(in the background while you are doing your housework)
7 things not to do when speaking English
1. Don’t Be too Ashamed to Speak
There
is only one way to learn how to speak English, and that is to open
your mouth and speak English! The only way you will ever get better at
speaking is by speaking, and speaking a lot!
2. Don’t Be Afraid of Making Mistakes
You
should try making as many mistakes as possible. If you are making
mistakes that means you are actually speaking English and improving.
Grammar
is the last thing you should be worried about when speaking English.
You don’t need to have perfect grammar in order to communicate with
someone in English. Native speakers aren’t going to judge you for having
bad grammar, they are going to be more focused on understanding your
meaning and continuing the conversation. As long as you speak clearly
and confidently, it doesn’t matter if you use the wrong article,
adjective ending or sentence order.
You should learn to speak first to build your confidence, and then work on correcting your grammar after you’ve reached a basic level of fluency.
Everybody
makes mistakes, even native speakers of English. Nobody is born
speaking perfect English; fluency is something that takes time and hard
work to achieve. There are many Americans who go through 13 years of
schooling and still don’t learn how to speak English properly.
3. Don’t Apologize For Your Level
Most
of the people who apologize for their level of English feel like they
should speak better than they do. Its fine to think this, but don’t get
upset at yourself for not knowing more than you do. Achieving fluency
in any language is a process that takes time, and you can’t expect to
become fluent overnight.
4. Don’t get frustrated with yourself
Learning
English will come with a certain amount of frustration. At some point
you will come to a stage where you won’t be able to fully express yourself like you would be able to in your native language, and there will be times when you won’t be able to find the right word to say.
The only way to overcome this frustration is by practice, practice, practice.
5. Don’t take it personally when people don’t understand you
Due
to the large number of English speakers in the world, there are a wide
range of accents, some of which are hard to understand. I for one have
a hard time understanding some Australian accents and most Irish
accents.
You’ll have this problem a lot when talking with people who aren’t used to dealing with foreigners.
6. Don’t compare yourself to other English Speakers
Everybody
is different; some people learn languages more easily than others and
some people have spent more time working to improve their English.
7. If you are fluent, or just think you are, DON’T GET COCKY (ARROGANT)
“Life (English) is a Journey Not a Destination.”
This part was written by Justin.
English is not a chip in your brain. It’s a learning process.
ENGLISH STORY : EXTR@
This is the story of Bridget and Annie who share a flat in London and their neighbour Nick. As well Bridget's penfriend, Hector from Argentina
WHAT'S YOUR JOB?
What do you do?
STORY TO PRACTICE ENGLISH CONVERSATION
ASKING AND GIVING DIRECTIONS
What are they going to do?
IRREGULAR VERBS
I’ve spent the last few years traveling and living abroad, and during that time I’ve talked to a lot of people who spoke English as a foreign language.
After talking to thousands of foreigners in English I’ve noticed several things that they do that hurt their progress as a language learner. Here are the top 7:
1. Don’t Be too Ashamed to Speak
There is only one way to learn how to speak English, and that is to open your mouth and speak English! The only way you will ever get better at speaking is by speaking, and speaking a lot!Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear. – Mark TwainYou can make excuses for why you don’t want to speak, like saying that you’re too embarrassed to speak, but these won’t get you any closer to your goal of achieving English fluency. It doesn’t matter if you have no vocabulary, or if your pronunciation isn’t perfect, you need to open your mouth and speak if you want to improve. What ever you do, don’t say that you can’t speak English because this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By believing that you can’t speak English you close your mind to trying, and never give yourself the opportunity to improve. The only way to improve your English is to practice it, no matter how bad you may or may not be at it.
