Where did your personality go when you started speaking English?

Do you ever feel like a different person when you speak English?

Maybe you're funny, warm and opinionated in your first language, but in English you become quieter and more cautious. You're so focused on choosing the right words and getting your grammar right that the real you doesn't always make it into the conversation.

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In this episode of the Hey Lady! Confident English Podcast, Emma explores why your personality can feel different when you speak English and how to let more of yourself come through.

You'll discover why showing your personality isn't about trying to be funnier or more interesting. It develops through the small moments in real conversations when you share an opinion, make a joke, tell a story, react naturally or show genuine curiosity about someone else.

Emma also shares a simple way to start practising in relaxed, low-pressure conversations so that you can stop thinking so much about how you're speaking and focus more on the person you're speaking with. That's when connection starts to become easier. 

If you can communicate in English but sometimes wonder whether people are really getting to know you, this episode will help you bring more of yourself into your English conversations.

💬 About Emma

Emma is the founder of Hey Lady! and creator of the YouTube channel mmmEnglish, trusted by more than 6 million English learners worldwide.

Hey Lady! is a global English-speaking community where women build confidence through real conversations, connection and consistent speaking practice.

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🎙️ Have a question or challenge you'd like Emma to talk about in a future episode?

You can send a voice message or share your experience below.

Tags

English confidence, Speak English confidently, English fluency, Learn English, English speaking practice, Women learning English, ESL speaking practice, Confident English, English communication, Speak English, English conversation, Personality in English, Speaking English naturally, Be yourself in English, English conversation skills, English speaking confidence, Connect in English, Real English conversations, Second language personality, mmmEnglish, Emma mmmEnglish, Hey Lady, Hey Lady! English

Transcript

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0:00

Imagine this. You're at a dinner, a party, maybe it's a work event, and everyone around you seems to be having a great time. People are laughing. Someone's telling a story. Two people who just met 20 minutes ago are already giving each other a hug. And you wonder, How do they make it look so effortless? Because your English conversation doesn't feel like that. You're being polite. You're answering the questions. Your English is okay, but the other person isn't laughing. They're certainly not leaning in to give you a hug or organising to have a coffee next week. Maybe they're glancing around the room, checking the time, and you can feel it. Somehow the conversation never really connected, and you just wanna scream out, " This isn't really me. I'm funny. I've got great stories. People usually love talking to me." Hey, ladies. Welcome back. My name is Emma. I'm the founder of Hey Lady!, an online community that brings women together from all around the world to practise speaking English. Every week, we break down the barriers that keep you from speaking with confidence, whether that's at work, while you're travelling, or in everyday life. If you've been learning English for a while now but you still don't feel like yourself when you speak in English, then stay with me because that is exactly what we're gonna be talking about today All right, let's get into it. This episode today was inspired by a comment that Gina left for me recently during a live webinar that I was running. She said, I feel like a different person when I speak English. I can't really tell if I sound interesting or boring. I just speak and I hope that people understand who I am. I know that I'm not boring. But I can't tell if they feel the same. Do you know what I mean? I know exactly what she means because Gina isn't saying, "I can't communicate in English." She can, and she knows she can. But the uncomfortable part is that she doesn't know what the other person is seeing. Are they meeting the version of her that she wants them to meet? The, the warm one, the curious one? Or are they only seeing someone who is cautious and quiet and reserved because that version is so focused on saying the right thing, using the right words, that the real Gina gets lost somewhere in there? And I think that that is the real question for today's episode. How can you get your personality to come through when you speak in English? Because it's not only the words that you use, it's also what happens between you and the person that you're talking to. Think about how you are with different people in your native language. You probably don't speak to your closest friend in exactly the same way as you speak to your manager at work, right? You might be very talkative with your sister and much quieter with someone that you've never met, right? And, and that's pretty normal. We all change a little depending on the situation and the people around us. Now, when you're speaking in your second language, well that obviously adds another layer onto that. And I know this exact feeling from learning Spanish, where I've spent hours and hours and hours writing down sentences and practising them out loud and thinking, Okay, so if someone asks me this, then I'm gonna say that. But then 10 seconds into a real actual conversation with someone and they're laughing, their eyes are glistening, they have this joyful look on their face. I know they've made a joke, but I'm thinking, " Oh God, I've completely missed it. I-- What are they laughing at? How do I catch up?" And this matters because when you speak in your first language, in your native language, you usually don't have to think so carefully about every response, right? When someone tells you something funny, you laugh and you add your own comment. If something reminds you of a story, you tell the story. When you have an opinion, you share it. If you are interested in what they're saying, you ask another question. You're not thinking, "Oh, How can I show my personality right now?" It's effortless in your native language. You're just responding as yourself. But in English, this might not be so easy for you right now, because you're choosing your words more carefully. You're checking your grammar. You're making sure that you're being understood. And you might be thinking, " Ugh, I just don't want this to come out wrong." And of course you're doing that. You want the other person to understand you, and you don't wanna feel embarrassed. You don't wanna feel lost. But when you are trying so hard to make every sentence safe and correct, then you can start leaving out the parts that are a little bit

