Author: Marta Aleksandrowicz-Wojtyna

Sounds Good! Brytyjska wymowa dla Polaków

Posted on by Marta Aleksandrowicz-Wojtyna

Co to znaczy mówić „ładnie” po angielsku? Czy to oznacza to samo, co mówić poprawnie, czy raczej brzmieć jak rodzimy użytkownik języka? Czy kiedy uczymy się nowych zwrotów, zwracamy uwagę na ich poprawną wymowę?

Jeśli często zadajesz sobie powyższe pytania, a do tego seriale typu „The Crown”, „Downton Abbey”, czy nawet „Latający Cyrk Monty Pythona” oglądasz po to, aby pozachwycać się eleganckim brytyjskim brzmieniem dialogów, do swojej listy ulubionych pozycji serialowych koniecznie dopisz „Sounds Good” – tutaj Marta Aleksandrowicz-Wojtyna w kursie wymowy brytyjskiej skutecznie rozwiewa fonetyczne wątpliwości i pomaga wyrobić dobre językowe nawyki.

Odcinek 11
Osiem popularnych wyrazów, których wymowa prawdopodobnie sprawia Wam trudność

Są słowa, które na oko każdy zna, ale jak ma wymówić, zaczynają się prawdziwe schody i językowe łamańce. W filmiku omawiam to, co najczęściej słyszę i to, co chciałabym usłyszeć. Oczekiwania kontra rzeczywistość. Nikt nie prosił, każdy potrzebował.

Odcinek 10
Czasem trzeba wybuchnąć!

Czym różni się polski “kot” od angielskiego “caught”? A polski “pot” and angielskiego “pot”? A “tennis” od “tenisa”?

Odcinek 9
Jak zmiękczyć polski akcent 2: /tʃ / i /dʒ /

Jak wymówić słowa “gigantic” i “gesture”? Co zrobić, by “skocz” i “scotch” nie brzmiały tak samo?

Odcinek 8
Jak zmiękczyć polski akcent 1: /ʃ / i /ʒ /

Czym różni się polski i angielski “t-shirt”? Jak sprawić, by słowa “leżę” i “leisure” nie brzmiały tak samo?

Odcinek 7
Sepleń i świszcz jak Brytol: /s/ i /z/

Dwa dźwięki, przy których nie trzeba się tak bardzo spinać jak w języku polskim. Posepleńcie, poświszczcie i będzie super!

Odcinek 6
Jeden symbol, dwa dźwięki: /l/

Czy angielskie /l/ zawsze brzmi jak polskie? Co ma /l/ wspólnego z Kresowiakami? Czy w wyrazach “salmon” i “stalker” wymawiamy /l/? I dlaczego w tym odcinku – o zgrozo! – już prawie śpiewam?

Odcinek 5
By brzmieć lepiej, czasem wystarczy westchnąć: /h/

Angielskie /h/ Polaków jest trochę za mocne, za silne i wybuchowe. A gdyby tak nie marnować niepotrzebnie energii i zwyczajnie sobie westchnąć?

Odcinek 4
Dźwięk, po którym odróżnisz Brytyjczyka od Amerykanina: /r/

Główna trudność w wymowie brytyjskiego dźwięku “r” polega na tym, że musimy wiedzieć, kiedy go nie wymawiać. 🙂

Odcinek 3
Najbardziej niedoceniana angielska samogłoska: /ɜ:/

Samogłoskowy game-changer. Już nigdy nie wymówicie słów “worm”, “purple” i “circle” tak samo. We wszystkich trzech kryje się ta sama samogłoska, mimo że prowadzą do niej różne drogi. Na początku trudno w to uwierzyć, ale tylko to powiedzcie, a poczujecie i zrozumiecie różnicę.

Odcinek 2
Angielskie spółgłoski, które brzmią PRAWIE jak w polskim: /t/, /d/, /n/

Podstępne dźwięki, które kryją się za “naszymi” literami T, D, N, a pozwoliły sobie być trochę inne niż w polskim. Trochę, ale przecież to w szczegółach tkwi diabeł. 😈

Odcinek 1
Angielskie spółgłoski, które brzmią jak w polskim: /p/, /b/, /m/, /f/, /v/,/k/, /g/, /w/

Gdzie literka? Gdzie dźwięk? Gdzie nic, a gdzie coś?
P, B, M, F, V, K, G i W i po polsku, i po angielsku brzmią tak samo. Czy to oznacza, że nie sprawią Wam kłopotu? No, niekoniecznie. To cwana zgraja, która lubi się chować, droczyć i udawać. Zresztą posłuchajcie sami.

