Bonus Episode 5 - How to Accept British Culture Shock with Marta Zielinska

Charlie Baxter

In this episode, Charlie invites an expert in effective intercultural communication and cultural adaptation on to the show! Marta Zielinska is a professional in helping people adapt to a new culture and since she's been living and working in London for over 6 years now, Marta has a huge amount of information and experience to help anyone interested in moving to the UK or a any new culture. Enjoy!

My thoughts on my non-native guest speaker's English:
Marta has reached an impressive level with her English as a non-native. She uses incredibly native expressions and does particularly well in using phrasal verbs in a usual way. Her accent is refreshingly natural. If I were learning English I would aim to sound as natural as Marta.

Many learners try to force a British accent and unfortunately sound like an imposter by over doing the /ɑː/ sound like in "bar", "aunt" and "far".

Notice how Marta doesn't exaggerate the British vowel sounds, it's very much like she has imitated her natural surroundings and really does almost sound like a local apart from some minor sounds. One of them that came up in conversation a lot was the əʊ sound in "home" she mispronounces it by using the ɒ sound saying h-om rather than h-oh-m. This might be due to the connection of the m sound to the vowel sound as I didn't spot it too much in other areas of her speech.

Either way, Marta used a lot of intermediate to advanced vocabulary and expressions that natives use regularly so I highly recommend studying them closely. You can do this more efficiently with the manually edited transcript, the full glossary and flashcards that I made just for you 😜. Check them out in the Premium Podcast or Academy!

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

Meet today's guest

Marta Zielinska

Born and raised in Poland, Marta moved to London, UK after graduating from university, out of a curiosity as to what it would be like to live in a different country.

Given her corporate background as well as expertise in effective intercultural communication and cultural adaptation, she decided to share her knowledge and experiences through a blog, Project Abroad.

The blog became her expat project through which she is helping professional expats get more confident and comfortable in their new culture, so that they can build successful international careers and lives.

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Podcast host: Charlie:
This will be quite a bit harder for you to understand, as there are a number of accents in the conversation, some poorly delivered at times, as you will notice.

Podcast host: Charlie:
But the aim is to give you a variety of dialects in one conversation and some dialogue to give you native expressions in context. So enter, if you will, to Charlie's pub and his imaginary world.

Character: Mike:
Alright geezer, how's it going?

Character: Chris:
Yes, I'm well thanks. How about you? Have you had a good day?

Character: Mike:
Can't say good mate. No my old man he's been giving me a right old earful for what happened on site last week.

Character: Chris:
Oh that's a pity. Are you back on your dad's building project again?

Character: Mike:
Sad to say mate, but yeah, I am. Couldn't resist this one though. Cash in hand, you know.

Character: Chris:
Oh fair play, hard to resist those I imagine. Oh, here she is.

Character: Emily:
Oh, hi.

Character: Chris:
I was wondering if you're ever going to join us tonight.

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Charlie Baxter

Teacher, Podcast Host, YouTuber

Charlie is the host and creator of The British English Podcast & Academy. He has also been an active YouTube English Teacher since 2016 but after seeing how many of his students wanted a more structured, carefully designed way to study he decided to create The British English Podcast Academy.

It focuses on British culture, informal expressions, accent and history that is all unique to the UK.

Charlie has spent 6000+ hours teaching intermediate-advanced students since 2014 privately on Skype and has seen a lot of different styles of learning and while he believes there will never be a single CORRECT way to improve your English there are a large number of methods that people use that do waste people's time and prevent them from improving quickly.

So Charlie decided to create The Academy because he believes he knows a VERY effective way to improve your English quickly and enjoyably.

Bonus Episode 5 - How to Accept British Culture Shock with Marta Zielinska

By Charlie Baxter

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Marta Zielinska

Psychologist by education, HR & Global Mobility professional by experience & an expat by choice.

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