2. Don’t Be Afraid of Making Mistakes
Another thing you shouldn’t do when speaking English is to be afraid of making mistakes. Part of being human is making mistakes and sooner or later you’re going to have to accept the fact that you’re not perfect and that you will always make mistakes. The only way you can avoid making mistakes is by not trying at all. If you follow this approach you’ll avoid making mistakes, but you’ll never improve either.I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. – Michael JordanThis may seem counter-intuitive, but you should try making as many mistakes as possible. If you are making mistakes that means you are actually speaking English and improving. If you aren’t making mistakes every day then you aren’t speaking enough. Of course, you shouldn’t intentionally make mistakes, and you should try to be aware of your mistakes so you can learn from them and improve your skills. Grammar is the last thing you should be worried about when speaking English. You don’t need to have perfect grammar in order to communicate with someone in English. Native speakers aren’t going to judge you for having bad grammar, they are going to be more focused on understanding your meaning and continuing the conversation. As long as you speak clearly and confidently, it doesn’t matter if you use the wrong article, adjective ending or sentence order. - See more at: http://reallifeglobal.com/7-things-not-to-do-when-speaking-english/#sthash.EBga1ctg.dpuf
IRREGULAR VERBS LIST +PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION
70 ways to improve your English
- Start your own English language blog. Even for
people who don't have to write in English, writing can be a great way of
properly learning the kind of vocabulary you need to describe your own
life and interests, and of thinking about how to stop making grammar
mistakes. The problem most people have is that they don't know what to
write about. One traditional way to make sure you write every day in
English is to write an English diary (journal), and a more up to date
way of doing this is to write a blog. Popular topics include your
language learning experience, your experience studying abroad, your
local area, your language, or translations of your local news into
English. - Write a news diary. Another daily writing task that
can work for people who would be bored by writing about their own
routines in a diary is to write about the news that you read and listen
to everyday. If you include your predictions for how you think the story
will develop (e.g. "I think Hillary will become president"), this can
give you a good reason to read old entries another time, at which time
you can also correct the mistakes you have made and generally improve
what you have written. - Sign up for a regular English tip. Some websites
offer a weekly or even daily short English lesson sent to your email
account. If your mobile phone has an e-mail address, it is also possible
to have the tips sent to your phone to read on the way to work or
school. Please note, however, that such services are not usually graded
very well to the levels of different students, and they should be used
as a little added extra or revision in your English studies rather than
as a replacement for something you or your teacher have chosen more
carefully as what you need to learn. - Listen to MP3s. Although buying music on the
internet is becoming more popular in many countries, not so many people
know that you can download speech radio such as audio books (an actor
reading out a novel) and speech radio. Not only is this better practice
for your English than listening to English music, from sources like
Scientific American, BBC and Australia's ABC Radio it is also free. - Listen to English music. Even listening to music
while doing something else can help a little for things like getting
used to the natural rhythm and tone of English speech, although the more
time and attention you give to a song the more you will learn from
listening to it again in the future. - Read the lyrics to a song. Although just listening
to a song in English can be a good way of really learning the words of
the chorus in an easily memorable way, if you want to really get
something out of listening to English music you will need to take some
time to read the lyrics of the song with a dictionary. If the lyrics are
not given in the CD booklet, you may be able to find them on the
internet, but please note that some lyrics sites deliberately put a few
errors into their lyrics for copyright reasons. Once you have read and
understood the lyrics, if you then listen and read at the same time,
this can be a good way of understanding how sounds change in fast,
natural, informal speech. - Sing karaoke in English. The next stage after
understanding and memorising a song is obviously to sing it. Although
some words have their pronunciation changed completely to fit in with a
song, most of the words have the same sounds and stressed syllables as
in normal speech. Remembering which words rhyme at the end of each line
can also be a good way of starting to learn English pronunciation. - Write a film, music, hotel or book review. Another
motivating and easy way to make yourself write in English is to write a
review for a site such as Amazon or Internet Movie Database. Many
non-native speakers write reviews on sites like this, and if you have
some special understanding of the book, music or film due to your first
language or knowing the artist personally, that would be very
interesting for the English speakers who read and write reviews on the
site. - Only search in English. Switching your search
engine to the English language version of msn, yahoo, Google etc. can
not only be a good way of practising fast reading for specific
information in English, but could also give you a wider choice of sites
to choose from and give you an idea of what foreigners are writing about
your country and area. - Read a book you've already read or seen the movie of in your own language.