Jak komunikujemy się w Tinderze?

Posted on by Marta Aleksandrowicz-Wojtyna

Dzisiaj świętują wariaci oraz zakochani! ❤️ Z tej okazji postanowiliśmy dowiedzieć się czegoś więcej o komunikacji w… sferze randkowej. Pod lupę wzięliśmy użytkowników Tindera. Jak komunikuje się większość z nich? Co odstrasza, a co przekonuje ich do przesunięcia palcem w prawo? Tego oraz kilku innych ciekawostek dowiecie się z naszej infografiki.

How to ask questions?

Posted on by Marta Aleksandrowicz-Wojtyna

 

“What does the fox say?” is a dilemma most fur owners have no answer to.

“To be or not to be?” is always an exciting choice, whether you are a Danish prince or not.

“How to lose a guy in 10 days?” has served me a lot of perfectly effective tips.

“How now, brown cow?”, unbelievably, is repeated in the English Institute at least 100 times a day.

“How to look good naked?” might need a pretty, if censorable, illustration.

We ask questions all the time. Politicians ask questions, scientists ask questions, students and teachers, too. For some reason, though, it seems that we hardly know how to do that properly. We are strangely anxious when asking – as if it showed our weakness or knowledge deficits. Well, it perhaps does. My grandma always says: “One must live and learn… but still dies a stupid one”. Still, there’s no choice. If you are brave enough, and you ask questions, you will surely make mistakes. Over the period of the next few weeks, I would like to explain how to avoid trouble with questions and how to make them your best effective tool.

 

What can you do to ask questions properly, then?

First of all, empathize with the addressee.

Questions are always part of a power game. They are both about the one who asks and about the one who answers. Pick any political talk-show and think of how belligerent the participants tend to get just because a question leads towards a wrong subject. Why? Are they in real trouble? Does an evil spirit take over? Or do they, perhaps, have no idea what to say? The reason is simpler than that: responsibility. Whether the theme of the conversation is clearly related to the recipients or not, they always bear responsibility for delivering a response. It’s on them. Think of how much of a burden that might be. How stressful, how pressurizing it can get not to have an answer ready! Or to misunderstand the context the question is asked in.

A skilled conversationalist has been on the other side and will know that a good question facilitates communication. A good question builds on the recipient’s strengths, it gives her a hand and opens new channels for thought. It empowers and encourages an answer, rather than enforces a ready hypothesis.

 

Do you know any effective prompts that could help you win this power game? Sobel and Panas in their Powerful Questionssuggest that “Can you tell me more?” is your best choice when a strong vivid talk is needed. “It is to conversations what fresh-baked bread with soft creamery butter is to a meal”, they claim. Surprised? I’ve told you it was going to be simple. Plus, there are at least 3 reasons to appreciate this superb question.

  1. It manifests our interest, shows enthusiasm and allows speakers to feel unique, important and encouraged. By investing in their trust and self-appreciation, we invest in our promising relationship. Return on this investment is not only emotional, but also communicative: feeling encouraged, they will drop inhibitions and will surely say more.
  2. It gives us time– to obtain more input, to settle in the context, to observe the speaker, to check how detailed they are with their answers, how they react to our focus. And, finally, it gives us time to prepare a response. And it takes a bit to prepare these cannons, doesn’t it?
  3. It encourages profundityby suggesting there’s more to the subject than meets the eye. This is a real winner: insight, observation, and insistent focus on value encourage trust more than anything else does. In our language trainings, asking “Can you tell me more?” is also a practical way of building language muscle – by focusing lesson time on the student rather than on the teacher.

Sobel and Panas provide an extensive list of questions that boost the empathy effect in a similar way:

  • Tell me, how are you?
  • Can you say more about that? What’s going on?
  • What do you mean when you say you’re feeling…?
  • Why do you think that happened?
  • How did you feel about that? […]
  • Do you feel that was the right thing to do? Or, do you think that was the right response?
  • It seems like there are really two different issues going on here, is that right? It seems like you feel stuck between a rock and a hard place… Is that right?
  • What are you thinking of doing? What do you think your options are?
  • I had a very similar experience. Can I share with you?
  • Is there anything I can do that would be helpful?”

