5 Truths About Making Mistakes in English (That Will Set You Free)

Lets talk about mistakes in English. Are you afraid of making mistakes when you speak? How does that make you feel? Do you feel like it affects your confidence? Here's the thing. The fear of making mistakes is real and it's one of the first reasons that prevent people from feeling confident and fluent in English. It's even the main reason that prevents people from making actual progress, even though they might be putting the time and effort to to learn the language. Today I'm going to Share with you 5 truths about making mistakes in English. And by the way, to pronounce truths, you start with a ch sound, then an r TR long ooh as in food true and then ths together truths. I wanted to add that because I knew you were probably thinking, oh, truths. How do you say that? That's such a hard word. So now that we got that out of way, let's talk about those truths. If you're new to my channel then hi, my name is Hadar. I'm a non native speaker of English and everything I share here in my platform is based on my own personal experience learning and speaking English, but also from having taught English for so many years to thousands and thousands students from around the world. If you want to learn more with me, go to my website@hadar shemesh.com or follow me on social media for daily lessons. Okay, so let's talk about the five truths that that might help you reframe the way you think about mistakes in English, the way it impacts you and potentially build more confidence and fluency into your English. So the first truth is that mistakes are inevitable, which means that if you are a non native speaker of English, it means that you will make mistakes and many of them. It's not because you're not talented. It's not because it's specifically hard for you. It's not because your first language is so different than English. It's not because your first language is so close to English. It's not all of that. It's just a part of speaking a second language. And when you kind of like surrender to this idea, you might actually create more space for yourself to making mistakes. Because mistakes are ultimately an indication that there is a gap between your knowledge and where you want to go. What does that mean? You have a gap between, let's say the grammar of your first language, what's intuitive, easy for you, something that you don't have to think about, and the target grammar of English, or maybe the word that you want to use and you know it in your first language. And the target word in English, maybe you don't know it, maybe you don't feel confident pronouncing it, maybe you haven't used it in a while, maybe you're not sure of it, right? So there is a gap. And that gap may result in a mistake. You might say something that is close, maybe you'll mispronounce it, maybe you'll use a different word. All of that is okay because the whole idea of learning a language is bridging those gaps, minimizing those gaps. And the thing about mistakes is that they only indicate that there is a gap. You haven't learned it yet, you haven't turned it into a habit. This is why mistakes are inevitable. Which leads me to truth number two. You cannot control your mistakes, even though you might try really hard to control your mistakes. And usually what that looks like is you not speaking a lot, you not saying anything without having it figured out in your brain and thinking about it again and again, making sure that it's perfectly structured, always checking yourself with ChatGPT or Google Translate. And mostly just like speaking slower, overthinking, editing yourself, which adds complexity to this thing that is already quite challenging, which is speaking in a second language. And what am I saying here? I'm saying that even though you might try really hard to control your mistakes, you may not be able to, because some mistakes you're not even aware of the fact that you're actually making them. Some mistake may even slip your ear, even though you might know it's a mistake. You might even not notice that you're making a mistake, especially when it comes to pronunciation. So you trying to control your mistakes, but rethinking, overthinking, editing yourself, stopping yourself from thinking, not speaking before you're ready, not speaking before you check or structure it, not speaking without a script or a bullet points, all of that, trying to control those mistakes is not going to fully prevent you from making mistakes. And here's how I want you to think about. If you're already gonna make mistakes, why don't you just give yourself a little bit more freedom? Because as you'll see later, making mistakes is really a golden opportunity to improve. And I want you to remember that. And I want you to remember that sense of freedom and connection and passion about speaking about the things that matter to you that is so much more important than being correct or being perfect. Let's not prioritize perfection over self expression, over making your voice heard, over connection. And when you think about it like that, you might say to Yourself? Yeah, of course it doesn't matter if I use the past simple tense versus the past perfect tense. Yeah, it doesn't matter. But when you speak, you don't think about those things. And you prioritize perfection and being correct over expressing yourself fully and feeling confident and saying what you think without too much thought. Okay? So as much as you try to control those mistakes, you may not be able to. And if that is the case, you might as well give yourself more freedom to make them. And that leads me to truth number three, which is mistakes mean growth. What do I mean by that? When you make mistakes, that means that you're exploring an area in English where there is still a gap, where you are not yet confident, where you don't really know, which means you are evolving, you are growing, you are trying new things, using new words, using new tenses, exploring things that are not comfortable for you. And this is why you make mistakes. You don't know those things yet. Yes, like, you can speak in the present tense, maybe, or the past simple tense and use very basic vocabulary. And you won't be making mistakes because you've done it so many times that you have figured it out already. But the moment you explore a little bit more your next level of English, you are bound to make mistakes. So that only means that you are learning and growing and developing. Also, if you're making mistakes, it means that you're speaking. And that, my friend, is more important than anything else. Because if you don't speak, you're not going to level up, you're not going to improve, you're not going to build your confidence and fluency. So we want you making mistakes. Wait till truth number five, because it's not enough just to make mistakes, right? Like, we need to do something about them. But right now, I want you to reframe your thought around making mistakes and remember that it's. It only shows that you have the opportunity of learning new things. Remember, mistakes are an indication of