Although most language learners under Advanced level would probably
learn more from reading a graded reader or something from the internet
than they would from reading an original book written for English
speakers, for some people reading something like Harry Potter in the
original can be a great motivator to improve their English. To make this
easier for you and make sure that it motivates you rather than just
making your tired, try reading a book that you already know the story
of. This not only makes it easier to understand and guess vocabulary,
but you are also more likely to remember the language in it. If you have
not read the book before, reading a plot summary from the internet can
also help in the same way. - Read a translation into English. Another way of
making sure books are easier to understand is to choose a book that was
originally translated into English, preferably from your own language.
Even if you haven't read the book in your own language, you will find
the English is written in a slightly simplified way that is more similar
to how your own language is written than a book originally written in
English would be. - Skip the first ten pages. If you have given up with
a book in English or are reading it very slowly, try skimming through
the first ten pages or skipping them completely. The start of most books
tend to be mainly description and are therefore full of difficult
vocabulary and don't have a clear story line yet to help you understand
what is happening and to motivate you to turn the next page. If the book
is still too difficult even after the introductionary part is finished,
it is probably time to give that book up for now and try it again after
you have read some easier things. - Read a book with lots of dialogue. Opening up books
before you buy one and flicking through them to find one with lots of
direct dialogue in it has several advantages. If there is less text on
the page due to all the speech marks etc, this can make it easier to
read and easier to write translations on. Dialogue is also much easier
to understand than descriptive parts of a book, and is much more like
the language you will want to learn in order to be able to speak
English. - Read English language comics. Even more than books
with lots of dialogue, comics can be easy to understand and full of
idiomatic language as it is actually spoken. There can be difficulties
with slang, difficult to understand jokes and/ or dialogue written how
people speak rather than with normal spellings, so try to choose which
comic carefully. Usually, serious or adventure comics are easier to
understand than funny ones. - Read English language entertainment guides.
Nowadays most big cities in the world have an English language magazine
and/ or online guide to the movies, plays, exhibitions that are on in
the city that week. Reading this in English is not only good value, but
it could also guide you to places that English speakers are interested
in and where you might hear some English spoken around you. - Read English language magazines. Like books, if you
can read two versions of the same magazine (Newsweek in your language
and in English, for example), that could make understanding it much
easier. - Take a one week intensive course. Although you
cannot expect to come out of a very short course speaking much better
English than when you started it, if you continue studying a little over
the following weeks and months, the knowledge you gained then will
gradually come out and mean that your level of speaking, listening etc.
are better than they would have been if you hadn't taken that course.
This positive effect can still be true up to a year later. - Follow your intensive course up with an extensive course.
The more time you can spend studying English the better, but studying
periodic intensive courses with a few hours of study a week in between
is probably better value for money than any other system as it gives
your brain time to subconsciously learn and start using the new language
you have learnt before you introduce the next new "chunk" of language. - Supplement your group class with a one to one class.
Another good way to combine two different kinds of classes is to study
both in a group class and one to one. Having a one to one teacher, even
if just a couple of times a month, will mean that you can be taught
exactly the language that you need, that you will have more time to
speak, and that you can have as much error correction as you like. - Supplement your one to one class with a group class.
The benefits of having a group class are often less clear to students,
but they include the fact that you will learn to deal with several
people speaking at once, have a chance to practice skills such as
interrupting people, and will hear a range of different viewpoints and
topics. - Teach your children or friends some English. Recent
research has shown that elder children tend to be a couple of IQ points
above their younger siblings, and the most likely reason is that
explaining things to their little brothers and sisters gives them an
intellectual boost. In the same way, teaching someone lower level than
you the English you already know is a great way of permanently fixing
that knowledge in your own brain. - Ask your company to start English lessons. Even if
you don't need to speak English at work, English lessons can be a fun
and reasonably priced way for your company to spend their training
budget in a popular way. - Have English radio on in the background while you are doing your housework. Even if you are not listening carefully, it will help you get a feel for natural English rhythm and intonation.
