've realised this, but when I started filming I was very still, and my feedback mostly was, Emma, you need to move more. We need to be more animated. And I, I, I responded to this feedback like, but I'm not a children's TV presenter. You know, I don't need to move around that much. But then I started watching all the videos and then I watch my videos back. I realised exactly what they meant. Like I did need to move round more, not in the children's TV presents a style that I felt they were talking about. But I mean simple things like just moving your arms around a little bit or just changing the position of where you're sitting in the frame and so on. So yeah, so many things to think about. It stresses me out just talking about it now.
Michael:Yeah you made some really good points. But, um, fortunately there's no video today, so nothing to worry about here.
Emma:No, thank goodness. Yeah.
Michael:What was it then that interested you in teaching specifically? Cause it's quite a big jump from taking care of people in a care home to teaching English. So what, what made you want to change?
Emma:Well, I started studying linguistics, but I okay, let's go all the way back. So I, I started, uh, with an arts background and I even took a, like, I went to art school, I took a course to prep.. To prepare me to go to university, to study fine art. And I wanted to, I wanted to be an artist, you know, I wanted to travel the world and make beautiful art. And I just realized, you know what, I'm not going to get a job if I do this. Yes, I'm going to be traveling the world and making beautiful art around the world, but I'm not gonna make any money from it. So I went to my second love, and that was linguistics. And I studied linguistics. No, I studied English language at A-level, which for people listening is a, what you study between the ages of 16 to 18 or 19 in England before you go to university. So I studied English language and I did really well, uh, quite surprisingly. And um, so I decided to go to university to study linguistics. Now, in the second year of my degree, I had the option to study abroad and there was one university in particular where they had this program that you could go a to a secondary school in Catalonia and work as like a language assistant, like, uh, an English teaching assistant. So I did that thinking(So lazy of me) Thinking, Oh, I won't have to do exams. I could just talk to teenagers all day. It would be great. I don't know how to do any coursework or exams. There's no work to do, blah, blah, blah. So I did that out of pure laziness, but I really enjoyed it. I really, really, really enjoyed it. My first day was terrifying. I still remember I was standing in front of everyone in the classroom and the teacher was like, you know, hi everyone. This is Emma. She's going to be on you assistant. And I was like shaking, sweating, uh, terrible. And I, I loved it so much. When I finished my year abroad there, I came back, I started teaching Turkish refugees. Then I did my Celta, uh, which is an English teaching qualification. Do you know if people aren't familiar with this? And then, uh, what did I do after that? I, uh, then I moved down to Brighton and I started teaching in Brighton for a little bit. But the problem was, is that Brighton, it wasn't exactly in Brighton. I was very close to Brighton. The problem with this town is that no one wanted to pay for private English lessons. They wouldn't pay any more than five pounds per hour. So I would get more cleaning toilets than I would teach him privately.
Michael:Oh that's not good.
Emma:No, hence why I had to find a job as a care assistant at a nursing home. So there I am with my degree, fully qualified teacher. I had some experience under my belt and um, I couldn't find any private students. I couldn't find any companies to work for. No one would take me on because most people, sorry, most companies in the UK asks for Delta, which is like the next certificate up. So I became pretty depressed. Like genuinely, I'm not using that in the kind of, oh, I was so depressed, you know, like genuinely, really, really down about life. And I started to just doubt myself. Like, is it because I'm a rubbish teacher? Is it because I did something wrong and I'm a bad person and I just many things. And then, um, yeah, while I was working one day my boss at this care home accused me of abusing one of the patients, one of the residents, which just was not true at all. The thing is is that the boss hated me, so she would do anything just to belittle me and make me upset to make me cry, whatever. And she pulled me into the office and accused me of abusing a resident. And, uh, I just went home, walked through the door, put my bag on the floor, went straight to bed, and I just went under the Duvet and I cried and my boyfriend came through and he said, I don't know what's happened. Are you okay? I said, no, I just need to leave. Like, I really hate that place, but we really need money. You know, we need to pay the bills and stuff. Um, and he said, right, you're handing in your letter of resignation tomorrow, handed it in the next day. Quit my job. I ended up getting a job in a summer school for a while. And then I said, you know what, it's gonna all repeat again. After the summer jobs finished, we need to move. So we literally opened the laptop when some Google and we typed"top 10 best places to live in England."
Michael:Oh That's a good thing!
