Learning and speaking a new language confidently can be a daunting task, but you need not worry. Here are a few simple tips and tricks you can follow to speak English confidently and naturally.

• Practice speaking in English every day.
• Pause before speaking, speak slowly, clearly and with purpose.
• Learn from different forms of media, not just formal textbooks.
• Read things aloud.
• Practice speaking with non-native speakers.
• Join activities or classes which involve speaking in public or in groups.
• Stop depending on your first language.
• Allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them.

Mastering a new language often comes with a variety of hurdles. Even simple mistakes can slowly erode your confidence. You might start feeling nervous, stutter, or even go blank when speaking in English with a client. This can possibly leave a bad impression on your clients. It could even affect your future business prospects with the client. You can easily implement these tips in your day-to-day life. With practice, you’ll be speaking fluently in no time at all.

1.   Practice speaking in English every day.

There’s no real shortcut to speaking English perfectly. Practice and preparation will go a long way towards boosting your confidence. Try to speak in English as much as you can throughout the day. The more you speak in English and familiarize yourself with its nuances, the easier it becomes and the less anxious you feel when speaking. Speaking in English over and over also has the added benefit of training your vocal cords, jaw muscles, mouth, and tongue to feel more comfortable with the words you are speaking. With enough practice, the words won’t seem foreign to you and will start flowing naturally.

You can practice speaking in front of a mirror. Converse with your friends and family in English. If you feel uncomfortable speaking face to face, try speaking English over the phone. If you feel uncomfortable talking to people you know, try speaking English with strangers. Telemarketers are an ideal target to practice speaking English with. The key is to practice speaking English throughout the day until it starts coming to you naturally.

2.   Pause before speaking, speak slowly, clearly and with purpose.

In any conversation, your natural instinct is to respond immediately when someone speaks to you or asks you a question. However, rushing to respond can have negative results. Remember that you don’t have to rush. Trying to talk faster than you can frame an appropriate response in your mind can make you stutter or stall, and can affect your confidence drastically.

Slow down your speech or take a pause before answering someone. Carefully frame your response before speaking. This gives you time to think of the right words and form coherent sentences. One way to do this is to take deep breaths before speaking. This will slow you down and give you enough time to think of the right words. It also helps soothe your anxiety and calms you down, leading to an easier-flowing conversation.

3.   Learn from different forms of media, not just formal textbooks.

When you first start learning a new language, studying a textbook is the most logical choice. It teaches you grammar, vocabulary, and the general rules of the language. However, a textbook doesn’t do much to familiarize you with spoken English. Reading/writing and speaking a new language are two vastly different things. Fortunately, there are countless other forms of media that you can learn spoken English from.

The simplest way is to watch English movies, TV shows, news, YouTube videos, and listen to songs, podcasts, etc. Listening to these can teach you the finer nuances of speaking English. These include pronunciation, common phrases, sentence framing, etc. This will help familiarize you with colloquial terms and phrases that you might not find in formal textbooks. This will also help train your ears to understand spoken English in various dialects and accents.

4.   Read things aloud.

Reading extensively can help you build an impressive vocabulary. Being well-read provides you with a steady knowledge base to pull from so that you’re never at a loss for words. However, reading aloud goes further and helps familiarize you with speaking the language. Reading aloud lets you practice by completely focusing on the mechanical task of speaking. Since you’re reading something out loud instead of having to form sentences on your own, it lets your mind focus more on your enunciation.

You can practice where to take a pause, which words to emphasize, the tone of your voice, and so on. Doing this every day will make you comfortable with physically speaking English. The best way to do this is by reading a newspaper aloud every morning, especially the business section. This not only familiarizes you with speaking English but also with common words you might come across in business scenarios when interacting with clients. You can also read aloud your favorite books and passages.

5. Practice speaking with non-native speakers.

This ties in with the first tip about practicing conversation every day. When you first start out, you might not feel confident enough to speak English with a native speaker. You might be more prone to making simple mistakes that can destroy your confidence and make you nervous. The more nervous you become, the more mistakes you might make. This will have a negative impact on your ability to speak English.

An easy remedy is to start out by practicing with non-native speakers. When you are speaking with someone who has also learned English as a second language, there is less pressure on both of you to speak flawlessly. Since both of you will be on equal footing, even grammatical or pronunciation mistakes won’t feel as heavy as they otherwise would. This lets you speak English comfortably, at your own pace, without any added pressure of having to be perfect. You need to remember that learning a new second language is an achievement to be proud of.

6.   Join activities or classes which involve speaking in public or in groups.

There are countless classes that offer a variety of courses in spoken English, for beginner to intermediate levels and all the way up to experts. These classes have regular activities such as debating, group discussion, and public speaking, all of which are aimed at giving you confidence in speaking English. Joining a group of people who are on equal footing with you will give you the confidence to practice speaking English without anyone’s judgment.

For the ones who are slightly bolder and more confident, you can start practicing public speaking by performing stand-up comedy, storytelling, poetry reading, etc. As long as you do this, you will naturally feel more confident speaking English.

7.   Stop depending on your first language.

When you first start out speaking English, it is natural to rely on your first language when you fumble or try to think of sentence framing. What many people do when speaking English, is frame the sentence in their first language and then translate it into English while speaking. While this might help in the short term, it is not an ideal habit to have in the long term. More often than not, the sentence structure and grammar of your first language can be different from that of the English language. This can lead to a few inconsistencies, and things can often get lost in translation. To avoid this particular pitfall, you need to work on changing your entire thought process.

With enough practice, you can train yourself to start thinking in English, rather than your first language. This erases the strain of having to translate a sentence in your mind before framing it in English and then saying it. As a result, you become less prone to making translation errors and your conversations start flowing more smoothly and naturally.

8.   Allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them.

This might seem counter-productive at first, but it is actually an important step in building your confidence. It is okay to make mistakes as long as you don’t let them affect you negatively. Don't let these small mistakes put a damper on your confidence. Learning to speak a new language can be a monumental task, and some mistakes are inevitable. The important thing to remember is that every mistake is still a step in the right direction. As long as you are learning from any mistakes you make, you will keep building your confidence steadily.

Conclusion

English is the most spoken language in the world and the third-most spoken native language in the world. It is also the most widely learned second language. Owing to the nature and global scale of most businesses today, it has also become the language of business. English has become the predominant language for conducting business, exchanging correspondence, and interacting with clients. As a result, it is imperative to have a steady grasp on the spoken language especially for front-end and client-facing employees.

Have these tips helped you build confidence? Are you looking for more ways to improve your mastery of the English language? Be sure to check out our other articles!