When You're Thinking About Your English While You're Speaking It

Have you ever been halfway through explaining something in English and realised that, instead of thinking about what you want to say, you've started thinking about your English? Perhaps you've noticed that a sentence didn't come out quite as you wanted it to, or you're wondering whether you've used the right word. Maybe you made a mistake a few moments ago and you're still thinking about it while the conversation has already moved on. You're trying to listen to the other person and work out what you want to say next, but at the same time there's another conversation going on in your head about how well you're doing.

I think this can happen quite easily when you use English at work, particularly when the conversation matters to you. You want to express yourself clearly and you want people to understand you, so of course you care about the English you're using. The difficulty is that speaking already requires quite a lot of your attention. If some of that attention is being used to check and judge your English at the same time, the conversation can become harder than it needs to be. That doesn't mean you should stop thinking about your English altogether. Sometimes noticing something gives you useful information about what you might want to practise. The question is whether you need to deal with it while you're still speaking, or whether it can wait until later.

There are times when thinking about your English is useful

If you're learning and using another language, there will always be things you want to improve. You might notice that you regularly struggle to explain a particular part of your job, or that there's a word you often need but can never quite remember when you want it. Perhaps people sometimes ask you to repeat a particular word, or you realise that something you've been saying doesn't mean quite what you thought it did. Those are useful things to notice because they give you something specific to work on. When you have time, you can check the word, practise the explanation again or ask somebody for feedback. You can give the problem your full attention instead of trying to solve it while somebody is waiting for you to finish your sentence.

The difficulty comes when we try to do the practising, correcting and analysing at exactly the same time as we're trying to communicate. Imagine somebody asks you a question in a meeting about a problem with a project. You have to understand the question, decide what information is relevant, work out how you want to answer and put that answer into English. While you're doing that, you also need to pay attention to the other people in the meeting because somebody might interrupt, ask another question or misunderstand part of what you've said. There's already quite a lot going on. If you're also checking your grammar and pronunciation and wondering how professional you sound, you've given yourself another job to do at exactly the moment when your attention is already busy.

Not everything needs correcting there and then

There are obviously times when you should correct yourself. If you accidentally say Tuesday when you mean Thursday, it matters. If you give somebody the wrong figure, change it. If you can see that the other person has misunderstood what you mean, try explaining it again. That's quite different from noticing that a sentence wasn't as elegant as you'd have liked.

Adriana told me about a language teacher who used to stop students in the middle of sentences to correct them. She found it so demotivating that eventually it made her less willing to speak. Later, she came to see things differently. Being understood and understanding other people mattered more to her than trying to speak without making mistakes. I think there's something important in that experience. If somebody interrupting us every time we make a mistake can make it harder to speak, we probably don't want to become the person doing that to ourselves. You can notice that something wasn't quite right without immediately stopping the conversation to repair it. If the other person understood you and the conversation is moving on, sometimes you can move on with it.

Real conversations aren't perfectly edited

We can set a very high standard for ourselves without realising it, particularly when we're speaking a language that isn't our first. Spoken language isn't the same as written language. When we write something important, we can read it again, change a word, move a sentence and spend a few minutes thinking about exactly how we want to express something. Conversation doesn't give us that luxury. People hesitate when they're speaking. They forget words they know. They start a sentence and change direction halfway through it. Sometimes they give a long answer and realise afterwards that they could have explained the same thing much more simply. None of this is particularly unusual.

Sylwia has been learning English for around twenty years and uses it regularly. She told me that she still sometimes pauses when she's speaking, but she now sees that as “totally natural and is to be expected.” I like that because it doesn't pretend that becoming good at English means reaching a point where every sentence arrives immediately and exactly as you want it. A pause, an awkward sentence or a moment spent searching for a word doesn't automatically tell you that there's something wrong with your English. Sometimes you were simply working out what you wanted to say.

Is the thought giving you anything useful?

This is where I think it helps to make a distinction. Imagine you leave a meeting thinking, “I really struggled to explain why we've changed that process.” There's potentially something useful there. When you've got a bit more time, try explaining it again. You might discover that there was a piece of vocabulary you genuinely needed. You might realise that you were trying to explain too much at once and the idea becomes much clearer when you simplify it. Or you may find that, without the pressure of the meeting, you can explain it perfectly well.

Whatever you discover, you've now got something specific you can work with. Compare that with thoughts such as, “My English sounded terrible”, “Everyone else speaks better than me” or “They probably thought I sounded stupid.” What do those thoughts actually help you do differently? They don't tell you which word you need to learn or which explanation you might want to practise. They don't help you understand the other person or make your point more clearly. They simply give you something else to think about while you're already trying to have a conversation.

You don't need to get into an argument with yourself about them either. If you're sitting in a meeting and you notice that kind of thought, that probably isn't the moment for another task to perform in your head. I sometimes think of attention as a spotlight. Whatever we point it at becomes more noticeable, while other things move into the background. If the spotlight is on every word you're saying, every small mistake and how you think you sound, those things can start to feel much more important than they really are. Moving the spotlight back towards the person you're talking to and what you're trying to communicate doesn't make your English unimportant. It simply puts your attention where it's most useful at that moment. The thought can wait.

