alright there I'm in Sweden thought we'd have a bit of a different episode for you on
real english with real teachers let's go
welcome to Gothenburg Sweden
so I flew over to see a good friend of mine who is a non-native English speaker and
while I was visiting this rather beautiful hometown of his I thought it
might help English learners to hear his journey as to fluency I've also gone
ahead and corrected his occasional mistakes for you to learn from along
with some hints and tips at how to be a better learner so let's meet the man himself
you went to school in Sweden in Gothenburg or Göteborg
yeah you stayed in your hometown until what age I stayed here until I finished high school
how long had you been learning English like in Sweden do they learn
English throughout their whole childhood at a good standard I think I think we
first had it when I was seven maybe that's probably the first interaction I
had like in school though
so before before Puma Puma Puma umm were you not actively trying to
improve your English at all it was just naturally coming into your life through
media yeah when I was around maybe 15, 16, 17 or maybe even up to 20, 21
I played quite a lot of like counter-strike and a bit of World of Warcraft and that
stuff that I also think it has a big impact - especially for the young people
today the kids who are playing a lot video games I think they are learning
English way faster than people who are not playing
So Mattias's tip is to get gaming involve yourself in it and if that's not your cup of tea
then find a way to interact with English in a way that allows you to forget that you are
learning the language let it be a byproduct of the enjoyable activity
itself rather than the main focus point he also went on to say how in Sweden the
films are not dubbed unlike many other nationalities so while it was being
subtitled he was still exposed to regular listening practice with films and tv shows
you obviously came from Sweden to Puma in Germany which is an
english-speaking business though and did you find that nerve-racking yeah I
think my English was way more rusty than when I first came okay like it's way
better now I think than it was a year ago okay but it was also like a mix of that
yeah on top of that I had to like speak here another language that I'm not that I'm
not speaking all the time so those two aspects
like combination of...
was it on your mind to always improve your
English after a certain age when I started at Puma err maybe I started to think
about it a bit more just because I felt that I mean I sucked at it at first
right I was pretty bad when I came and then well as I said also it was a
mix that I was nervous so that I when after you stop serving people and
getting to know them a bit more when I could start being myself more then
I really started to play more with the English also okay and I didn't really
care if I if I messed up or anything you know so right so once you grounded
yourself in feeling comfortable in the environment you were then able to just
mess around and not make many mistake or not care about making mistakes yeah
which I assume that probably pushed your level even further yeah cos you don't mind
yeah I mean
when I like what are you saying and I was just like err what do you
mean - and then they had to explain and then I was like okay
The thing that strikes me most odd with Mathias is that he never consciously tried to learn
English while it could be the schooling systems the integration of English within
the country the proximity of the UK to Sweden or any other reasons combined we
can still come away from this with one very valid point and this is actually
similar to many self development books regarding wealth and prosperity in that
focusing on not having enough of something in life or even just focusing
on that topic alone that we doubt ourselves in
allows it to become a real problem for us and as we saw here it didn't really
cross his mind that his English might not be good enough to go to a foreign
country and work in an english-speaking business and what happened he got the job
I'm perhaps oversimplifying it but still there's a key point there the
quicker we get okay with not being perfect and making mistakes the quicker
we progress so we need to throw ourselves in the deep end and just not
worry about being too deep
so you're now off like an advanced level I would say
and you feel comfortable yeah with the people at your work and things like that
do you have any problems now if I'm talking to three people that are all
from the same country and speaking the same type of English they're they're
having like their type of slang so it can be it can be tough to follow that
and then also and to just like more be exactly who I am when I'm speaking
Swedish that's also a a thing that I think a lot about actually right that I can't really
really
here we use the present simple form because it's more of a general truth
regarding his personality whereas we would use the continuous when
something is more temporary
like it's not now it's better but in the beginning it's very
like you can only
Mattias needs to use the adverb formally and at the end the word one we would swap with person
sounds unnatural to refer to a human as one in that context
you don't really get into more of a like a deeper level you know yeah it's just no yeah joking
and just being yourself I feel that that's that's quite tough to yeah to achieve
Finding yourself in English now this is really interesting to me and personally
I think it could help to focus on understanding the culture that you
associate to the most within the language that you are
learning so perhaps we need to try to suit the social class or the academic
level or the sporting interests or any other kind of interest that we associate
to within the language that we're learning do you notice that you're
starting to think in English are you starting to act and think and behave yeah more in
English rather than I would say right now I'm thinking in English really yeah
you're not translating in any way no no just
if there is a word I can't come up with
contractions really do take you from that advanced level to the upper
advanced tier so when possible use the contraction like a native would
yeah then I would probably get into thinking in Swedish like okay what's this and then
the computer is thinking and then do you feel like the computer is like almost
two separate computers and you're switching just like English and then
err I can't think of it go over to Swedish yeah oh yeah yeah actually
because I mean our our conversation is quite fluent you know it's going pretty
quick so I don't think I even have time to access the Swedish one and then think
and then respond yeah
translating really does slow everything
down especially at the advanced level so really try to avoid it stay within the
language that you are learning and try not to bring phrases and idioms over
from your native tongue
so I've got a couple of stereotypes of the Swedish stereotype yeah
Are you an Abba fan?
You've gotta listen to it 24/7 right? No I don't really listen to Abba
another Swedish stereotype is that Swedes apparently sound like the muppets Swedish chef
hello welcome to Fjorgs? bakery would you like a hot piece of pie it's it's on the house
try to put a really Swedish accent on in English
I mean I guess you can talk like this if you my childhood was pretty good I grew up here out in the countryside
I have actually heard people saying it and Swedish is almost
sounding like you know the Sims the computer game oh yeah yeah how they are talking
[Sim speaking Swedish / Simlish]
oh I see what you mean
but you you've dropped that what
happened was that just natural exposure to more English people that's maybe
may be one thing that I've been thinking about but I don't wanna have an accent
at all that's the thing when I'm speaking English okay for some reason I don't know
because I think that sounds so stupid right when you say you don't want to
have an accent though I think you could argue that everyone has an accent yeah I mean
I have some kind of a some kind of accent when I'm speaking English but I
you don't want to have a foreign sounding accent. Is that what you mean?
hmm I just don't wanna sound like that
Hellooo
I mean I probably do sometimes
I don't think you do
while many people want to sound as native as possible we should
not focus too heavily on accent training and neglect more important areas such as
using prepositions and articles correctly if your accent is so thick
that a native cannot understand you then it's time to work on accent reduction
but if you are audible I bet I bet you if you ask a native speaker what was
confusing or what made them question your English
it would be incorrect grammar or the physical incorrect sounds not the accent
I reckon this is probably because English is fast becoming a global
language and with it many different accents so the main focus should be
audible pronunciation next start to looking into filler sounds and whether you
over pronounce some syllables but seriously don't neglect the less
interesting parts of the language that natives really do notice
I hope you enjoyed that little interview while I was away in Sweden it was a fleeting
visit but we still managed to explore the city walk around the old town have
some traditional Swedish meatballs with cranberry sauce play some pool and
shuffleboard and we also stumbled upon a rather unique graduation ceremony the ritual
is to jump into the plaza fountain and spray champagne all over the place, how bizarre
I'd like to thank the man himself Mattias for the interview and hope
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