Since I came to Australia I’ve had two major issues/challenges:

• Speaking proper English
• Finding friends

Although I’ve had improvements in speaking English and making friends, I still have a long way to be able to speak easy-to-understand English and make a big circle of friends. In this post I will mention how you can improve your English speaking skill and communicate better. Later, I will also write about making friends in Australia.

When people come to Australia to live or to work, they will find that communication in English is pretty difficult. Even though many of us have had the experience of being in foreign countries and speak in English, we may find it difficult to communicate with native speakers, especially with Australians. It may be hard to believe, but this even may happen to other native English speakers who come to Australia. As I have mentioned in ‘So you want to speak like an Aussie’ page, Australian accent has been formed by the many different accents and dialects of those who came to Australia fist. So it’s not like the common British or American accents that you probably are familiar with. It also takes time for native speakers to get used to it because Australian English is fraught with idiomatic expressions so that you won't understand the language unless you learn the slang expressions.

If your mother tongue is not English and you are not a student you may have a tough time for the first few months. If you are a student you will be fine as you will be dealing with so many other international students and an educational system that has been designed to be suitable for international students. But if you are coming to Oz to work and to live here, the story can be absolutely different, as in a professional environment you are expected to be able to communicate fluently and perfectly. You may lose very good job opportunities because of your communication flaws rather than your technical issues.

What to learn before moving to Oz?

From my experience I can tell you that the speaking skill improves much more slowly than the listening skill. After living in Australia for a year or so you will notice that you don’t have much of listening problems, but speaking would still be a communication barrier for you. Therefore:

• If you have plenty of time, for example you are still waiting for your Visa, work on your speaking and listening. You do not have to learn Australian slangs. Just focus on improving your speaking and listening through listening to pod casts (e.g. podcasts of ABC Radio).
• If you do not have much time, for example you have received your Visa and you will head off to Australia shortly, I do recommend you to focus on the listening skill. Reason is that, you will not be able to make a big change to your speaking skill in such a short time while listening can be reasonably improved.

As mentioned above, you must focus on your speaking and listening skills. Having said that, speaking and listening will not improve if you you don’t have a good grasp of grammar and vocabulary. You must be able to make proper sentence structures and choose the proper words for various situations. Avoid learning complicated words that is not used in every day English. Go back to your elementary and pre-intermediate English books and learn the name of the things that we need in every day life, such as vegetables, fruits, food, cloths, directions, and so on. I have recently come across some newcomers who asked me some basic grammars, such as making an ‘unreal if condition’ . Make sure that you know the basic grammar and vocabulary before you begin your life in Oz.

A great book that I can introduce to you is English Vocabulary Organizer. Working on one lesson of this book each night, I could clearly see that I was able to better communicate with my colleagues.

Mistakes to avoid and tips to have in mind

To be honest I did not expect to be hard to understand when I came to Australia. Although I had spent a reasonable time in other countries (e.g. in Europe) before coming to Australia so I had spoken in English before, I was (and yet am) hard to understand because of my accent and also because an Australian ear is not tuned for non-Australian accents! Yes, Australians are not able to understand foreign accents as well as the British or Canadians are. I have a few Canadian friends and heaps of British colleagues who understand me very well (and I understand them well).  But the story is different for Australians, firstly because we do not have much exposure to Australian accent when we live outside Australia. Second, Australians are not used to foreign accents, and/or they do not feel like to get used to different accents! Whatever the reason is, it will take a while for you to be able to express yourself clearly. The items that I am going to mention below are coming from my very personal experiences. Although I know them, I still have problems with English. However, knowing what the problems are will help us to work on them and to get better day by day.

So, here is the list of the things that we have to consider when we speak in English:

• Avoid speaking with a flat tone. My mother tongue (Persian) is flat compared to English. That means, we do not have too many ups and downs when we say a sentence. In comparison, English has many ups and downs. These ups and downs are made by the stress and intonations. Explanation of “stress” and “intonation” is outside the scope of this article. However, in a crude term, stress and intonation denote that which part of the sentence we are emphasizing on:

As you can see in the figure above, the tone of the speaker has raised when saying the word ‘marmalade’ to emphasize that Marianna made marmalade, not a cookie!  So, if you speak without proper stress and intonations, it will become very hard for the listeners to understand that what you want to say, e.g. whether you are saying an affirmative sentence or your are asking a question?!

