Tips to learn English VII

                    

Here are more 10 things, from a series of 100, you can do to improve your English (in no order).

61. There are many types of English: British, American, South African and so on. None of these are wrong or not as important. English is English.

62. Instead, be aware of the differences in American and British English and use your words accordingly. For example: Elevator (US) / Lift (British).

63. Carry cue cards with you. These are small cards which you can write new words on. You can pull them out and look at them whenever you have a free minute.

64. Use post-it notes and stick them around your home. You can use them to label things. Stick one on your pet dog!

65. You can’t ignore phrasal verbs (two words verbs), there are hundreds of them in English and they’re widely used. The more you focus on their meaning, the more you’ll be able to guess the meaning of new ones.

You’ll start to recognise their patterns.

66. Use your intuition. Go with your gut feeling, you’ll be surprised how often your first guess is the right guess. Like we said before, be confident.

67. Gather your thoughts. Take a second to think about what you’re going to say. You know the grammar, but maybe you don’t use it correctly when you speak.

68. Meet new people. Make the effort to mix with English speakers in your town. You could join a club or go to bars where foreigners hang out. Buy one a drink, they love that!

69. Be the person to start conversations in English. Try to keep the conversations moving and use listening words (‘really?’ / ‘go on…’/ ‘what happened then?’) Don’t wait for others to speak to you. Get in there!

70  Debate. Discuss topics in a group. Each person should choose a viewpoint (even if you don’t agree with it) and debate it within the group. Make sure you get your point across. Learn to listen actively. Active listening will help in the classroom and it will help you get more out of, and contribute more to, group study sessions. Focus on the person who is talking. Don’t fidget or become distracted by other people or events. Concentrate on the speaker with your ears and eyes. Follow the movements the speaker makes in an effort to hear more. It may help to repeat what you hear others say in an effort to understand their thoughts.

Tips to learn English VI

                

Here are more 10 things, from a series of 100, you can do to improve your English (in no order).

51. Don’t become too reliant on your dictionary. Your dictionary should be an aid, not your main teacher. Try to guess the meaning of words rather than going straight for your dictionary.

52. Don’t give up! Stay positive! Sometimes you will feel that you aren’t learning quickly enough. Everyone feels like this, don’t worry about it. You’ll get there in the end.

53. Enjoy it! We learn more when we are having fun!

54. If you get nervous when speaking, take two deep breaths before you say something. You’ll speak better when you feel relaxed.

55. Keep yourself motivated by looking back at the textbooks and CDs you used in the past. You’ll be surprised at how easy they seem to you now! Congratulations, your level is improving!

56. You are never too young or too old to start learning English. Don’t make excuses not to learn. What are you waiting for?

57. Procrastination can stop you from being successful. To stop procrastinating, it's important you understand if your procrastinating is to avoid studying, or if it is your bad habit.

58. If you haven’t gotten the results you wanted yet, it’s not because you’re bad at languages, it’s because you haven’t found your own special way of learning yet.

59. Use resources which match your level. Don’t use texts/listening exercises which are too difficult or too easy. Use materials which challenge you but don’t frustrate you.

60. Don’t worry about making your accent perfect. It’s an important part of your cultural identity to keep your accent. Native English speakers enjoy hearing English spoken with an accent.

Some Tips for Learning English through Movies

Wow!! This is my favorite scene! 

1. Choose an interesting movie. This probably sounds obvious, but if you choose a boring movie, you’ll be bored. And if you’re bored, it will be difficult to pay attention…for more than one and a half hours!

I remember when I was a child, I had to watch hours and hours of really old movies like “Singing in the Rain”, “Mary Poppins” to learn English. If you don’t know these films – you’re welcome to check them up – they’re really old! I didn’t exactly hate them, but I didn’t feel excited at all when watching these films.

And because of that, I highly recommend you choose movies you like. To do this, you can go to a website called Rotten Tomatoes, which is a website with many great critics and reviews on many tens of thousands of movies.

2. Select a movie that matches your current English level. For example, for beginners in English, I usually recommend you learn English through animations.  The main reason is because the English is usually very friendly, nice and easy to understand.

On the other hand, if you try to watch something like “Romeo and Juliet”, you will be very confused. Shakespearian English (which is English used many centuries ago) is very difficult to understand on screen, even for advanced English learners.