Emma:Yeah. I'm Bristol was uh, one of them and I thought, okay, we've never been to Bristol. Let's go. Came here, loved it, decided to move here. And I applied to different language schools and no one got back to me, no one. So I thought, right, okay, I'm going to do a master's degree during this time because I'm a little bit bored, you know, and I've been working, I want to do something more. So I started doing my master's degree in English language teaching and I needed a job that was very flexible and I thought, what's more flexible than being freelance? Nothing. So I went completely freelance and I said to myself, if this doesn't work then I'm going to go and apply to Tesco down the road as like a Tesco supermarket down the road. And I said to myself, if this doesn't work, that is my option. And I don't want to go back to working in a supermarket. I've done it once before. I hated it. I don't want to do it again. Um, and so I made it work with everything I could. And after I finished my masters, I started with Youtube, Instagram, all of that stuff. And now I'm here. Yeah, that's my story.
Michael:Excellent. It's such a, a long, a long history, but that's really amazing to see where you've come from. Um, and I think it's great that you have that Tesco is a backup plan because it's important to have a backup plan, but when, you know it's something you really don't want to do. Um, because I had that- my backup plan was working in a shop as well, but when you know it's something you hate, you are more motivated to avoid having to go back to that aren't you?
Emma:That's it. There's no better motivation than knowing that your plan B is something you detest.
Michael:Yes, exactly. Exactly. No, it's really interesting cause I had very similar experiences to you. Um, in my last job, I worked at a crematorium and, well, I had a similar time when I got to a point where I was very, I don't know if I would say depressed, but I was very down. Um, I hated what I was doing at that point. I didn't feel happy with my life. And at one point I just cried at work and then I realized I had to do something. So I went to travel around Asia for a while and then I also realised when I finished my travel, it doesn't solve my problem. I still have to figure out what to do for work. And then I thought about what I enjoy, what I love to do and, uh, languages, it was one of them. So I decided to get into teaching and specifically online because of the flexibility, like you said. So. Yeah. I agree. So we've had somewhat similar experiences there. That's interesting.
Emma:Yeah, we have actually.
Michael:Yeah. Um, okay. Here's a fun question. Maybe, I don't know if you can answer this. What would you say is your favourite accent in the world? Um, obviously English speaking accent,
Emma:It's gotta be South African.
Michael:Me Too. Me Too. I love the South African accent.
Emma:Yeah. I love it so much. You know, I, um, people may have seen like a couple of months ago I had a, so for situation where this Sofa Company delivered my new sofa, but they refused to take my old sofa. And so I had to put my sofa, my old one on this, uh, this websites where you could basically sell anything and the South African woman came and I just wanted her to stay and talk to me cause I actually was just so nice. Yes. So friendly sounding. So pleasant.
Michael:Mm, I agree. I agree. It's um, yeah. I don't know. There's something about it. There's just so pleasant to hear. Yeah, that's a good one. Um, what about inside the UK in the UK? Do you have a favourite accent? Um, a favourite region?
Emma:I really like, I mean, I'm biased because I really like a nice thick Yorkshire accent. Yeah. Um, I just think it sounds really friendly, really nice. It just reminds me of like growing up, it reminds me of home, but I am starting to quite like the Bristolian accents. Um, you know, there's a, there's a place near me, uh, well not near me, but there's a place in Bristol called Gurt lush. And, um, you know, for people who don't, I don't even really know what Gurt lush means. It means like, oh, it's really nice or something, doesn't it? Um, and Bristolian dialect and um, yeah, this place called Gurt lush. But the thing is, is that if you say it in like a normal, not say normal English accent, but let's say RP, like standard pronunciation and you say gurt lush. It doesn't sound as good as Gurt Lush. You know, it just sounds so good in a Bristolian accent. Um, and you know, I hear people saying things like, um, uh, no, not so often, but I hear it from time to time like:"you alright me lover?"(Bristolian accent) All right baber.
Michael:Okay.
Emma:I Love it when I hear, it's like, ah, I don't know what"babber" Means, but I love it. So yeah, they, they call me, they call me these things. They say these things and I just love listening to this accident that they have here is really nice.
Michael:Yeah, no, definitely. I don't think I could pick one in the UK. I think all accents are great hair. Um, I, I do have a hard time when I travel north and I listened to what I like Manchester or Liverpool accent or even Scottish and I have no idea what they're saying. And I think that's quite comforting to learners because if they struggle with the English accent, so do we. I don't understand?
Emma:Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. When I went to Dublin a couple of years ago, I had to ask people to repeat a number of times because I just had no idea what they were saying sometimes. And my poor boyfriend didn't understand a word. So it, yeah, my boyfriend is Spanish for people who don't know. So you can imagine for him, he's like, yeah, you're translator to today and translating from um, Irish
Michael:This isn't English Right? Please tell me this is not English.
Emma:No, this one, this was all in English. And he thought like, you know, are they speaking Gaelic, are they speaking another language? Like nope, those speaking English.
