You might not realize it, but many see speaking in English as risky. They fear the risk of making mistakes or looking foolish. Just like the Extreme Kidnapping though, there’s no real danger involved in making mistakes. What about you? Do you think making mistakes in English is risky or embarrassing? This is important, because fear of failure will stop you from becoming a more fluent English speaker. How can you reframe the way you think and feel when speaking English?
Adapted from an image by Peter Jackson (CC BY 4.0)
A Bad Dancer’s Guide to English
The message for me is being comfortable looking foolish is a path to greater freedom and happiness in your life. This is especially important for language learners, because everyone makes mistakes and everyone looks foolish sometimes. The people who are comfortable with those mistakes, and don’t care what other people think, are the ones who will learn the fastest.
What is Money?
What is money? Some people think of money as cash or credit cards. Other people describe it more abstractly as freedom. One famous English expression says, “Money is the root of all evil.” We all want it and we need it to survive, but what is it really?
Your Weight In Gold
Similar to gold, salt has been valued by cultures around the world for thousands of years. The English word salary comes from the Latin word for salt. In ancient Rome salt was so valuable that some people received their monthly pay in the form of salt.
The Context of Culture
The difference between low and high context communication can perhaps be illustrated in the following example. Let’s say you meet someone for the very first time. You know nothing about each other, so you have to spend many hours talking and asking questions in order get to know each other. That’s pretty low context communication. But let’s say you’ve been married for 30 years. You don’t even need to talk in order to communicate. One look from across the room and you know exactly what your wife or husband is thinking, and nobody else can understand. That’s high context communication.
Multiple Intelligences
What does it mean to be intelligent? Have you ever heard someone say, “What an intelligent guy!” or “I wish I had her intelligence.” Well, usually we think of intelligent people as being really smart, you know, they score well on tests, get good grades in school, and solve difficult problems easily. They often have good memories, big vocabularies, and high IQs. And if you are not one of these people, then you probably know someone who is.
Grammar of Happiness
The Piraha are a small tribe of about 400 people that live in the Amazon. Unlike every other human language, Piraha doesn’t have words for abstract ideas. They only talk about what they directly experience or what people they know have directly experienced.
Color Boosts Memory and Creativity
Colors have the power to change our mood and our energy. Some people also believe that colors can make us remember words more easily and be more creative.
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