Are you afraid of making mistakes?

Why you don't need to be

Welcome to “Learn English with Katie” on Substack!

1. People will laugh at me

I recently saw this video of Cristiano Ronaldo and a Japanese boy trying to speak Portuguese. It’s a few years old but I hadn’t seen it before.

People in the audience are laughing at the boy. Ronaldo turns to them and asks them why they are laughing. He tells them they should be happy because the boy is trying hard.

I also noticed that Ronaldo’s English isn’t perfect but nobody is laughing at him!

I think of lot of us worry that other people will laugh at us when we try to speak another language.

I would say:

1. Most people are kind and won’t laugh. They’ll be impressed. Like Ronaldo was impressed by the Japanese boy.

2. If they do laugh, that says more about them than it does about you. Don’t waste time and energy worrying about what unkind people think.

3. Sometimes we make mistakes which are funny and we can laugh at ourselves. For example, “kitchen” is a difficult word for some English learners and it often comes out as “chicken”! That’s funny! I never laugh at my students but sometimes we laugh together! When we can laugh at ourselves, mistakes become a lot less scary.

4. I’m sure you’d never laugh at anyone else, would you?!

2. Learn from your mistakes

Instead of being afraid of mistakes, try to see them as a learning opportunity. When you get something wrong, you can learn from it.

When you speak English or write, try to notice where you most often make a mistake and then fix it.

If you can’t find your mistakes by yourself, then get some help. The best way to do this is to find a class or a teacher. Other possibilities are to find a friend to practise English with, ask other people in a Facebook group or try the hinative website.

Changing your attitude to mistakes in this way will make them feel more confident.

3. Newsletters

This “newsletter” (from Learn English with Katie on Substack) is no longer my main newsletter. In fact, I’m not even going to call it a newsletter any more! Why? Because Substack feels more like a blog or even like social media.

My main newsletter is “Confident English for Professional Women”. This is where I write about learning English, confidence, mindset and women's issues.

So if you’re a working woman and you’re interested in this newsletter, you can find out more here.

If you’d like to read a couple of recent emails before you decide, you can do that here - “Why women?” - or here - “Do you have imposter syndrome?”.

My Substack is more general. It’s not specifically for women or only for people who work. It’s for everyone who’s learning English! If you’re just visiting today, you can sign up below.