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(cheerful electronic music)

• Hello everyone, and welcome back to English with Lucy.

Today I am going to talk to you

about how you can stop being shy,

and start speaking English confidently.

My little brother and I were reading comments

on one of my videos the other day,

and he pointed out one which really made me feel sad.

Someone said, “I can’t speak English,

“because I am a shy person.”

And I don’t know if it was the wording of it,

but it really broke our hearts.

The fact that somebody doesn’t think

they can learn a language because they are a shy person

made me feel really, really sad,

so I decided to make this video to help motivate you all,

especially you shy people.

I receive a lot of messages about confidence,

people saying oh, I wish I was confident like you,

but naturally, in certain situations,

I can feel so, so shy, and so, so nervous.

If you check out the last part of most of my videos,

you can see all the times

that I mix up my words, and make mistakes.

It’s completely natural.

When I have to speak publicly, I often feel so, so shy.

But there are plenty of things that I do,

and I have learned to do over the past few years,

since I started this channel,

that have made me a confident person.

And I want to share that with you,

so let’s get started with the lesson.

The first one, this is a well-known tip,

but I really believe in it, fake it ‘til you make it.

And most importantly, don’t tell people that you feel shy.

Almost a year ago, I was invited to speak about my business

at my old university.

I had to give a 45-minute talk,

all about me and my business,

to a room of so many students.

And my parents were watching, and my boyfriend,

who is now my fiance.

I was so nervous, but I think I handled it

really, really well.

I didn’t tell anyone that I was feeling shy.

It’s okay to be nervous, but don’t say you’re shy.

Saying you’re nervous is okay, but saying you feel shy,

I think is quite a negative thing to say,

and it might influence the way people think about you.

I pretended that I was really, really confident,

and that I do this kind of thing all the time.

When in reality, it was my first time speaking

about myself in front of such a large audience.

I was scared of boring everyone,

I was scared that the person organising the event

was going to regret asking me to speak,

I was scared of embarrassing myself

in front of my boyfriend,

I was scared of disappointing my parents.

But I walked in there, head held high,

I slightly lowered my voice,

and I’m pretty convinced that no one knew

I was really, really nervous.

It was also being filmed and put on YouTube.

I will leave the link in the description box.

So that was an extra layer of nervousness for me.

So what did I do?

I pretended I was super confident.

I tried to relax how I was standing,

I tried to relax my voice,

I went outside beforehand just to do

some breathing, and to relax myself,

and it ended up going really, really well.

So how can this apply to you?

Not only are you nervous about speaking to someone,

but it’s also not your native language.

You need to pretend that you’re confident.

You can try lowering your voice slightly.

So instead of speaking up here, really nervously,

you will speak in a low voice,

and have it echo across the room. (laughs)

Work on your posture, feet apart, nice and tall,

shoulders relaxed, really show the other speaker

that you’re comfortable being there.

And as I said before, don’t tell anyone you’re shy,

because sooner rather than later,

you will start to feel more confident,

you probably won’t even realise it,

and then you might regret having told someone

that you’re a shy person.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

You don’t have to be shy.

The next tip I have for you is listen,

and learn from other confident speakers.

When I try out a new hobby,

I often want to see how an expert does it.

If you really want to learn how to be more confident,

and how to speak more confidently,

you need to listen to experienced and confident speakers.

Make it part of your daily routine.

Once you’ve found somebody

and pinpointed who you want to sound like,

try and imitate them a little bit.

Make it your own, but take elements of their confidence

and elements of their speech.

For example, I really, really like

and admire the way Stephen Fry speaks.

So, I make a point to listen to him speaking frequently.

A great way that you can implement listening

to a confident speaker for a little bit of time

every single day, is by listening to audiobooks.

Tip number three,

this is something that I’ve spoken about before,

but I 100% recommend it.

It is, rehearse and prepare

your best stories and monologues,

and things that you know you will have to say

time and time again.

Make a habit of talking to yourself

and practising your best stories,

and the answers to the most frequent questions.

Where are you from, what are your hobbies,

what’s your job, what would you like to do in the future?

Tell me about yourself, that’s such a big one.