Michael:It's insane. It's crazy. Yeah. Um, but I mean, yeah, definitely. I think accents from what I can see, I don't know if you would agree, but accents is something that you are quite knowledgeable with, you're good at pronunciation and that kind of stuff. But is there something that you struggle with, like a particular sound or um, word in English that you have problems with? I know I'm kind of putting you on the spot here.
Emma:Hmm. Not a word, but I do struggle with the, uh, sound in like"pub" sometimes because in Yorkshire this sound doesn't exist. We would say"oub". We'd say, instead of bus we'd say"bus". And so I actually had to learn the sound. And from time to time, the diphthongs also catch me out a little bit. So instead of saying,"so" I sometimes say"so" and I don't realise that I said it until afterwards. And even during, you know, editing my videos, it will come up. I'll say something like,"so now" instead of,"so now" let's look at this, you know, I think, Oh God, I sound so Yorkshire that um, and the same happens with the a diphthong again, I'll say things like say, um, instead of say, and it just slips out in videos and during my speech and then, I don't know, you've got some idiot commenting like,"yeah, you said__ instead of___". It's like, wow, would you like a metal? Like what do you want?
Michael:Yeah, I think there's nothing wrong with that of course. But it's also important, I guess not to give the wrong idea that this is standard English because I have the same problem. I'm from Cornwall in the very southwest of England and I don't know if this is a Cornish thing, but it's what I've been brought up to say. I guess instead of saying like up, I will usually say something similar like op op. So it sounds like, op.
Emma:Aah,
Michael:I didn't notice this until I started recording myself on listening back to my voice and it was something I've tried my best to change. So that's quite, I don't know. It's quite embarrassing.
Emma:I love it that you're embarrassed by it. Cause I, I mean when I hear my mistakes, let's call them. I'm not embarrassed. I'm just like, Oh God, I need to pay more attention to when I speak. You know?
Michael:Yeah. That's a good attitude to have is don't feel bad, but is it never hurts to pay attention to what you're saying or how you were saying something. Exactly. Yeah. And as well, there's no shame in having a bit of your accent coming through. I don't think, you know, some people are genuinely ashamed of that accident and they'll completely change it. And I just think that why, you know, accents are what makes you so unique. And if everyone spoke with an RP accent, we would be so boring wouldn't we? It would be great if we had all these different accents and from time to time, you know, these little things just slip in when we're speaking as you know, teachers. But, um, I can understand why people may be ashamed of their accent. I think it comes down to like the stereotypes associated with those accents. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Usually I would say of course RP is related to upper class and that kind of stuff and more regional accents are considered, well they have, there's different stereotypes aren't there?
Emma:Yeah, exactly.
Michael:Quite often they're negative in some way.
Emma:Yeah. Like Cornwall, you're all farmers in Yorkshire we're all farmers and coal miners. Um, so yeah, there's always that, that kind of stereotype. Definitely. But I think it's changing.
Michael:Yes, definitely. And as I said, it is, it is comforting to know for English learners out there that even we can have problems pronouncing some English, you know, English features and things like that. So it's, it's not always easy. And another problem I have is t h. That's always something that I've, I've had to learn that, um, as a teenager, the t h sound? Yeah.
Emma:Did you say it like F and V?
Michael:I said it like a F, so f and t h with the same to me and sometimes it's still very difficult.
Emma:Yeah. This is really interesting because some of my students, they really, really struggle with the t h sounds. So I tell them, oh, just do what they do, you know, in London and in other parts of England and just say it like a TH or V and they're fine. They could get that.
Michael:Yeah. It's not a big problem is it?
Emma:No, people understand you. It's, and so long as people understand you, it's really not that much of a problem, I don't think. Anyway.
Michael:Yeah, I agree. I agree. Uh, so I think another thing that makes a good language teacher in my opinion is having experience in other languages. So I think you have learned what have you, you've had some experience in foreign languages. Have you, are you learning anything right now or do you know any other languages?
Emma:Yeah, so I've successfully and unsuccessfully learn a few languages. So right now I'm learning Portuguese and in October I plan on going to Lisbon for a month and studying intensively that I've never done an intensive course before. So I'm going to see what it's like from a student's perspective, which is quite interesting. So yeah, I'm learning Portuguese right now that's going well, but I also speak Spanish. I'm definitely not fluent in Spanish. It's about a B2 level, which is upper intermediate. Um, I've also learned German that's around a sort of A2 level. I can have a very, very basic conversation in German. Um, I used to also work for a French company so I could learn, I could say very specific phrases. Um, just so I could speak to the receptionist and I could say to the receptionist, you know, hi, my name is Emma. I'm from Blah, blah, blah is, I don't know John Pierre the please. And then, um, that was pretty much it. I don't know any other French, I can't order a coffee or anything. I just know those phrases. Um, what else? I, I started learning sign language at university as well. Um, I learned Catalan while I was living in Catalonia.
