When trying to improve our English, we immediately look at native speakers for inspiration. I remember when I was a teenager growing up in France, I was thinking “Wow, English is so cool, Americans are so cool, I love how they talk, I want an American accent to be cool like them..” This fascination creates the excitement, the motivation to work hard. We want to be like them, we want our English to be as good as theirs.

But no matter how hard we try, there will always be a gap between us and native speakers. There will always be expressions we don’t know, some words tricky to pronounce.

When speaking with native speakers, there are two main issues that we face.

Native speakers speak fluently, using broad vocabulary and expressions

→ Non-native speakers feel the pressure to develop their vocabulary and feel never enough

 Native speakers tend to speak quickly

→ Non-native speakers feel the pressure to speak as fast as them and therefore lose confidence in their speaking ability

It seems to be like a never-ending quest to be as good as native speakers, a quest full of pressure and lack of self-acceptance. There must be a better way to enjoy communicating in a different language.

How do we, as non-native speakers, overcome these obstacles? How can we be effective in communication with native speakers?

As Veritas, through our experience in business and in personal life, we have come up with a few techniques that have become our core principles.

The Why

① Focus on the message you want to convey. The goal of communication is to exchange messages between people. Once you are confident in your message, in what you want to say, only then can you figure out how to say it.

The How

② Use your mouth actively and work on pronunciation to improve clarity of speech, so we can be better understood.

③ Feel confident by keeping your own pace, having a good volume and using eye-contact, you will look confident as well.

The What

④ Use simple, impactful vocabulary that you are comfortable with and speak concisely to keep your confidence. A same message can be said in 5 simple words or 20. As non-native speakers, we don’t need to sound cool with 20 words if our message can be said in 5. With fewer words, our message is clearer and therefore, we also become more convincing

By developing and applying these techniques, we can surely succeed in our communication with native speakers.