I have experienced that only by changing the rhythm of our speaking, we will become much easier to understand.

• Avoid speaking quietly. Having an accent makes it difficult for a native speaker to understand you. So do not make it even more difficult by speaking so quietly. I personally have this problem that I speak quietly. This comes from the fact that I am lazy to speak and a bit timid. However, when I speak loudly, people understand me much easier.
• Avoid speaking fast. Speaking fast does not mean that you speak fluently. Newcomers tend to speak fast because sometimes they think that speaking fast means they are fluent and also it helps them to hide their mistakes! This does not help at all. Some languages, such as Indian and Spanish, are naturally much faster than English. If your mother tongue is Indian or Spanish you must slow down and even speak slower than normal. By speaking slowly, the listener will find a chance to think and recognize the words and the sentence that you deliver.
• Avoid shortcuts. I see many people who use pronunciation shortcuts which make them really hard to understand. The best example I can point to is the pronunciation of th sound. The pronunciation of th sound in English is a bit tricky and somehow hard for non-English speakers. Since it is hard to pronounce the th sound, some people simply pronounce it like ‘s’ or ‘t’. From my experience, Asians and the French pronounce th as S. For example, you may hear ‘Somesing’ , or ‘Sri Fifty’ (three fifty). It sticks out doesn’t it? 

Other shortcuts that I can think of are pronouncing W like V (saying “Ve Vill Come” instead od “We Will Come”). This is one of my problems when I speak English because in my native language, V and W are pronounced just like each other. So if I go to a café and I decide to eat some baked potato, and I decide to make it easy by pronouncing W like V, the waitress would think that I am ordering vegetables and not Wedges! (pronouncing Wedges like Veggies)

• Practice propositions. Propositions in English can change the meaning of a preceding word entirely. For example:

Swear at someone: To curse and to say bad words to someone

Swear to: to make a vow (e.g. I swear to God).

As you can see, by simply changing ‘At’ to ‘To’, the meaning of the word Swear changed dramatically! If you use improper propositions, you may deliver a wrong message and cause a trouble or make the other party offended. Unfortunately, there is no rule to learn them and the only thing you can do is trying to memorize them.

• Read loudly. Just knowing the theory does not help much. We have to work out on our tongue, nerves and brain so that they can produce proper English sounds. This is called a muscle memory. In order to work on the muscle memory we have to speak as much as we can. A good practice is to read loudly. It is said that if you read loudly for 15 minutes a day, your muscle memory and your speaking system (e.g. jaw, tongue etc.) will improve noticeably.

There is too much to say about improving the speaking skill. The key point is to be keen on learning and to be open for correction. The best way to learn and correct our mistake is being corrected by native speakers. If a native speaker finds that you get defensive once you are corrected by them, they will simply stop correcting you so you will keep repeating the same mistake over and over.

Should I be worried about my accent or mistakes?

Not at all. You don’t speak English as your native language so you are not expected to be perfect in it. However, speaking correct and fluent English will really help you to achieve what you deserve.

When you speak English, if the other party cannot understand you, they will simply ask you to repeat. In this case, repeat gently and try to be more clear. In general, Australians are patient and they will try to figure out what you are trying to say. Even if they feel comfortable with you, they may correct you. As I said before, the key is to be open to correction.

You may come across some annoying persons who may judge you based on how you speak, or ask you to repeat while they fully understand what you say. In such a case, I personally just ignore them! A good strategy to piss such people off is to ask them how many languages do they speak? In 99% of cases this question will make them shut up!

What next?

After all, mastering in a second language takes time. Just imagine that how much time is needed for a baby to learn speaking. Only after 4 or 5 years can a baby say a proper sentence. Thus, you should be patient and let your body, including your brain, adapt with your new language.