Michael:Very cool.
Emma:And I think that's it. Yeah. Those are all the languages
Michael:So you've got like a mixture of different European languages. That's really interesting. Very useful.
Emma:With your traveling, I guess you probably traveling. Where did you go, Asia?
Michael:Yeah, well I've, I've been to Europe as well of course. But yeah, the big travel I did before was in Asia. Like Japan mostly.
Emma:Uh Huh. So did you learn Japanese?
Michael:Yeah, well. I'm still learning Japanese. It's my, it's my best language for learning for a few years, but I'm nowhere near fluent is a hard language to master.
Emma:It is. Yeah. And it's so different to English. So any other European language, let's say. It's really true. I feel like I've cheated a little bit with Spanish and Portuguese cause that's so similar to English. Um, something like Japanese. I mean that's really learning another language isn't it? Cause it's not similar at all.
Michael:Yeah. And I feel like I kind of shoot myself in the foot in some ways because I don't know why, but I'm not, I love all languages, but I'm much more attracted to the hardest ones. So if it's like a completely different writing system and there's nothing that I recognise, it's so much more attractive to me. So I've learned Spanish in the past, but it's kind of slipped and I've lost it now. Um, and I'm also studying Chinese at the moment.
Emma:Wow. Just to stress yourself out a little bit more
Michael:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's just, I think it's more enjoyable because well, comparing to when I learned Spanish, when I can read or understand Chinese or Japanese, it's so much more satisfying because I can remember a time when all of this was just no nonsense to me. Um, whereas Spanish you have a rough idea. Maybe you understand a couple of words that look similar.
Emma:Yeah, that's very true.
Michael:Okay. Well that's interesting. So do you have any plans to them future, not future languages, but any future plans to learn languages and or anything you would love to learn if you had more time?
Emma:Hmm. Anything I'd like to learn if I have bought, I mean, there are many things. I mean, you know, right now it's, I'm kind of boring because I'm just learning more about like marketing. So I would love to learn more about marketing. I mean, social media marketing changes all the time. So I'm, I don't think you can ever stop researching about that and finding out more, but I just find it so interesting and I was having this conversation, I think it was just this morning actually, how, how when you stop reset to marketing, you start to notice how marketing is used to make you buy things. So, you know, I, I remember I was researching this thing about marketing about a year ago now I've just started again. And um, I've become so like critical and observant I think is a good word. Every time I walk around shops or I go on a website and I see something and I think, oh, I want to buy that. Okay, let's imagine it's a dress. Okay, I see a dress. I'm like, oh, that dress is so nice. I want to buy that. And then I stopped that. I think, hold on, why do I want to buy that dress? And I saw it like analysing all the marketing that's gone around and I start thinking about the sales funnels that they've probably used, uh, online and all this stuff. And I stopped. I started to feel like I was being trapped all the time, like I was being manipulated. Um, that's interesting. That's good to think about that. It is. Yeah. And you start looking around like, hold on, but I don't need this dress. I mean, there are only three things in this world that humans need to survive. That's food. That's water and oxygen. Okay. We don't need anything else. Um, so why is it that I'm so attracted to this dress that I see on a Facebook ad? Why do I feel the need to buy this dress? What's going on? So I look at the ad, I look at the text, what wording are they using? And things like that. I just been analysing so much stuff. This quite tiring. I mean, no one said, I'm spending all my days analysing Facebook ads just for fun. This isn't healthy.
Michael:That's really fascinating. Um, and of course you can apply what you learn that to your, to your own, um, future courses and things like that. Not that you want to manipulate people, of course.
Emma:Oh No, definitely not.
Michael:But of course it's good to make it more attractive. And more appealing to people that would find it useful, isn't it?
Emma:That's it. It's just finding out what attracts people's attention. And, um, I mean, we all look at ads and we just think, ah, I'm not interested in that. Let's take something like apple, like I a Mac. They have very expensive products, but the way that they market it is like, well, if you buy this, then you are a certain type of person. You know, you, you have money, you are a bit hipster, you are alternative. You are different. So when people buy a Mac book, for example, they associate those qualities with themself and they think, oh yeah, I don't want to buy a PC. I want to be a hipster with a Mac and these kinds of things. So yeah, it's just seeing those things and when I buy stuff, it's like, oh, is it because I think I'm a hipster that I want to buy that. Oh, I just thought on analysing myself, my thought process and, uh, the ads, it's really interesting.
