When people don’t correct your mistakes

Friends and colleagues may not realise that feedback is helpful.

My French friends tend to correct my pronunciation and grammar mistakes but that’s not the case in all cultures.

In New Zealand, for example, Kiwi colleagues don’t usually correct you because they don’t want to appear rude.

So you keep on making mistakes.

When I told a client the idiom is on foot, he was shocked. For one year at work he had been talking about going places by feet and no one had politely pointed out what he should be saying.

At another workplace, colleagues only talked with my client when they needed her help solving a technical problem – which she was very good at. The rest of the time she was ignored because they found it difficult to understand her pronunciation.

In my coaching sessions, I’ve heard many negative experiences, but also some positive ones.

At one workplace, the team does the daily quiz in the newspaper together during their morning tea break. The other team members asked my client to read the quiz questions aloud so he can practise his pronunciation and they help him with any tricky words.

And sometimes helpful coworkers do point out how to say a word or phrase correctly … but then can’t explain why or what else fits the same pattern.

Such as how the stressed syllables in words like record, object or insult change depending on whether they’re being used as nouns or verbs.

Mixing them up can make comprehension harder for listeners.

The right kind of feedback reduces pronunciation mistakes and improves speaking.

One way to get personalised feedback on your English pronunciation is an English pronunciation clarity check with me where I help pinpoint pronunciation problems and give advice on how to improve your spoken English.

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