- Play English language learning games on your Nintendo DS.
Although such games can have quite random language and are unlikely to
improve your ability to speak English on their own, the next time you
hear or read the same language elsewhere it will be really fixed in your
brain by the fact you have played a game with it in already. It is also
a nice way of taking a break from your other English studies while also
doing some English. To make sure it really is a break and to avoid
wasting time learning language from the game that is not much used in
daily life, don't bother writing down any new language you see in the
game, but just try to learn it from playing the game again. - Say or think what you are doing in English as you do your daily tasks.
As you are doing your chores, try creating sentences describing what
you are doing, e.g. ‘I am unscrewing the ketchup bottle cap'. This gets
you used to thinking in English without translating, and can be a good
way of seeing what simple vocabulary that is around you everyday you
don't know. yet - Watch English language films with English subtitles.
For people who can't understand a film without subtitles but find
themselves not listening at all when reading subtitles in their own
language, this should be the way of watching a film that you should aim
for. If it is too difficult to watch the whole film this way, try
watching the (usually important) first 10 or 15 minutes of the film with
subtitles in your own language, switch to English subtitles after that,
and only switch back to subtitles in your own language if you get
totally lost following the story of the film. - Watch films in your language with English subtitles.
If you are finding English films with English subtitles too difficult
or you can't find English films with English subtitles in your local
video shop, this is a good second best option. Looking for local films
with English subtitles can also sometimes be a good sign of quality, as
it means the producers of the film are expecting it to be popular
internationally as well. - Watch English films with subtitles in your language.
Again, this is not as good practice as English language films with
English subtitles, but is more relaxing, can be easier to find suitable
DVDs for, and is also possible with VHS. - Watch the same film or TV episode over and over again.
This can not only save you money on DVDs, but will mean that you can
really learn the language without having to study it. Some comedies can
also get funnier the more you watch them, especially if you watch them
with no subtitles and so understand a little more each time you watch
it. - Be realistic about your level. One thing that holds
many language learners back is actually trying too hard and tackling
something that their brain is not ready for yet. Checking your level
with a level check test on the internet, by taking an English language
test (FCE, CAE, IELTS, TOEIC, TOEFL etc.), or by taking a free trial
level check and/ or lesson in a language school will help you find out
what your level is and so choose suitable self-study materials. - Be realistic about your reading level. Most
researchers agree that people learn most when reading something they
understand almost all of. If there are one or two words per page that
you have never seen before, that is about the right level. If there are
three or more on every page, you should switch to something easier and
come back later. - Read graded readers (= easy readers). These are
books that are especially written for language learners like you, e.g.
Penguin Readers. Although it can be difficult to find something as
interesting as things written in newspapers or on the internet, in terms
of learning the language only people who need to read for their work or
an exam usually gain more from reading things written for graded
readers. Graded readers of classic books like Charles Dickens also have
the benefit of giving you a lot of knowledge about the literature, and
culture more generally, of English speaking countries in a short time. - Read the whole thing with no help. Although using a
dictionary has been shown to help with both short term and long term
learning of vocabulary, the fact that using it slows reading down can
stop some people reading in English at all. Reading a whole book quickly
through just for pleasure from time to time will help you remember how
fun reading in another language can be. - Read and learn everything. At the opposite extreme,
it can be hard work but very satisfying to get to the end of a book
knowing that you have learnt every word in it. See other tips on this
page to make sure it is a book that is easy enough to do this with and
to ensure that the vocabulary you learn is useful. - Watching English children's films or TV programmes.