Michael:Yeah, absolutely. It's not something I've really thought about before, but I'm sure I will now.
Emma:Yeah. Yeah. You'll start feeling tricked a lot of things.
Michael:Yes. Yes. You think you have free will and until you realise that you're actually being led to these purchases. Yeah.
Emma:Yes exactly. That's a really good word. Yeah. You'd be trapped into this. Of course. I know. Yeah. Cause I didn't want to trap people to buy my clothes. I want to give them like the best course they can have and um, I'll try my absolute best to to do that and pack all my knowledge into, into a course which is quite, it's quite tricky. But then yeah, finding out how to sell it, that's a whole different ballgame. Definitely.
Michael:Yeah. Cause you can have the best course in the world, but that doesn't mean people are going to magically find it. Does it?
Emma:Exactly. And you know, I've seen some courses before that would genuinely terrible that because they had fantastic marketing. People bought it. I bought it and then I open up the course and I think actually this is rubbish. This is really terrible. I can find out all this stuff on Google. And you know, it's a, it's a shame. But I look at the way that they market and I'm like, ah, yes, I sneaky. I fell for that.
Michael:Okay, that's good to see. It's good to learn from that. Well, another thing that I am very interested in his language mishaps or mistakes. So in the podcast I released last week, I spoke about a big mistake I made in language learning, which I won't give away too much here, but basically I'm, I neglected to study certain areas, um, in my Japanese and it was a big mistake. Um, and I also spoke about an embarrassing moment I had where I tried to speak with someone and what I plan to say and what I actually said. It did not match up. I said something that was completely incomprehensible. So I wondered if you have ever had any similar experiences in any of your languages where you've said something embarrassing or there's been a strange misunderstanding. Can you think of anything like that?
Emma:So many. I am the master of mistakes. I just have so many stories. I think I have a story for each language, maybe not French. I think franchise pretty safe with, because I just used a set amount of phrases and it was very professional business English, you know? Hmm. I remember in German, I don't, I, I'm mixed up the pronunciation of one word and I said something along the lines of like, I have, um, ah, God, Oh God, I've completely forgotten the word in English. Like um, I've ejaculated basically. Okay. Um, with, uh, you know, my teacher went like bright red, and was laughing. I was like, what did I say?(they) Said Emma just said that you've just ejaculated. Oops. Okay. Um, in Spanish, in Portuguese, I've not had many, I've been very, very careful with Portuguese, but with Spanish I have quite a few. So I remember when I was in this restaurant and we were all ordering food and I was the only one that could speak some level of Spanish. Everyone else was English. They spoke zero, like zero, uh, Spanish. So I had to order and my friend wanted chicken, Paella. Now chicken in Spanish is pollo and polla, So like the feminine, means penis or Dick is the equivalent of Dick.
Michael:I did not know this. That's good to know.
Emma:Yep. So you can anticipate what's coming. Um, so I wanted to say"una paella de pollo". Okay. Chicken pot, chicken, Paella. And I looked on his way to, and I said, um, uh, oh, what was it? Oh yeah, I completely forgot what I was ordering."una paella de polla" like a Dick Paella this way to just went bright red, started laughing, wrote it down on his notepad and I, I looked at him and I got, Oh my God. And I realised what I said. I said, no no no, de pollo de pollo, like chicken with chicken. And my friends were like, Emma why are you bright red? What's happened? And I said I accidentally asked for a Dick Paella. And they're like, oh my God. And I was just the, the joke of the whole, you know, evening, it was terrible. Um, so yeah, that's one. And another one, I remember, um, I was living with a phone and I was with the dad one day and I was just talking to the dad. Now I wanted to say, uh, I'm hot as in like, I feel hot, my body temperature is hot. Okay. And I said,"estoy caliente". Now if you say Spanish speakers will probably be laughing at this because if you say"estoy caliente" it means I'm horny.
Michael:Oh, I don't know this either. Okay.
Emma:So I said"estoy caliente". and this dad is looking at me like que?, what? Basically say, ah, yeah, well, you know, we were alone together. And I was like, Oh yeah, I'm so horny in his eyes. That's what he was in his mind. That's what I was saying. I looked at him, I saw the horror on his face and he started laughing at me
Michael:Ah that's so good.
Emma:I said, what's happened? And then I realised, Bang, Oh my God, I just said that. Uh, I've just set that, um, I mean, tengo color. Like I have heat, they say in Spanish.
Michael:Oh of course yeah. That must be a common mistake.