Sometimes the difficulty isn't really about English

This is something I think we need to be particularly careful about. When a difficult moment happens while we're using another language, it's very easy to assume that the language caused the difficulty. Sometimes that's true. Perhaps you genuinely didn't know the word you needed or you misunderstood what somebody said. Not every difficult conversation in English is difficult because of your English. Lukasz is a very experienced English user who needs the language every day for his work. He told me that he sometimes finds more abstract ideas difficult to talk about in English, but that some of those ideas can be difficult to explain in his mother tongue too. When that happens, he sometimes draws something or shows something visually because it helps him understand and communicate the idea more clearly. I think that's a really useful distinction.

Perhaps you're struggling because the subject itself is complicated. Maybe somebody has asked a question you weren't expecting and you haven't decided what you think yet. You might be tired, under pressure or trying to explain something that is genuinely difficult to put into words. If we automatically put all of those experiences into a box marked “my English isn't good enough”, we can end up working on the wrong problem. Sometimes you need more English. Sometimes you need to practise using the English you already have. And sometimes the thing you're trying to do is simply difficult.

Be careful with the conversation you have afterwards

There's another version of all this that I think most of us will recognise. The meeting finishes and, ten minutes later, you suddenly know exactly what you should have said. The word you couldn't remember appears. You think of a much clearer answer to the question. You find a beautifully simple way of explaining something that felt impossible when everybody was looking at you. It's very tempting to compare that version with what you actually said and think, “Why couldn't I say that at the time?” Those aren't the same situations. Afterwards, you have time. You know what question they asked. You know where the conversation went. Nobody is waiting for you to answer and you're no longer trying to listen, think and speak at the same time. Of course you might come up with a better answer. If that better answer gives you something useful for next time, use it. Say it aloud. Look up the word you needed. Have another go at the explanation and see whether you can make it clearer. What I wouldn't do is use the version you created afterwards as proof that the version you managed in real time wasn't good enough.

Give yourself different jobs at different times

Perhaps this is the simplest way to think about it. When you're in a conversation, your main job is to communicate. Listen to the other person, think about what you want to say and respond. If something needs correcting because the meaning is wrong or somebody has misunderstood you, correct it. If a word doesn't arrive, see if you can explain the idea another way. If you hesitate for a few seconds while you work out what you want to say, give yourself those few seconds. Later, when the conversation is over, you can think about your English again. If there was something genuinely difficult, have another look at it. Practise the explanation, find the vocabulary you needed or ask somebody for feedback. Both of those things matter. Improving your English matters, and using your English matters. They just don't always need to happen at exactly the same time.

During October, we're going to look more closely at some of the thoughts that can appear before, during and after speaking English at work. Not because every thought needs changing, and not because every difficult conversation is secretly a confidence problem. I want to look at something more useful: how to recognise when your thoughts are giving you information you can use, when they're taking your attention away from the conversation, and what you might do differently. For now, the next time you notice yourself thinking about your English while you're still trying to speak it, see whether anything genuinely needs your attention at that moment. If it does, deal with it. If it doesn't, carry on with the conversation and come back to it later.

Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is simply finish what you were saying.

Take care,

Tanya

Questions I hear about thinking too much about your English

Should I correct myself when I make a mistake while speaking English?

Sometimes. If you've said something that changes the meaning, given somebody the wrong information or realised that the other person has misunderstood you, correcting yourself is useful. But you don't need to go back and repair every sentence that wasn't quite how you would have liked to say it. If your meaning was clear and the conversation has moved on, you can usually move on too. You can always come back to something later if you notice that it's a mistake you make regularly or something you'd genuinely like to improve.

Why can I speak English well sometimes but struggle in an important meeting?

There can be lots of reasons for this, and I wouldn't automatically assume that your English has suddenly become worse. An important meeting may ask more of you. You might be dealing with a complicated subject, listening to several people, responding to unexpected questions or trying to make an important point clearly. You may also be paying much more attention to how you're speaking because the outcome matters to you. It's worth thinking about what actually made the situation difficult before deciding what you need to work on.

What should I do if I can't remember a word while I'm speaking?

First, give yourself a moment. We all sometimes need a few seconds to find a word. If it doesn't come, see if you can explain the idea another way. You might describe what something does, give an example or use simpler language. If it was a word you genuinely needed and are likely to use again, look it up afterwards and practise it then. The conversation doesn't necessarily need to stop because one particular word hasn't arrived.

How can I stop worrying about mistakes when I'm speaking English?

I wouldn't make “stop worrying about mistakes” the goal. Telling yourself not to worry can easily become another thing you think you're doing wrong when you still feel nervous. Instead, think about what actually needs your attention while you're speaking. If a mistake causes confusion, deal with it. If you notice something you want to improve, you can come back to it later. If everybody understood you and the conversation continued, it may not need any more attention than that. Over time, having more experiences of using your English in real conversations can also help you get a more realistic sense of what actually causes communication problems and what simply feels imperfect to you.

Why do I always know what I should have said after the conversation?

Because afterwards you're doing a different job. During the conversation, you're listening, thinking, responding and finding the language you need while somebody else is waiting. Afterwards, you have time to think and you already know what happened.

If you come up with a better answer later, that's not evidence that you failed earlier. If the new version is useful, practise it. Then you've turned the experience into something you can use next time.

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