And it makes me feel nervous when someone

asks me that in my own language,

so I can only imagine how hard it is for you,

especially if you’re shy.

Practise it, maybe even write it down at first,

and then practise it until you know it off by heart.

You don’t want to know it word for word,

you just want to know

that when somebody asks you that question,

you know what to say, and you can say it with confidence.

I also said, practise your favourite stories.

These are great ways to fill gaps in conversation.

I’ve got a few funny ones that I’ve told in videos,

like my waitressing mistakes,

or the lovely story about my dad’s fairy book.

Links to those are also in the description box.

Those are stories that I like to tell at dinner parties,

and people like being around good storytellers,

so it’s really, really important

to learn how to tell a good story.

And treat each time you tell a story as practise.

Gauge their response.

Did they react well to what you said?

Did they find it boring?

Make the necessarily tweaks.

Then, after 20 times of telling this story,

hopefully to different people each time,

try not to repeat yourself, (laughs)

you will tell it beautifully.

Right, my next tip is practise asking questions.

Learning how to say questions correctly is so important,

but also quite difficult in English.

But it’s so important for shy people,

because it means that if you need a break from speaking,

you can pass the baton to the other person.

Examples, so how did you get into your career path?

Or, if you could do one thing differently,

what would you do?

That opens up an opportunity for the other person

to tell their story, and to talk a bit,

so you can have time for a rest.

Most people enjoy talking about themselves,

and they also appreciate good listeners.

And you can be both of those by asking questions.

The only thing you have to do is learn

and remember how to ask them correctly.

I always have a couple of questions up my sleeve,

so that if I’m feeling nervous or shy,

I can quickly ask someone something,

and we can continue the conversation that way.

And, there’s no pressure on me.

Number five is don’t take yourself too seriously.

The best way to bond with people is to laugh,

and especially to laugh at yourself.

If I feel shy about something,

sometimes I make a joke about it.

I remember when I was learning Spanish,

I was so embarrassed about making mistakes,

but actually, those mistakes ended up

being my funniest stories in Spanish.

If you speak Spanish, and you want to hear about my funny,

or at least I think they’re funny, (laughs)

Spanish mistake stories,

and such (speaking in foreign language).

And I’ll leave the link in the description box.

I laugh at myself, basically,

for a full 10 minutes. (laughs)

Embrace making mistakes.

They are such a powerful tool.

Not only do you learn from them,

but you can also create comedy from them.

But if you’re quite obviously uptight

and really embarrassed about your mistakes,

it puts the other person, or your audience,

in a really awkward situation.

You don’t want people cringing for you,

you want people to feel comfortable

that they can laugh along with you.

Keep a note of all these funny mistakes that you’ve made,

and then maybe one day,

you can meet somebody else that’s shy,

when you’re already fluent in English,

and you can make them feel better and tell them

about your ridiculous experiences.

Number six, meet and talk to as many

different people as possible.

In your life, you are going to meet so many people

that you will never, ever meet again.

So if you do embarrass yourself in front of them,

if the worst does happen, it doesn’t matter.

You might think about it again,

they might think about it again,

but if you don’t ever see them again, it doesn’t matter!

Take the opportunity to speak with strangers,

to go out and meet people,

to talk to as many different people as possible.

Confidence for shy people comes with practise.

An example, I never really made

my own friends before, as an adult.

I always just had friends from childhood,

or friends that I shared with my partner,

and when I moved to this village, I was new,

my fiance was new, we didn’t know anyone,

but I really wanted to make friends.

But I felt really shy.

But we started going out sometimes together,

sometimes apart, and making real efforts to talk to people.

If we recognised someone, we would say hello.

I would sometimes pop to the coffee shop

on my own and talk to the people there.

Or go to the pub and see the same people

over and over again, and get to know them very, very slowly.

At first, it felt really awkward, and I felt really shy.

But now we just really enjoy being able

to go anywhere in our village and know people.

Had we allowed ourselves to be naturally shy,

as we are, that wouldn’t have happened.

It was by practising speaking

to as many different people as possible,

that we felt confident.

Right, that’s it for today’s lesson.

I hope you enjoyed it,

and I really hope you learned something,