Emma:Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. It's like, um, when, when I first started learning Spanish, one of the, uh, why was it, I think it was a friend of mine, she wanted to say that she was pregnant or something like that. What Was it? No, no, no. She wanted to say that she was embarrassed. Now this is a false friend because embarazada it sounds like embarrassed. Right. But it means pregnant.
Michael:Oh, that's strange.
Emma:So, yeah, so she said one day like, ah, um, you know, she wants to say, oh, I'm so embarrassed. I said,"estoy embarazada". And people were looking at her like, what? Yeah. They, they explained to her like, no, it's, it means you're, you're pregnant. Oh my God. Okay.
Michael:That's so funny that you've got so many good stories. That's amazing.
Emma:I know. It's terrible. This is what happens when you go abroad for a year and then you live with a family who speaks zero English and yeah. Survive with just the second language. You learn a lot.
Michael:Yeah, definitely. I definitely, I do also want to make sure for the English learners out there, um, maybe so they can avoid looking up the word horny on the Google. If you don't know Horny, horny means you're ready for sex. Something like that. Right? Yeah, exactly. So now no need to look it up If you don't know
Emma:Yeah please don't Google"horny".
Michael:Yeah don't turn images on
Emma:Yeah safe search. Put safe search on.
Michael:I think that's great though because, um, once you've made those mistakes, you will probably never make them again. Right. You will never forget that moment.
Emma:I don't know. There has been a time when I've accidentally, again, confused Pollo and polla. I just, I just can't get out of my head. And I think it's because I'm so worried about making the same mistake that I overthink it. And then I, I'm thinking, don't say polla, don't say polla- polla! And I'm like, damn, I said it again it's just become like a joke now. So when I do say it, it's, um, I just go with it. You know, I just accept my decision that I've made.
Michael:Yeah. You have to learn to laugh at yourself, don't you?
Emma:That's it. Exactly. And I think this is why I love learning languages so much. It's because I make these mistakes and of course they're embarrassing at the time, but now I have some great stories to tell my grandchildren if I ever have any
Michael:When they're a bit older maybe!
Emma:Um, so yeah, it made mistakes because you'll have fantastic stories like mine.
Michael:Yes. Yes. And this is something that I'm, I'm continuously learning. Um, yeah, one, I think my Chinese at the moment is improving much faster than my Japanese did at the same stage just because I'm more willing to make mistakes. Yeah. I can't think of too many funny ones from me because I have been more reserved in the past and I haven't spent extended periods of time in other lang.. In other countries. But I remember when I was on a school trip to France one year, you and I met, I wanted to say to someone that I loved. Now what did I say? I think I wanted to say French is difficult. Um, for, for some reason I said I hate France.
Emma:Was that the subliminal like message? I know subliminal thoughts in there coming out.
Michael:Maybe. Maybe it was, I wouldn't give that much credit to my, my French at the time. Um, I don't even think they're similar how you say them. I don't know why, but I don't know. That was, that was an embarrassing one, but I was quite young, so yes,
Emma:you can get away with them.
Michael:Yeah. You're more resilient, I think when you're younger you don't care.
Emma:Yeah, that's true. Yeah. This is something with my learners, because I don't teach children. I teach adults and there's so ashamed of making mistakes because they don't want to look stupid. And I have to tell them, look, you're sitting with me. The worst thing that's going to happen is that I laugh and I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you. I would never laugh at you and make you feel bad. Yeah. If I do laugh, it's because you know, you've genuinely said something funny and you need to get used to that because people are going to not just laugh with you, but they are going to laugh at you. And there's a, there's a big difference there. If they're laughing with you for people listening and you're thinking, well, what's the difference? If someone's laughing with you, then they're joking with you at the same time y'all laughing, they're laughing, everything's good. There's like mutual laughter. If someone's laughing at you, then it's not very nice. You know, they're laughing. I was gonna say"at You" but..
Michael:Just emphasise it more and then..
Emma:Yeah. Well done Emma!
Michael:They're laughing at your expense. That's another way to say it,, they're making fun of you in other words.
Emma:Exactly. Yeah. You are the joke. There's no mutual laughter, you know, it's tends to be you. That's the one that's suffering. And the other person's finding that funny basically in that situation too. And it's horrible, horrible.