Source: Sobel A., Panas J., Powerful Questions, 2012, p. 192–193.

Of course, you can use some other convo phrases starting with Wh- (When? What? How? Why?). If you develop a good repertoire of such questions, you can make yourself a proper communication ninja – remaining in the shadows, perfectly attentive, and managing the power game skilfully, ready to act when needed. If after talking to you somebody feels the smartest person in the whole universe, you can be sure that your mission was a success – that you have effectively empathized and have built trust.

How do you like that? Want some more? In further articles, I will address the following crazy questions about questions:

  1. How do use open-ended questions?
  2. How to cause thinking rather than answering?
  3. How to really want answers?
  4. To cause thinking rather than answers.
  5. How to use proper intonation?

At Language Extreme, we waste no words. Do we love communication? What a question!

 

Text by Monika Szczepańska, English Language Teacher at Language Extreme

We misunderstand. Why?

Posted on by Marta Aleksandrowicz-Wojtyna

If we’re just souls whose intentions are good, why do we so often fail at getting our message across? Reasons for miscommunication vary from interaction to interaction, from culture to culture, and from person to person. Still, bearing the abundance of causes in mind, I’d like to briefly discuss four that are closest to my experience.

We misunderstand because we want to be right.

We often enter conversations equipped with prejudice, bias and our lovely misconceptions. Opening to a genuine interaction often means changing our mind about the subject of our talk or – whether you want it or not – about our interlocutor. It often hurts to admit we are wrong. Nobody likes that, so just to be on the safe side, we try to align our interpretations with some already existing beliefs. In other words, we anticipate confirmation rather than curiously open up to honest communication. This only worsens when stakes are high and the topic is sensitive. Think of how politicians discuss in TV shows these days.

 

We misunderstand because we assume sameness of experience. 

Against social logic, we tend to presume that all people come from similar cultural and religious backgrounds, have the same sensitivity, reason just like us and generally should be our copies. Spoiler alert: They are not! They should not! Sometimes it pays off to spend a while customizing the message to the needs of our audience or say something twice rather than cut the long story short just to tick a task off.

 

We misunderstand because we put too much trust in deictic expressions.

Me and my colleague were exchanging emails with some attachment that needed corrections. At some point Gosia asked: “Is it ok now?”. I introduced some changes and replied: „Now it should be ok”. For her, however, NOW referred to the time from before my corrections and she sent forward the unfinished version. My bad of course! This situation taught me to be careful with words like now, there, that, etc. It’s sometimes safer to specify how recent the nowis and write „See the file after my corrections” rather than „See the file now”.

All of us should learn it. My mum often comes over to share news: “Do you remember that guy who’s married the blonde who dropped out of your school in 1997? He died last week”. Not exactly clear, is it?

 

We misunderstand because we are lazy. 

„Could you explain this?”, “Unclear!”, “Don’t know what you mean”, “?????”, “WTF?” or the onomatopoeic „Huh?”. You’ve seen these, haven’t you? When messages are unclear, we grow concise and passive. Our partners may not know which part of the message we find obscure and how she could elaborate on it so that we grasp the meaning. We pass the buck rather than clarify anything. Instead, we could make a positive effort. Unclear? Should I explain? It’s simple: what we need is sharper focus, clearer detail, and concrete logic. Asking specific questions saves time and reduces risk (of yet another unproductive email, yet another futile call).

While we can’t avoid misunderstandings, I strongly believe we can reduce their number. If we state details explicitly, listen carefully, demonstrate empathy and stop believing in the infallibility of our own ideas, we should enjoy a noticeable change. What do you think? Shall we try and improve a tiny bit?

At Language Extreme we have misunderstood a lot. Enough to start thinking harder and getting better.

 

 

[E-mail Ninja] Your email identity

Posted on by Marta Aleksandrowicz-Wojtyna

If you live in constant fear of being watched, you’ve probably figured out that pimples and CCTV are a big scare. And so are mobile cameras and microphones. In a world like this, rules are simple: You want to be seen? Show yourself well. Talking to your boss? Look as smart as he does. Getting married? Best bib and tucker’s a must!