Although some of the vocabulary you can learn from things made for
children can be a bit strange (lots of animal names and maybe animal
noises, including baby names for things), the fact that not only the
language but the structure of the story is simplified can make it an
easy and motivating thing to watch. Like good language learning
materials, the same language is also often repeated to make it
memorable, and the use of catchy songs etc. can increase this positive
effect on your memory. - Read English children's books. This is very similar
to watching English children's movies, but with the added advantage of
there being more illustrations than adult books, which both helps you to
understand the story and makes the page brighter and more motivating to
read. - Keep a list of language to learn, e.g. a vocab list.
Even if you don't often find time to go though your vocab list and it
keeps on building up, just the act of choosing which words you need to
learn and writing them down on a special list can help you learn them. - Go through your vocab list several times every day.
If ticking off words on a vocabulary list on the train to work is
inconvenient or embarrassing for you, you can keep your list of words to
learn as an entry in your electronic dictionary, as a mobile phone to
do list or as a text file in your MP3 player (e.g. iPod). Although the
time spent transferring the information between different formats like
these may seem wasted, in fact any time you spend using the vocabulary
like this will help you learn it. - Convert your vocab list to English only. One way to
stop yourself translating and therefore increase your speed of
comprehension and production is to learn all your vocabulary without the
use of your own first language. Ways you can write a vocab list in only
English include with synonyms (words with the same meaning, e.g. "tall"
and "high"); with opposites ("high" and "low"); with pronunciation
factors such as number of syllables (the number of beats, e.g. three for
"de- ci- sion") and the word stress (the syllable that is pronounced
louder and longer, e.g. the second syllable in "baNAna"); and gapped
sentences (e.g. "I am not _________________ in science fiction" for the
word "interested"). - Cross out and delete. Crossing out or deleting
words, sentences or whole pages that you have learnt can be a great
motivator, and save your list of things to learn becoming too big to
handle. - Throw everything away and start again. One of the
things that can put most people off learning is a stack of half finished
books or a huge list vocabulary waiting to be learnt. Simply getting
rid of all that and starting again with something new from zero can be a
great motivator and get your studies underway again. - Label things in your house or office with post-its.
The easiest vocabulary to learn is the vocabulary of things you see and
use everyday. If you can write the names of things around you on slips
of paper and stick them on the real thing, this is a great way of
learning useful vocabulary. If you can leave them there over the
following days and weeks, this is a very easy way of revising the
vocabulary until it is properly learnt. - Label a drawing. For people who can't put labels on
real things, the next best option is to take a photo of a real place in
your life like your office, print it out, and then draw lines to all of
the things you can see in the picture and label them in English with
the help of a dictionary. You can do the same thing with places you pass
through everyday like the station. Because you will see the same thing
again and again, it should be easy to really learn the words for those
things. - Keep a diary in English. This is a popular method
of making sure you use English everyday for people who don't often speak
English and can't think of things to write about. The fact that you are
writing about real things that have happened to you means that any
words you look up in the dictionary will be vocabulary that is useful
for you and easy to learn. - Online chat. The closest thing to speaking for
people who don't have the chance to speak English is online chat, as you
have to think and respond quickly, and the language is short and
informal just like speech. - Listen to the radio news in English. You can make
this easier by reading the news in English first, or even just by
reading or listening to the news in your own language. - Read an English language newspaper. Freebie
newspapers like "Metro" in London are usually the easiest to understand,
followed by mid-brow titles like "The Daily Express" or "The Daily
Mail" in English. Popular newspapers like "The Sun" are more difficult
because of the idiomatic, slangy use of language and the number of jokes
in the headlines and articles. - Write fiction in English, e.g. short stories. For
people who find writing a diary about things that happen to them
everyday boring, the best thing is to let your imagination go and write
about whatever comes into your head. The advantage of this is that if
you can't think of how to say something in English, you can just change
the story to something that is easier to explain. Perhaps the easiest
way to start writing fiction in English is with a diary, changing any
details you like to make it more interesting and adding more and more
fantasy as the weeks go on. - English language exercise videos. This is quite similar to how babies learn, by listening, watching and copying. It is also good for your health!