Michael:And the only people that really do that when it comes to languages or people that have never learnt a foreign language because they don't know. They don't know how it feels to put yourself out there and try something new like that
Emma:Yeah, I tend to find is two types of people inside of the people who are monolingual or have very, very bad language skills and abilities or it's people who think that they're better than you, so they think that they have a better level than you and so they feel that they have the rights. That to them basically critique you and knock you down to make themselves feel better. Again, it comes to confidence because if, how do I put it? I mean, I've always said this, a happy, confident person does not try to knock other people down and does not try to make other people feel bad because if you already feel good and you're already confident, you don't need to make other people feel bad to make yourself feel good. Right? Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I just look at these people now, whenever people laugh at my Portuguese or they laugh at my Spanish, um, I just think that's your own insecurities coming through. I'm confident in my abilities. Yes. I know I speak to her Portuguese right now, but one day I'm going to be awesome. And um, it, you know, that doesn't it you, you laughing at me, it doesn't affect that at all. I'm not, I'm not going to let it affect that because in the past that has,
Michael:Yeah, definitely. I completely agree. Comparison is just uh, I don't know it amplifies your insecurities in it. Oh, I guess it's a sign of your insecurities in some ways. So I always say the only person you should compare yourself to is yourself in the past to see how far you've come and also in the future. So see what you could be capable of. I think that would be my advice to anyone else.
Emma:Definitely. Yeah. Cause it, once you start, once you start comparing yourself to other people, you will never be good enough. You will always find someone who's better always. Um, I find like this happens with teachers on, on and social media and stuff. They're always comparing their number of followers to someone else. So they're comparing the videos to someone else. And, um, I just think why, like why are you doing that? Because you're only making yourself feel bad. Just do what you do, do what you've gotta do, you know, compare yourself to yourself exactly like what you said, and just grow from that rather than growing two to beat another person, grow in order to, I don't know, become a better version of yourself rather than a better version of another person.
Michael:Definitely. That's very motivational. Yes. I hope, uh, I don't know where those words came from. My in a multivitamin and that's fantastic. Is I think motivation is a very important aspect of language learning. Of course.
Emma:Yeah, definitely 100%.
Michael:So one thing I focused on a lot in my podcast so far, although it's still early days, is all language learning tips. So I like to focus on not just what to learn about how to learn. So would you have any advice for anyone currently learning English? What would it be your best advice for English learners today?
Emma:Find out the reason why you're learning the language and stick with that. Keep that in mind when you're learning because when you, or if you become demotivated, you can go back to that reason why you're learning that language and you will re motivate yourself because motivation is the key thing. Definitely.
Michael:Yeah. Perfect. So we're going back to what we just said. Motivation. That's a really good, really good piece of advice.
Emma:Yeah, definitely. Because I mean, I've met students who have like fantastic English, but they're just not motivated or they give rubbish excuses. I mean, you've probably found the same like, ah, no, I'm, I'm too poor to learn English and too busy to learn English. I'm too tired to learn English. Like you have no excuse. If you are messaging me on Instagram, it means that you have access to the incident. If you have access to the Internet, you can't do anything. You can learn English just from your phone. Yes. That's all you need. You don't need to pay. Uh, no. Uh, no. Not really promoting us very well, but need to pay a teacher. Um, the good thing about a teacher is that they can show you things without you having to spend hours researching them. You know, teachers essentially are just that they take you from a to B much faster. You don't have to spend all that time researching and they're there to guide you. They're there to support you. They're there to motivate you. You can't always get that on the Internet. You can join Facebook groups of course, but that they tend to be full of idiots, you know, like people who just want to get girls and impress each other with their, I don't know, phrasal verbs or whatever. And um,, you know, you, do, you know what I'm trying to say? Like, yeah, if you have the Internet, they, you can do, you can do anything. If you're too poor to pay for a teacher, learn online and then save some money. It's what I've done. I didn't just miraculously like, I dunno, grow money to go to Portugal. I saved for years and years. So I had that money in a pot and I could say, okay, I want to go to Portugal and I want to learn, say French, then. I don't wanna learn French in Portugal.,(inaudible) to go to Portugal. I learn Portuguese. Um, and so many people message me when I put that on Instagram. Like, Oh, you must be so rich. Oh, you're so lucky. No, I'm not damn lucky. I just worked really hard. I've worked really, really hard to save that money. I stayed motivated and now I'm going to go and live that dream. It's not about look at all, it's about just working and getting from a to B. If you really, really want something, you're going to find a way to get there.
Michael:Yeah. Completely agree. 100%. Yeah,
Emma:I went a bit ranty then.
Michael:No, that's really good. It's really good. I see your passion coming out, that's great.
Emma:And anger.
Michael:So basically if you ever see your, if you ever find yourself making excuses as to why you can't learn, if it's money or time or anything else, then think about your motivation. Right? Think about why you want to learn. Maybe you want to get a job in the UK and but your also complaining about not having time to study. Well, if you really want the job, he would make some time. Most likely. So always think back to your motivation.