We chicken out of big occasions if we’re not feeling just about perfect. We don’t get a photoshoot in our salivated-on pyjamas. Nobody here at Language Extreme meets a customer after a big work-out sweat, until properly showered, perfumed, and blessed by Kors and Versace. Image matters, right?

If it indeed does, think of your emails – don’t they show you to the world? Don’t they reveal a most personal image of who you are – at least in a given context?

Email correspondence speaks volumes. Read your emails and you will surely know so much about the people you write with. Not because they say too much to all and sundry, but because text is a fingerprint that codes information on so many subjects. If you have corresponded for months, your recipients have already built a portrait of who you are, even if you have never met face to face. They most likely know a lot about the following:

  • Your time management skills (Do you respond in a timely manner? Do you spend enough time on key messages? Do your emails look hurried? Are you still at work at midnight? Or do you, like myself, wake up at 4:00 a.m.?)
  • Your expertise (Do you use vocabulary that reflects your competences and education? Do you answer questions in an exhaustive manner? Do you often ask for time to consult colleagues?)
  • Your grasp of language (Do you care about grammar, spelling and punctuation rules of whatever language you correspond in? Are your messages concise, well phrased and juicy? How accurate are they? Do you, like Donald, avoid words longer than 3 syllables?)
  • Your position and relationships with colleagues (Do you CC every email to your boss just to be on the safe side? Do you care about what your emails look like from your team’s perspective? Do you declare in a preaching tone or do you perhaps prefer to ask?)
  • Your attitude (Do you reply to help, or to play the ball? Do you build relationships, or give info? Do you write to facilitate understanding or to entrench yourself?)
  • Your holiday (Have you reviewed your footer for information on planned absences? What does your autoresponder say about your trips abroad?)

That’s plenty of detail, much of which is strongly related to our careers and private lives. Do you want your emails to show what they really do? What image do you want to build, specifically? Would you prefer to read bossy, concise and demanding? Or perhaps a welcoming, sympathetic, inventive attitude would suit your needs more? If you want to determine your emailing style and be in control, think of some strategic decisions that affect your email identity:

  • Direct address

You have skipped the “dear” a number of times, haven’t you? You’ve moved to the point, and didn’t think it necessary to get a personal, direct, warm word anywhere in there, right? That’s fair in a hectic world, sure. But think of how much your partners like to know you are writing TO THEM. Use their names, add interpersonal power to make your recipients feel they’re your best pals. Even if it’s not yet the case.

  • Lead-in

Nothing happens if there’s no “I’m writing to…”. Miracles happen if you include an opening phrase of this sort. Clarity is increased, your purpose is stated, order is established, readers get happier with every word. A lead-in organizes content and focuses attention. When these goals are achieved, you can develop your argumentation in whatever follows.

  • Formality

The absence thereof shall inevitably result in a radical diminution in respect of the above mentioned excess of interpersonal borders. See? Too much is too much. And yeah, we love to be direct and super clear. Want to know why? Try to make friends with: “Could you take you a look at…?” rather than “Would you perhaps be willing to consider taking a look at…?” and you will see for yourself. Emailing culture is born of respect of rules, and of clever attempts to break away from convention.

  • Proofreading

It is a feature of great emailers that they deliberately check their correspondence for mistakes, redundancies, and general nonsense. They think of structure, correctness, and necessity. If you want your message to have impact, read it yourself first, and think of what you get. It is best to have second opinion, too. Especially when the thing’s big. If you don’t think you can bother your colleagues to have your emails corrected, sign up for our Document Check and send your writing to check@languageextreme.pl

  • Multiple addressees

Human beings love to be included. Team members, too, on condition that they need it. If you have just CCed everyone at work just in case they are interested, somebody’s bound to think you are hyperactive, incompetent or a bootlicker.

  • Your signature and footer

We have seen them, haven’t we? Email footers are artistic objects – fruits of a creative process. They often draw readers’ attention away from the content of the message, though. Make them simple and original, and they will communicate effectively to whoever is with you in the digital world.

A large territory – that’s what emails are. If you want to build your competences and make sure you are a champion at Powerful Emailing, read our next articles. Want real, live experience? Contact Language Extreme at ninja@languageextreme.pl

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