3. Bring your dictionary. Maybe I’ll add point 3.5 too – choose a film with subtitles! So when you hear a word you’re interested in, check it up! Because you went through the trouble to understand it…you’ll be able to remember that word for a long time too!

4. Repeat short phrases! Some times, you might hear something cool in the movie. For example, some short phrases, or slang like, “hell yeah!”, or “sure thing”, or “you betcha!” that are commonly used in English. If you like how it sounds, it really helps to repeat it! After saying it out loud a while, you will be able to remember it for a longer time! It’s a great and enjoyable exercise – one of my personal favourites.

5. Without subtitles. I know it can be really challenging to watch a film in a foreign language without subtitles. So here’s my recommendation. When you watch a film the first time, just turn on subtitles. But if you get the chance to watch it a second time, try turning off subtitles.

This way, you already know the story from the first time you watched it. And this time, you can try listening to some individual words that you might have checked up last time. Or you might try to see how much you can understand the film without subtitles.

6. VLC player. This is actually a video player I recommend for watching films on your computer. This is one of my favourite tools. Most people use it just to watch movies, but I use it a little differently.  (And if you don’t have it, you can download VLC player, it’s free.)

Here’s what I do – if you download a movie online, and you play it, you know how you don’t understand English sometimes? VLC Player allows you to play back movies at half speed or quarter speed. So if there are parts you don’t understand, you can play these back at a slower speed and try again! It’s very helpful to practice your listening.

7. It’s okay to miss words…just let it go. Last of all, remember what we said in the start? Watching movies should be fun…so if you miss a word, a phrase, or even many sentences, that’s okay! Just follow along the subtitles and learn that way. Don’t make yourself feel bad…watching films is supposed to be fun!

Tips to learn English V

                

Here are more 10 things, from a series of 100, you can do to improve your English (in no order).

41. Sing your heart out! Show the world your beautiful voice! Learn English songs and sing along with them to improve fluency and intonation… anyone for Karaoke?

42. Get a penfriend or use chat-rooms, forums and community sites. If you can’t speak to someone in English, this is the next best thing.

43. Shadow English CDs. Listen to a few sentences then repeat what you heard. Focus on the rhythm and intonation.

44. Have English radio on in your house. Even if you are not actively listening to it, you will still be training your ears.

45. Mirror CDs. Read out loud along with a CD. Again, this is great for intonation, pronunciation and rhythm.

46. Dictation. Listen to a CD or friend and write down what you hear.

47. Nobody likes to hear their own voice, but be brave and try it! Record your voice and listen to your pronunciation and intonation. It will help you to identify your problem areas.

48. Ask your helpful teacher if you can record his lesson. This is a great way to review. You can also listen to your teachers speaking speed and intonation.

49. Use an English/English dictionary as it will help you to keep thinking in English and not translating.

50. If an English/English dictionary seems scary, there are learner’s dictionaries for English students of your level.

ESL audio and video programs for people who are learning English and who want to practice speaking English

Click on the link  and enjoy it!     https://spotlightenglish.com/listen/ways-to-think-about-autism

Tips to learn English IV

                     

Here are more 10 things, from a series of 100, you can do to improve your English (in no order).

31. Learn prefixes (dis-, un-, re-) and suffixes (-ly, -ment, -ful), these will help you to figure out the meaning of words and build your vocabulary.

32. English, unlike Japanese or French, uses word stress. For new words, count the syllables and find where the stress is. Only one stress per word and always on a vowel. Two syllable verbs have a stress on the second syllable (beGIN). 2 syllable nouns (TEAcher) and adjectives (HAPpy) stress the first.

33. Use English whenever you can. It’s as simple as that!

34. Don’t translate into English from your own language. Think in English to improve your fluency. Talk to yourself…but not on the bus otherwise people will think you have gone crazy!

35. You can’t learn English from a book. Like driving a car, you can only learn through doing it.

36. The most natural way to learn grammar is through talking.

37. Keep an English diary or journal. Start by writing a few sentences a day and then get into the habit of writing more.

38. Why not start an online blog and share your writings with the world?

39. To become a better writer brainstorm as many ideas and thoughts onto paper without worrying about grammar or spelling. Then think about the structure. After that, write your piece using good grammar and spelling. Finally, read it through or give it to someone else to check for mistakes.

40. TKeep an eye on your punctuation as it can totally change what you’re trying to say. Check out the difference in meaning between these two sentences: “A woman without her man is nothing” and “A woman: without her, man is nothing”.