- Learn a famous speech or poem in English by heart.
Although you may never hear or get the chance to say exactly that line,
having one memorable example of an English grammatical form in your head
can make it much easier to learn other examples of the same grammar as
you hear them. It is also something you can practice over and over
without being as boring as grammatical drills. - Get tipsy (= a little drunk) before speaking English.
This can not only improve your fluency while you are drinking, but can
also improve your confidence in future days and weeks by showing you
that you can communicate what you want to say. - Use a dictionary while you are watching a movie.
Films often have the same words many times, so if you look up important
words the first or second time you hear them, you should have learnt
them by the end of the film. It is easier to use a dictionary if you
watch with English subtitles. - Learn and use the phonemic script. Although there
are many sounds in English, there are even more spellings. By learning
the phonemic script and writing vocabulary down with it, you can both
add another stage to your vocabulary learning that should help you learn
it more thoroughly, and improve your pronunciation. It can also make
things easier for you by stopping you trying to pronounce different
spellings of the same pronunciation different ways. - Learn some spelling rules. Many people think that
English spelling is random, but in fact most words follow some kind of
rule, e.g. the "magic E" that changes the pronunciation of "mad" and
"made". click here: magic E - Record your own voice. For people who don't have
much or any correction of pronunciation from a teacher, recording
yourself and listening back makes it easier to hear whether you are
really making the English sounds that you are trying to or not. - Use computer pronunciation analysis. Although most
programmes that claim to tell you when you are pronouncing correctly or
not don't actually do that, listening many times and seeing how your
voice changes as you try to match the sounds and waveform given by a
pronunciation CD ROM can be good practice and more motivating than just
recording your own voice. - Learn as many words as you can of one category, e.g. animal words.
Learning similar words together can both expand your overall vocabulary
and make them easier to learn by forming links between the words in
your brain. - Take holidays abroad. This is not only a good
opportunity to speak English in situations where you really have to make
yourself understood in order to live, but it is also a good motivator
to study English seriously in the weeks and months before your trip. If
possible, also try to use English even when you could use your own
language, e.g. when you pick a guided tour of a museum or historic place
or when you book a flight on the internet, and try to avoid package
tours. - Draw pictures of the words you want to learn.
Especially if you are artistic, this can be a better way of learning
vocabulary than writing translations or example sentences. - Find a foreign boyfriend or girlfriend. No tips on
how to do this here, but everyone agrees that getting or even just
looking for a date in English can be a great motivator to improve your
language skills. - Arrange a conversation exchange. Swapping lessons
and conversation with someone who wants to learn your language can be a
good alternative for those who aren't looking for romance, or can
sometimes lead onto dating for those who are! - Sign up for an English language exam. Even if you
don't need to take an exam and don't want to or can't take a special
course to study for it, paying to take an exam like TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS
or FCE can really motivate you take your English studies seriously. - Model your accent on one particular actor. e.g. try to speak like Robert De Niro.
Students who say they want to sound more like a native speaker have the
problem that native speakers don't sound all that much like each other.
Choosing one model can make the task of improving your pronunciation
more clear, and is quite fun. Doing an impression of that person also
makes a good party trick. - Use an English-English dictionary. Trying to use a
bilingual dictionary less and switching to a monolingual one can help
you to stop translating in you head when you are speaking or listening,
and other useful English vocabulary can come up while you are using the
dictionary. - Occasionally talk to or e-mail your friends in English.
Many people find this a bit false or embarrassing, but if you think of
it as a study club and set a particular time and/ or place, it is no
different from studying maths together. - Go to an English or Irish pub. As well as having a
menu in English and being a good way of finding out something about the
culture of English speaking countries, you might also find there are
free English language listings magazines, English language sports on the
TV and/ or foreign people you can speak to. - Buy a speaking electronic dictionary. Although most
electronic dictionaries are not as good as paper ones for the amount of
information they give you about each word, some of them have the very
useful function of saying the word with the correct pronunciation. - Learn your electronic dictionary vocabulary list.