something that has not yet set right, like a rule or a structure or words or pronunciation patterns. And it means that, hey, now you can work on those things and. And improve so you can get to your next level and keep making other mistakes. Okay? So just think about it like that. Truth number four, and I hope this is going to be very freeing for you, is that most people, they don't care about your mistakes. When you only focus on your mistakes, you put the spotlight on yourself and you think that everyone pays close attention to every single word that you say. You also think that People, when they hear mistakes, they assign a lot of meaning to it. The truth is, people are usually very self involved. They are concerned about their own thoughts, how they are perceived, and they don't try to look for every single mistake that you might be making. And even if they do detect a mistake, usually people focus on the content and connection rather than trying to pick your English and grade you in their heads. Even though you're probably doing it, they are probably not doing it. Now, I'm not saying, I'm not saying that there aren't people who might be critical of your mistakes. There are some people who are the grammar police and they will pick every single imperfection that they might see in you, but they might do it anyway. They might have thoughts about your voice or about how you dress or about how you communicate. It's not just about your grammar. And these people, I wouldn't be bothered with even spending time and energy on what they think about me. You only have control over what you think and how you show up and use that time, use that energy, use that focus on developing and growing and improving and living the way you want and expressing yourself the way you want and not the way you think people expect of you to express yourself, if you know what I mean. The last truth. And that's going to be a little bit of tough love here. If you're not doing anything about your mistakes, you are going to stay stuck. So everything that I said is all great, right? Like we want to embrace mistakes, we want to make mistakes because that's an indication of what we need to work on. But if you don't have a healthy pattern of recognizing the mistake, not feeling bad, not beating yourself up, but instead being like, oh, what does that mean? If I don't know how to use this word, maybe I need to look it up. Maybe I need to look at examples. Maybe I need to practice it a little bit so I can use it confidently the next time. Because mistakes don't just solve themselves usually, right? You need to change the habit of speaking. You need to change the habit of using that word, that sound, that structure. For example, I had a student who kept confusing she and he. Now, she was a very experienced speaker. She has immigrated to an English speaking country. She clearly knows the difference between he and she. It's not a logical mistake. Something in her subconscious believes that these two words are the same. And sometimes she would use she instead of he. So something about categorizing these two words or even just the pronunciation hasn't set. Now she knows that this has been an issue and she hasn't done something about it except for feeling frustrated and knowing that she's making those mistakes and noticing it in hindsight. So what I said is I gave her some exercises to practice these two words intentionally so that she could start making new connections in her brain and start building new muscles or new ways of saying these two words so that she wouldn't repeat those mistakes. And that is the thing about mistakes. You have to acknowledge them. You have to understand what is the target speech, right? Like, what is the target word, sound or structure to understand the logic of it. Because if you can't hear it or understand it, it's going to be really hard to change. And then you want to practice intentionally to change that. And when we want to change those things, we need to create a new habit. And this where repetition comes in. This is where intentional practice comes in. It's not just understanding the concept, right? Oh, she is female and he is male. No, it's not just understanding this concept. It's making it a habit. And this is the hard part about it. But the moment you change it, you no longer make those mistakes. And then you can grow to your future mistakes that you are going to make because you're going to get to your next level in English. Okay? So that is what I want you to remember about mistakes and really change and shift your perspective around how you show up and how you deal with that fear of mistakes. Because if it stops you from communicating, if it stops you from feeling confident, then what's the point of being perfect anyway? If you're not speaking, right? What's the point of using English if you're not connecting, if you're not enjoying the language? And to enjoy the language means to speak without feeling horrible and judgmental and critical of yourself when speaking. No one wants that. It's not a good experience. And the way to change that is not just by just learning more and improving more. No, it's really shifting the way you think, your point of view, your perspective, which is what this video is meant to do to help you with that. So I would love to hear from you. Let me know in the comments what you think. If you're listening to this on the podcast, then you can come on over to Instagram at Hadar Accentsway and share with me your thoughts about this topic. I'm sure it has made you think and feel. Maybe some people watching this might be like, what is she talking about? Making mistakes is the worst thing in the entire world. Maybe. But I'M saying, like, if this is your belief, if this is the story that you're telling yourself, how is it serving you? How is it helping you? And I don't believe that being perfect is more important than being prolific, than being expressive, than feeling freedom when communicating. These are my values. And if you follow these values as well, and if you feel that they're more aligned with your values as well, then I promise that if you think about those things and you start changing the way you look at mistakes, your entire experience in English is going to change. Now, if you want to learn more with me, I highly recommend for you to check out beyond my English Community and Membership designed to help you really shift the way you practice English and the way you think about English. We have daily lessons with coaches, coaching sessions with me, mindset coaching with me, daily sprints, conversation groups, and so much more. Everything is designed to help you build confidence and fluency in English, so registration is open. You can definitely check it out. Go to hadarzhemish.com beyond I'm going to post all the links in the description below as well. Beyond is a safe space to make mistakes and learn from them, and growth is inevitable when that is the case. Thank you so much. Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the week and I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye.