Don’t take your English mistakes so seriously or personally

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200 Common Errors in English Course

Hi there! I’m back with tip #3 on how to stay motivated when learning English, and this is a big one – it is:

Don’t Take Mistakes So Seriously/Personally

MISTAKES – they have the power to make you afraid to use your English… they can also make you feel humiliated when someone corrects you… they represent your failure to know the rules of English… right?

WRONG!

Mistakes only have all that power if you allow them to have such power.

The goal of learning English is to communicate, and the fact is that many mistakes actually don’t damage communication. For example:

If you say “It depends of the weather” instead of the correct version “It depends on the weather,” everyone will still understand you (and many won’t even notice the small error).

If you say “I live here for 3 years” instead of the correct version “I’ve lived here for 3 years” or “I’ve been living here for three years,” people will still know what you’re saying.

If you say “I have a swimming pull in my backyard” instead of “swimming pool” (a pronunciation error), everyone will understand what you meant because of the context of the sentence.

Yes, of course we want to correct these so you can speak more perfectly. But can you see that these mistakes aren’t so serious? That’s why you shouldn’t “beat yourself up” (think strong negative thoughts about yourself).

Sometimes you make a bigger error that does cause a communication problem. This is NORMAL – it’s part of learning a language! Just try to clarify the issue using other words. Think of a different, simpler way to say what you want to say.

Just remember that making mistakes does NOT mean you are stupid. Choose to view mistakes as an opportunity to learn, not a disaster!

One way to learn from mistakes is to take my course all about 200 common errors in English. Inside this course, I show you the most common mistakes English learners make, and how to fix them. It’s the fastest way to learn about these errors and avoid them. Click here to learn more and join the 200 common errors course.

I hope you’re enjoying these motivational tips, and I’ll talk to you in the next video.

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