How to Talk Like a Native Speaker | Marc Green | TEDxHeidelberg (2)
this could mean something rude,
or it could just mean it's something incredulous,
like, "Why did you do that?"
Or, "How could you?"
Or it could just be signaling food, "Give me food!"
Interesting!
In the Middle East,
this is just a standard way of signaling "Please, wait!"
So these kind of traits you have to internalize,
and sometimes, they're hard to spot,
and it takes a lot of active listening.
I want to give you a few more examples.
So imagine I am with three of my friends: an American, a German, and a Frenchman.
And, like, we're walking and maybe the American bumps his head,
and his initial reaction might be, "Ouch!"
That's how you say it in English.
But the German that, you know, gets, I don't know, elbowed in the crowd,
he would say, "Ow-ah!"
(Laughter)
And the French person might step on the nail and say, "Ay!"
(Laughter)
So this, of course, in your target language,
this is something you have to observe and also internalize,
and it has to become part of you.
If...
Again I'm with these three friends, and I sit with them,
and let's say I serve them tea,
and I ask the American, "Would you like a biscuit with your tea?"
And if he answers in the affirmative, he might say, "Uh-huh!"
And I can ask the German, "Do you know what tea this is?"
He'll say, ''Mm- hmm!''
And then I ask the Frenchman, "Do you like this?"
He'll say, "Hmm!"
(Laughter)
So these difference, they really require active listening.
So all of these three things that I told you
which is pronunciation,
and colloquial speech and adopting cultural traits,
they all require that you interact with natives as much as possible.
Ideally, you should fully immerse yourself in the culture.
Now if you have the chance to live abroad for a while, that will be great.
Or maybe live among natives in your hometown.
Perhaps just have a romantic relationship,
or even just spend time, you know, with co-workers.
So, romantic relationships, I could do a whole talk about that.
(Laughter)
That works really well for these things.
But yeah -
So this will be different for everybody, of course.
But even when you're not around natives, your learning must not stop.
Because what you can do is you can watch TV shows and films,
you can mimic the characters,
you can write down anything that you haven't heard of before,
and practice that.
I also want to encourage you to learn the lyrics of songs.
Songs are really great because they tell stories.
And they not only help your pronunciation when you sing them,
but if they're emotional,
they can anchor these expressions into your active vocabulary.
And it's like speaking all day and really using the expressions unconsciously.
It's a great way.
So music, definitely.
The other thing you need to move towards native-speaker status
is the right mindset,
and a belief that if you sound like a native,
express yourself like a native,
talk like a native and act like a native,
you'll actually achieve a native-like level.
So if I could only leave you with one thing today,
it would be: work on your pronunciation.
Because pronunciation
helps any stage of the learning process,
even in the very beginning.
It'll speed up everything.
And it also is the key to reaching a native-speaker level,
or almost-native-speaker status.
So before I go,
I'd like to tell you how I was able to overcome my fear of the Russian language.
It was a very, very elegant solution.
I married a Russian girl.
(Laughter)
And I now have little kids in my home that speak Russian to me every day.
(Laughter)
So I want to thank you.
(Applause)
And before I go, I just want to wish you
(Spanish) A lot of success with your language studies.
(French) It was a pleasure to present for you today.
(Hebrew) I wish you lots of success with your studies.
(Yiddish) Thank you for listening.
Good luck to you all and...
(Russian) Thank you.
(Applause)
