Admit it. You’ve lost your focus during a virtual meeting. But have you ever been asked a question while you were zoning out?

Whether you’re leading or participating in a meeting, you’ll likely face a wide range of difficult questions at some point in your career. 

In this episode, I give you the communication tools you need to navigate these awkward and challenging moments in meetings.

Episode originally published April 8, 2021.

Original theme music by Lucas Knutter 

Read the transcript at https://www.express-to-impress.com/difficult-questions/. 

Join the Express to Impress community on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/express-to-impress/.

See infographics for this episode on Pinterest at https://www.pinterest.com/ExpresstoImpress/_created/.

Express to Impress

How to Answer Difficult Questions in a Meeting

I invite you to tune in to hear the rest of my conversation with Listening Expert Cara Leopold with Leo Listening. This time, we talk about how to get used to different accents and speaking speeds and motivate yourself to learn a language for work or school even if you don't want to. You'll also learn what to do if your language learning has stalled, bad habits language learners pick up when learning a language in a traditional classroom setting, reductions and linking, and how to improve your English skills by joining a movie club. Here are a couple of excerpts from our conversation: "The irony is that it's usually the words that you already know that cause the most problems." "People resent it (the English language), and I understand that because it's imposed on a lot of people, and obviously, we can't expect everyone to be excited about learning it. So I totally understand those feelings, which are valid. I think then, if you can't get excited about English, what can you get excited about? What interests you, in general?" 

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Original theme music by Lucas Knutter. 

Read the transcript at https://www.express-to-impress.com/english-language/. 

Join the Express to Impress community on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/express-to-impress/.

Listening Expert Shares How to Understand More of the English Language

Get ready for a special treat! In this episode, I talk with Cara Leopold, an English Teacher known as the Listening Expert. We covered a lot of topics, so this will be the first of two episodes with our conversation. The main theme of our conversation was building great listening skills in another language. In this first episode, we talk about the importance of listening when learning another language, including pronunciation, and what to do when you don’t understand your colleagues in meetings.  Here are some gems from this episode:

“People might think, “I spend most of my time speaking.” But listening is actually the skill that dominates. So by that logic, the foundation for also learning future languages should be listening.”

“So what’s really helped me to get fluent in French is observing what people say, understanding them, and then copying them.”

“Notice the expressions that people keep using and then use them. You will sound more authentic because you'll be using what the people around you actually say, as opposed to what you read in a book or what you got out of a list of 100 idioms.”

Tune in to get more valuable insights from Cara, so you’ll understand more of what people say around you! The second part of our conversation will be released in the next episode. 

Read the transcript here: https://www.express-to-impress.com/listening-skills/.

Original theme music by Lucas Knutter 

How to Improve Your Listening Skills With Movies With Cara Leopold

Want to use more common sayings while speaking in English?  Tune into the latest Express to Impress Podcast episode to learn ten common sayings for everyday conversations. 

This episode is a follow-up to the previous episode, Word Choice in Journalism and Business with Steven Youngblood. If you haven’t checked out that episode yet, you won’t want to miss it! 

When you use these common sayings in everyday conversations, you’ll connect better with native English speakers. 

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Read the transcript here: https://www.express-to-impress.com/common-sayings/
Original theme music by Lucas Knutter