      This, that – these, those

This, that, these, those

This, that, these and those are demonstratives. We use this, that, these and those to point to people and things. This and that are singular. These and those are plural. We use them as determiners and pronouns.

determiners	pronouns
What’s in this box? That water tastes strange. I might get myself a pair of those shoes.	Come and look at this. That’s a very good idea. Can I have one of these?

This, that, these, those as determiners

Pointing to things

We use this and that with singular and uncountable nouns:

Try to repeat this exercise every morning and evening. (this + singular countable noun)

What does this music make you think of? (this + singular uncountable noun)

I’ve never been to that part of France. (that + singular countable noun)

Can I have some of that juice, please? (that + singular uncountable noun)

We use these and those with plural nouns:

You can use any one of these computers. (these + plural noun)

I need to paint those windows. (those + plural noun)

Time phrases

We often use this with words describing time and dates like morning, afternoon, evening, week, month, year to refer to ‘the one that’s coming’ or ‘the one we’re currently in’:

I’ll be with you some time this evening.

Johan seemed very happy this afternoon.

Ian is in Germany all this week.

This, that, these, those as pronouns

Referring to things or ideas

We normally use this, that, these and those as pronouns to refer to things or ideas:

Put the butter, chocolate and sugar in a saucepan. Heat this over a low flame until it melts.

We’re going to eat first and then go to the film. Are you happy with that? (Are you happy with the idea of eating first, then going to the film?)

[talking about the TV]

Can you turn that off if you’re not watching it?

[talking about shoes]

What colour are those? Black or dark blue. I can’t see.

Referring to people

We can use this and that as pronouns to refer to people when we want to identify ourselves or others, or to ask the identity of other speakers:

Linda, this is my mother, Anne.

Is that your brother over there?

We often do this in telephone calls and in answer-phone messages:

Hello, is that Ken Orm? This is Jane Bromham here.

This and these, that and those: uses

Physical closeness and distance

We use this and these most commonly to point to things and people that are close to the speaker or writer, or things that are happening now:

Shall I use this knife here?

[pointing to something]

Is this what you mean?

I’ll post these letters on my way home.

[pointing to a pile of books]

Do these belong to the Bradshaws?

We use that and those most commonly to point to things and people which are not easy to identify in a situation. They are often more distant from the speaker, and sometimes closer to the listener:

What’s in that bottle over there?

Could you blow out those candles near you?

Sometimes they are not visible to either the speaker or listener:

Budapest! That’s my favourite place!

Emotional distance

We sometimes use this, these, that, those to identify emotional distance. We use this and these to refer to things that we feel positive about, that we are happy to be associated with, or we approve of:

I love these new woollen mobile phone covers that you can get.

We use that and those to create distance:

What are you going to say to that sister of yours?

[talking about a restaurant]

I didn’t like the decoration. It had those awful paintings.

Shared knowledge and new information

We sometimes use that instead of the to refer the listener to shared knowledge, often when we are telling a story or explaining something:

You know that old shop on the corner? Well, they’re going to turn it into a restaurant.

We sometimes use this instead of a/an to refer to something important or recent, or to introduce a new person or thing in a story:

This guy knocked on the door and asked if I wanted new windows.

Then suddenly she pulled out this big pile of papers from her briefcase and threw them on the table.

See also:

• It, this and that in paragraphs
• Pronouns
• Determiners (the, my, some, this)

Substitution with that, those

In formal contexts, we can use that and those as substitutes meaning ‘the one(s)’:

The most important information is that given at the beginning of the manual. (that substitutes for the information)

The methods employed are those familiar to researchers. (more formal than The methods employed are the ones familiar to researchers.)

In formal contexts, especially in academic style, we use that of/those of instead of the one of/the ones of or the … one/the … ones. This is preferred to the possessive X’s one/X’s ones:

The proton has a similar mass to that of a neutron. (preferred to The proton has a similar mass to the neutron’s.)

The emotions in the poems are those of loss and grief.

Not: The emotions in the poem are loss and grief ones.

We normally only use that as a substitute for a thing, not for a person or animal:

A:

Have you met Mr Kelly?

B:

The one who works at the town hall, or his brother?

A:

The one at the town hall.

Not: That who works at the town hall.

We can use those as a substitute for persons, animals or things:

There are sports facilities for guests. Those interested in golf can enjoy our eighteen-hole course.