Transcript

If you're an immigrant, works in corporate America, here are the things you're gonna do to help lose your accent or learn the English language. For reference, I moved here from Latvia. When I moved here, I didn't speak English. Obviously Learned English for years. So number one tip, most important tip. Unless you moved here before you were 10 years old, you're gonna get comfortable with the idea that you're gonna have your accent no matter what you do. So I moved here when I was nine. I turned 10 a month later. After moving here, I don't have an accent. My brother moved here when he was 13. He has an accent. A little one, but still has an accent. So number one thing is you're gonna get over the expectation of losing your accent. Unless you move here when you were really young, because it just won't happen. Like even being immersed in a language, you just have to come here to a certain age to completely lose it. So change your expectations now with more realistic expectations. Number two thing you're gonna do is you're gonna try to immerse yourself in the language. How do you do that? The first tip, you are no longer listening to music that you like. All the music you listen to, it's always in English. What will be really good is if you start looking up lyrics to songs you like, to understand what is being said. Learning words that You don't know yet. Because just like hearing the words, listening to music you like is gonna help you learn those words. Shows. You're no longer watching shows in your language. You're watching them in English. Every show is in English. Even if you don't understand what's happening, you're just watching in English. Watch the episode again if you didn't understand it. But you are no longer watching TV in the language of your choice. Books. You are now reading books in English. None of your books are in the language of your choice. You are reading books in English. And when you read books in a language you're trying to learn, whenever you run into words you don't understand, don't stop and look up that word, because that's gonna really discourage you, it's gonna annoy you. You're gonna forget about what you were even reading, and that's not gonna make you wanna read very much. Keep reading. You're gonna get the gist of what's happening. But read in the language you're trying to learn. This is the best way to learn grammar and how to properly see the words written that you're trying to say. Podcast. Whenever you're drive to work, you are listening to the podcast in the language that you're trying to learn. So for me, for example, I'm trying to learn Spanish, it takes me about 45 minutes to drive to work one way and back the other way. That's like an hour and a half. Of time minimum. I am only listening to Spanish podcast on my way there, on my way back. It is the best way to start picking up words that you don't even realize you're picking up just by listening to that language. And last one and most important one is stop being embarrassed by your accent. If you're in a meeting and you wanna speak up, but you're waiting for your English to get better in order to speak up, you will never sit in a meeting and realize, oh, my English is good today, I can speak. You'll never get there. So open your mouth. Speak even with your accent. Practice makes perfect. And just opening your mouth and speaking will make you more comfortable using that language. So don't wait for the perfect opportunity. Open your mouth. Speak. This will help you more than anything else. Be proud that you know another language when other people don't. So hope that helps.