Emma:Exactly. That's it. If you want something bad enough, you will make it happen. The people who don't become famous are the ones that give up. The ones that don't become the successful youtube. Others are the ones that give up. The ones whose businesses fail are the ones who give up. But I mean sometimes businesses fail. There's not much you can do about that and you've got to give up. But you see what I mean? You, you can't just think, I don't have the money. Oh, I'm from a poor country. Oh, there were no native speakers in my country. You have the Internet in the palm of your hand. Literally like stop making excuses. I don't have a Portuguese teacher like a private Portuguese teacher yet. I can now have a basic conversation in Portuguese. I've never met a person from Portugal. I've never met a Brazilian. I've just spoken to people online.
Michael:That's great.
Emma:Yeah. I've not any anytime trying to find natives or native teachers or anything like that, I've just, I'm just so motivated that I just find ways.
Michael:Yeah, it is possible. And if you do find that you lack motivation, I do think online teachers or even language partners can be a great way to motivate you because they are, they're expecting you to make progress and learn so that that is another option as well. But yeah, I completely agree. I feel, I feel like you should be on stage talking about this. It's so motivational
Emma:and here I am giving it away for free now. But I enjoy it. I enjoy, I enjoy motivating people. I enjoy seeing people getting results because I've helped motivate them and I really liked that part of my job. I liked that teaching side. I like not that teacher. I like that side of teaching I should say
Michael:yes. Yes, of course. Um, that was fantastic. So I do want to be conscious of your time today, so I think we'll just end up soon. Um, before we go, maybe one last question. Do you have any language resources or anything like that that you'd recommend to learners?
Emma:Ooh MMM hmm. Oh, that's a tricky one for in terms of resources for learners, I, if we stick with the theme of Pronunciation, um, I really recommend, um, oh goodness. What's it called? Pronunciation in use. Oh yes, yes. The, there's a series of books. There's elementary, intermediate and advanced. I highly recommend that people get the intermediate one. Um, if you already have a very good grasp and understanding of the sounds and basic intonation linking contractions, then move on to the advanced one because they advance was completely different. It doesn't look at individual sounds while the intermediate one does. It looks at it comparing a similar sounds and the advanced one looks at more advanced features. The elementary ones, good. But it's a little bit, and it's written a similar to the intermediate one. So I just recommend that people go straight for intermediate. It doesn't mean you have to have an intermediate level. I have C1, C2 level students yet I'm still using the materials from the intermediate book just because you know, as we know as teachers, you3 level with the different skills can be very different. So yes, you can be, see one in your reading, writing, listening, speaking and et Cetera. But maybe your pronunciation is, is really, really don't want to say terrible. I don't like using that word, but you're
Michael:Room to improve.
Emma:Exactly. There is definitely room for improvement in terms of your pronunciation and so, uh, I use the intermediate book with them. So yeah. English pronunciation in use. I of the who it's by, is it Hancock? Um, I can find it. Actually I have it right here.
Michael:I can, I can, I've never seen this. Actually I can put a link to it in the show notes, so if anyone's interested can head over to my website and find it there.
Emma:Ah, perfect. Yeah, I just found it here. It's in my most recent documents. Um, English pronunciation in use by Mark Hancock. And there we are.
Michael:Perfect. Thank you. And of course, another resource that I would recommend is what you're up to. So I would recommend your Instagram, your youtube, your Facebook. Um, is there anything else you'd like to plug? Like where can people find you online?
Emma:So if you'd like to find me online, just search for pronunciation with Emma. I am on Youtube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and I'm pretty much everywhere. So yeah, in terms of like the kind of content that I make on youtube, I make videos like full lessons describing certain sounds or areas of pronunciation in more detail while on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, it's more just commonly mispronounced words or difficult words to pronounce. Um, so they, they're quite different, you know, if you're looking for just a very quick mini 22nd lesson on how to pronounce a difficult word, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are your best friends, their pronunciation with Emma, you can find me there. But if you're looking for more details on sounds and more advanced features of pronunciation, then pronunciation with Emma on youtube is better for that.
Michael:Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, of course. I really recommend people to check you out. So yes, thank you very much. It's been really good to talk with you today.
Emma:And you too. Yes. Thank you for inviting me.
Michael:Yes, it's been a pleasure to have you as my first ever guest on my podcast. Thank you so much.
Emma:So honoured.
Michael:Thank you everyone for coming by and listening to our conversation today. I really hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions for me, you can ask over on my website. Um, that is ewmichael.com and feel free to submit your podcast questions for a future episode. Thank you very much and I will see you next week. You have been listening to the English with Michael Podcast to view the podcast notes for this episode and to listen to previous episodes. Head over to ewmichael.com/podcast.