more personal: 6:47

the joke, the strong opinion, that funny detail in that story, or the strange random thought that just popped into your head. And often it's those things that show someone who you really are, that reveal your personality. When you're focused on perfection, you can miss the opportunity for connection. It's not so much that your personality disappears in English, it's just that less of it is making it into the conversation And that is what we need to change. So how does someone actually get to know you? When do they see your personality? This is really important because people don't get to know your personality because you explain it to them. You don't say, " Hello, I'm warm, funny, I'm slightly stubborn." They discover those things by talking to you. You say something funny and she laughs. Maybe she adds something to the joke and you laugh as well. Or you ask a question and she says, " Uh, I've never thought about that before." Maybe you disagree about something. You explain why. She tells you why she sees it differently. That is how people get to know each other, right? And your personality becomes visible through that conversation and through your actions. And importantly, that takes time. One conversation might only show someone a small little part of you. But the more that you talk, the more chances that you have to show someone your humor, your warmth, your curiosity, and your opinions, and all of the other parts of who you are, the more they get to know about you. So if you have ever felt like Gina, that you can communicate in English, but you don't know how much of you is actually coming through in the conversation. How do you change that? Well, I'll tell you one thing, a stressful meeting at work, an important interview, a room full of strangers where you desperately want to make a good impression, all of those situations are challenging for anyone. So you need to start somewhere easier, somewhere a little more relaxed. A simple conversation, a familiar topic, and maybe someone that you already feel comfortable talking to, someone who has time to listen. And the goal here is to give yourself a little bit more freedom to experiment. Now, I wanna demonstrate this with a really simple example. The question that we get all of the time, " How are you?" Now, your automatic standard response, the one that you learned, is, " Good, thanks. And you?" Now, you can say that without thinking at all, without even thinking about the opportunity that you just missed to practise bringing a little more of you into the conversation. Like, if you're quite sarcastic, you could answer, " Oh, great, thanks, but I could do with a holiday." Or if you're a busy person, "Good, but, ugh, I'm so flat out at the moment." If you're a curious person " I'm fine, but how are you? I heard you had an exciting weekend." Now, you've given the other person a little more to respond to. Maybe she laughs. Maybe she says, " What's keeping you so busy these days?" Maybe she tells you what she did on the weekend. You're not trying to perform your personality or suddenly become the funniest, most interesting person in the room. What you're doing is you're allowing a little bit more of you to come into the conversation, to come out and play, and that helps you to connect with someone. You gain more experience being yourself in English in these tiny little moments. And so then, when you see that person again for your second conversation, it's completely different because you already know something about each other, right? You're not starting from zero. You have something, a shared memory, a shared experience that you can come back to. And the more that this happens, the easier it becomes to stop thinking so much about how you're speaking and actually focus on the person and the opportunity you have in front of you, and that helps you to build the kind of relationships where you can be yourself. This is one of the reasons why relationships matter so much inside Hey Lady!. Yes, women join Hey Lady! because they want to practise English, but we don't want every conversation to feel like an English lesson and an English exercise forever, right? We want you to meet people, to talk to them again and again, remember their stories, laugh together, agree to disagree sometimes, and to learn things from each other. Because the goal isn't just to find someone who will listen to you while you practise your English, it's to find people that you actually enjoy talking to. And when that happens, something shifts You're not trying so hard to show your personality. The people that you meet help to bring it out of you. Honestly, if you haven't even experienced Hey Lady! yet, what are you doing? Hey Lady! is an online community that connects you with other women all around the world to bring real English conversations to life. You don't need perfect English. You don't need to be the most confident person in the room, and you can start with a really simple conversation, giving yourself time to get comfortable. And you can try Hey Lady! for free for seven days. During that seven-day trial, you can come to events, you can meet people, join conversations, and decide if the community is right for you. The link to come and check it out is in the show notes, in the description if you are watching on YouTube, or you can scan the code that's on screen next to me right now. If you enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button, hit the like button so that you don't miss the next one, and thank you so much for spending time with me today. I'm looking forward to seeing you again next week