How to sound more natural in English at work

Rachel: When speaking a foreign language, it’s not always easy to sound natural. You have to think of so many things: vocabulary, word order, grammar, tonalityKlang, Intonationtonality and rhythm. 

I studied German literature at university, but when I moved to Germany and started working here, I realized my German sounded very old-fashioned and floralblumigfloral. It didn’t take long before I started introducing filler words like doch and eben and pick up on sth.etw. aufgreifenpicking up on my colleagues’ colloquialisms to start to sound more natural.

Richard: But how important is it to sound natural, really? Because there are lots of English speakers in different countries. We all sound a little different, and there’s no clear right or wrong way to sound when you speak English. 

I think it’s perhaps more important to sound comfortable with English. And I think the way to do that is to expose oneself to sth.sich etw. aussetzenexpose yourself to the language as much as possible. And you can do that in various ways. You can listen to podcasts, you can listen to other audio products, like this one. And you can speak to people and, if necessary, just copy what they do. 

Rachel: I agree. I don’t think the goal should be perfectionism. I think you should try to feel as confident and as comfortable as possible speaking English. I think that a lot of the time, German speakers are very focused on perfect grammar. And actually, native English speakers don’t always have perfect grammar, and I think that half the battle is overcome sth.etw. überwindenovercoming those inhibitionHemmunginhibitions about making a mistake and just getting the words out there.

Richard: But that sort of perhaps comes from German. Because in German, grammar is perhaps more important than it is in English, because if you make a little mistake, your entire sentence can be wrong in German. And in English, a little mistake doesn’t have such serious consequences. So, the main thing is that people understand you, the words are right, because words in English have much more meaning than grammar does.

Rachel: That’s a very good point. But rather than speculating about issueProblemissues learners have, we asked a couple of learners to send in their questions and doubts for us to answer. I’m intriguedneugierig, gespanntintrigued to hear what they have to say. Let’s listen to the first one.

Marnie: Hi, there. My name is Marnie. And I was wondering if there are better or more natural filler words that I can use in international meetings?

Rachel: So, filler words are words that help you sound more natural, and can also buy you time to think, so things like “erm”, “you know”, “well” and “like”. I particularly like “well”. It works as a nice little softener, I think. So, instead of saying, “I think you might be wrong”, you can say, “Well, I think you might be wrong.” A Brit would be more likely to temper sth.etw. milderntemper this even more, saying, “Well, I’m not sure that’s totally correct.”

Richard: Yeah, they also buy you a bit of time if you’re still trying to think of what you want to say. You can say things like, “as I understand it”, or “in my opinion”, that sort of thing.

Rachel: We have another question from an English learner. Let’s take a listen. 

Michael: Hey, I’m Michael. In business meetings, I often try to translate from my language and it sounds strange to me. How can I fix sth.etw. reparieren; hier: etw. ändernfix that?

Richard: Well, a lot can go wrong when you’re translating from your own language into any other language, because languages aren’t that similar, even when they feel relatedverwandtrelated, it’s a foreign language. But it’s [a] perfectly natural thing to do. You know, I think everybody does that to some extent, but I think the way that you counteract sth.etw. entgegenwirkencounteract that is to feel so comfortable in the language that you actually think in English. So, you’re not thinking to yourself in German first and then reproducing that in English. It takes a long time. You have to be patient and practise a lot. But I think that’s the only way. What do you think? 

Rachel: I agree. I think the most important thing you can do is to immerse oneself in sth.in etw. eintauchenimmerse yourself in the targetZieltarget language. And that’s particularly important if you work in a specific industry. So, maybe there are podcasts about your industry, for example, that you could listen to. And I also think it’s helpful to learn collocations rather than just individual words. So, things like “sound advice” is better than just “advice”, for example. And “stiff competitionharter Wettbewerbstiff competition” is better than just “competition”. 

Richard, it was lovely talking to you, and hopefully you, dear listeners, find this helpful. Do get in touch with your language questions for our team to answer.