I speak 4 languages fluently. Here is what helped:
1- Speak slowly. Don't rush it
2- Its fine to formulate what you want to say in your mind before saying it. take your time.
3- Use a phone and record yourself speaking about different subject. Practice, practice and practice.
4- Some audiences are harder than others. French people for example tend to nitpick and want you to be really fluent. While most english speakers are fine with your speaking, but it depends on the audience and who you are speaking to.
5- You obviously need to immerse yourself in the language you want to speak. Tv-shows, Movies, News and even tabloid. The latter is actuallt good to understand jokes, innuendos and other subtle conversations.
One thing I also noted, is that if you follow/watch people who are not native speakers, they actually tend to explain things/concepts better. Because they are limited in words and have limited scope compared to native speaker. Anyone remarked this?
"French people for example tend to nitpick and want you to be really fluent."
I humbly disagree.Moved to France only recently and started a company. Whenever I try and talk to locals in French they politely interrupt and ask if it was easier for me in English.
I always heard they would switch to English for people, but they wanted people to make an attempt and not just start with English like it was assumed people understood it in France. It sounds like you made the attempt.
It's a cultural difference – french culture prefers correctness over politeness, whereas in the US people prefer to "keep the peace" by not emphasizing mistakes.
It shows up a lot in engineering discussions if you have french colleagues too.
Make your manager's manager look good. Because only then you would be able to go up the food chain (assuming that is the goal. your manager may become your competitor/peer in this case).
Are you by any chance applying to european jobs while residing in canada?
This is a big no no. At the least you should have an address in the country you are applying for and a local phone number.
Applying with a CV from Canada with canadian details would probably eliminate you from the process early on. I say this as someone who was trying to work in the UK while living in Germany. The minute I changed address/phone things started to look better.
You may even mention this on your CV sayong that you are looking to move or already moved to that country.
I think the poster's point is that people are reducing themselves to 0 or 1. That's essentially the problem with identity politics, people are complicated with many facets; why would you latch on to 1 identifying trait?
And that is where the issue is. Just because you have a specific belief/views, doesn't make you more/less stupid or more/less intelectual. Having a specific religion doesn't suddently turn off your brain and tells you not to become a good developer, a good person or good scientist.
You're completely correct but I'm not sure that negates the point.
What a person's specific religion is isn't interesting, just like their hobbies aren't interesting. They just don't say a lot about the person.
What _might_ be interesting, is if you only have one interest in life. e.g. Bubba Blue (from Forrest Gump) isn't someone I'd want to spend a lot of time with, even though I like shrimp.
This will be a different advice from what you expect, but be thankful for all things you have.
Stop worrying about being more productive and making a lot more money. I'm not saying you shouldn't think about this things, but don't let worries about those things consume you and become your whole life.
Understand that on average you are living better than kings and queens did thausend years ago or even 100 years ago. Got a fridge? well be thankful for that. Got heating, a bed, bath, clothes, food that you like? you are living the dreams of billions of people who can't have any of it. Just be thankful for things before you want to get more.