Most electronic dictionaries also have a button which you can push to
see the last 30 or more words you looked up. By deleting words you
decide are useless or you have already learnt from this list, you can
use it as a "to do list" of words to learn that you can look at several
times a day in the train etc. - Switch operating system to English. Changing the
operating language of your mobile phone, video recorder etc. to English
can be an easy way of making sure you use the language everyday. - Set goals. Deciding how many hours you want to
study, how many words you want to learn or what score you want to get in
a test are all good ways of making sure you do extra study.
English Survival Phrases and
Active Communication
It facilitates your cultural fluency.
1. Sorry?/ Excuse Me?/ Pardon?
When you don’t understand something somebody says, lean forward and say “sorry?” (“excuse me?,” or “pardon?”). Native speakers use “what?” sometimes, but it’s very indelicate, or impolite in a subtle, almost unconscious way.
2. Can you repeat that? / Can you speak slower (or more slowly)?
3. What does said word mean?
4. How do you say said word?
- How do you pronounce said word?
- How do you spell said word?
NOTE: NOT “how can I say…..?”
5. What do you mean?
“What do you mean?” expresses that you understand the content of what the speaker is saying, but the idea doesn’t totally make sense.
If you want somebody to repeat, you need to say “(I’m) sorry?” (or “pardon?”/”excuse me?”). “I don’t/didn’t understand” is often a direct translation from communication in your native tongue (definitely true for Portuguese speakers).
NOT: I Don’t Understand
6. Do You Know What I mean?/ “Know What I’m Saying”
It is the best way to verify that people are following/understanding you as you speak.
If you say “do you understand?” to verify that people are following and understanding you, you communicate insecurity, or a lack of confidence in your English.
In colloquial conversation, we might say “Know what I mean?” (know whaddi mean?).
Another, more informal, or slang way to say this is “(Do you) know what I’m saying” (know whaddi’m sayin’?).
NOT: Do You Understand?
7. Body Language and Fluent Communication
It varies from culture to culture, but it’s important to recognize that the body language of English speaking cultures is just as important to learn as the language. Psychologists estimate that 50-80% of communication is done via body language.
For cultural fluency, you really have to embody English speaking culture, and as an English learner, your body language is a huge indicator of your confidence level, and how open you are to the speaker. If you’re scared, body language will communicate this to the speaker.
So what’s the appropriate body language for communication? Ideally, you shouldn’t cross your arms or legs. When you don’t understand, lean forward and communicate that you are open and interested in learning from the other person. This is active and engaged listening.
Take responsibility if you don’t understand something. A lot of learners, in their frustration, unconsciously blame the person they are speaking to. If you unconsciously do this, the person will not feel natural and comfortable communicating with you.
Pronuncitation exercise: Sounds and Spelling (CLICK HERE) Web BBC Learning English Pronunciation (CLICK HERE) http://reallifebh.com/7-tips-to-drastically-improve-your-pronunciation-in-english/ Common English Homophones
AT THE HOTEL
Will vs Going to
Shopping
Let's go shopping!
COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE SONGS
BODY PARTS CHANT
At the doctor's
Mr Bean goes to the hospital
An interesting reflexion in this article:
Nurse reveals the top 5 regrets people make on their deathbed
http://www.ariseindiaforum.org/nurse-reveals-the-top-5-regrets-people-make-on-theirdeathbed/
VIDEO: JOB INTERVIEW
fUTURE:WILL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61Ah4NAL1lQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=903NyR_ViaA
Every day you hear or read many new English words. You also find them in your dictionary when you are translating from your own language. You can’t possibly learn all these new words, so your first problem is to decide which ones to concentrate on. One of the sites which focuses on vocabulary building is https://vocabmonk.com.
ResponElimina