As mentioned in the title, I am a native speaker of English, but I don't think that my English is that good. I don't make mistakes like "loose" when it should be "lose" and I can use "their" "there" and "they're" properly, but there's always room for improvement. My grammar is pretty good and my spelling is okay, but my vocabulary is pretty low. I struggled with the SAT verbal sections. I'm also not very good at word choice. There are so many words that mean the similar things but used in different contexts.
I'm 24, working full time, so I'm quite busy. I read online newspaper articles occasionally and look up words when I'm not certain of the definition. Unfortunately, even though I look up the words, they don't stick with me. I forget them after a short while. I don't really like to read, but I think that even if I read more books, I'll face a similar problem with vocabulary retention.
So TL, how do you improve your English? or if you're not a native speaker of English, how do you improve your skills in your native language?
Read books with rich language. How can you learn when to use vocabulary without reading it first? Books make a beauty of words, so that's the point where they start to stick with you. I imagine you have to constantly practice writing as well in conjunction. A good example: I just spent like 30 seconds thinking of the word "conjunction" thinking of words like correlation until I got it. You learn the words and then practice using them.
It won't be quick or easy. I never was a big fan of english in school but I'd like to think that I'm pretty well acquainted with the language, mostly from reading, and some of it rubs off in writing.
As a non-native English speaker it already helps me to read english texts or watch english movies (or combine it by watching movies in whatever language with english subtitles ^^)
For my mother language it helped me most to read books and listen to cabarret artists, as there are some who have exeptional language skills (German in my case). I don't know any good English cabaret artists, but there have to be some. Side effect: That only works if you at least partially agree with left wing politics in many cases, as any kind of theatre or cabaret is 90% explicitly left wing for usual.
Edit: Just found out that German Kabarret is a special kind of cabarret which seemingly does not really exist in most countries in this kind of form. It's a humorous critics of society and especially politics - in "real political aspects" like bad economic policy as well as ethic questions and bad developements (such as the descent of middle class while most new jobs are badly paid while the top earners increase their wealth). A huge aspect is the level of phrasing or partially puns, so it mainly displays a high level of language, after all it's not that much different from a political speech - only that it's made for beeing understood (lol ) and is beeing put in a mostly much clearer way.
If you have the time, patience and imagination for it read a lot of books. I love reading. Other people play games, spend hours in front of a tv whatever, I read. word.
Writing will help as well. Something like a journal or a blog isn't too time consuming to get into.
I expanded my vocab by reading a lot of books, have a dictionary near you so you can quickly find out what it means. If I find a really interesting word I don't know I usually write it down where I can look at it later to remind me. I also try to use the word straight away so that it sticks in my mind.
I've got a lot of words written down in that sticky program on my mac. I find that really useful.
A lot of people are probably going to recommend books, tutorials, grammar exercises, and some of they may even be good. As a teacher though, let me just rehash what I tell students all the time.
Language is usually a numbers game. Looking up words is good, but usually you'll need to look up the same word a few times on a few different occasions for it to sink in. Also, in many cases, despite looking up the definition of the word, you will most likely remember the word based on the contexts you have already seen it in. That's why reading is so important - the amount you 'improve' in the written variety of a language is largely correlated to how much time you spend reading and writing in it.
If you are a native speaker, the most effective way to increased fluency is reading. It's unfortunate that you don't like to read, but my advice would be to find something you do like to read. Of course, if you're looking to really expand your vocabulary, read across genres, and read widely at that.
In fact a great way to get started in this exercise is to grab a copy of The Language Instinct by Pinker. It'll help you understand more about your brain's language center and why reading is such an important part of language acquisition.
Basically our brains are wired to 'learn' or acquire (in your case, acquire more, or 'improve') language while we use it, so unless you are reading (and writing, since output cements what you have acquired), you probably wont get very far.
Stop visiting sites with loads of people that only know english as a second/third language and are therefore happy with just being able to communicate .
I don't know about anybody else here but one thing I've always done that apparently is rather brazen for an individual is I'll just ask what a word means in mid-conversation.
I distinctly remember at a job I worked at I came up limping over a tiny inside bridge that was also a small hill inside the place we worked at (apparently I have hip problems O_o ). My coworkers brought it up, and I asked my manager and she said "I didn't notice anything wrong with your gait." Not knowing what the word "gait" meant, I just asked, and she explained. And while this little anecdote is inescapably uninteresting, it also stuck with me. I do it less now than I did before just because my vocabulary is better than most peoples' anymore, but I didn't know and still don't consider it to be something you should be afraid to do, because I guess you come across as looking ignorant or what have you (yeah, social norms are weak).
3 other things I recommend, in order of what I consider "fun factor":
- Get good at boggle, the game - When speaking or writing, if you notice yourself repeating words often, try to think of a way to restate the same idea in different words. It's obviously harder to do on the fly as you speak, but even in this reply I've done it at least twice as I reread what I type. - Get good at scrabble, the game
I love being good at the English language, and plan on taking my expertise to Korea and teaching it*, and what I really find enjoyable every now and again are fast paced word games you can find dotted around all over the internet. A lot of the attitude of a person is lost over the internet, but if I had to guess, I would venture to say that you probably don't enjoy learning about or improving your vocabulary as much as I do. My perception of your post is "Well, I want this, but do I have to?" and if that is the case (again, not saying it is), it's going to be a real hindrance, in the same way that forcing yourself to learn how to be an automechanic or being good at math is going to be difficult if you don't enjoy the subjects.
* expertise doesn't necessarily mean I'll be a good teacher, but I'm confident I'll be a competent teacher for other reasons.
Like everyone says, its all in the reading. Kinda like SC, you can watch Day9 every now and then or watch some pro games but if you don't get down and dirty with some mass games you aren't going to get better. Reading a lot will expose you to words you don't know and even if you don't know them, if you read them 20 times you get an idea of what context they should be used in and pretty much guess what they mean, and then if you actually look up the word you'll know it for damn sure cause you've already seen 20 examples of it burned into your head.
The way i learned to speak and understand english was through gaming, watching movies and reading comics as a kid. Once we started having english classes at school me and most kids my age already knew way more english than what we were being taught at school, classes only helped with refining certain bits of grammar and such.
I'd say your best bet is to just enjoy stuff in the language you want to become better at, in your case it being english should make things quite easy, i know reading might be slow and tedious but it's pretty much the best possible way to pick up new words and the way to use them properly.
Learn another language that's related to English. French, German, Afrikaansm, Dutch, Scandinavian languages, Icelandic and Faroese etc.
Aside from the obvious benefit of knowing another language, you will also learn the roots of your own language, and learning the roots of your own language will help you remember words that you wouldn't have used otherwise.
English is a Germanic language, a subset of Indo-European languages. The languages I listed above are the other major Germanic languages. The exception is French, but more than any other Germanic language, English is influenced by French.
People said already said this over 9000 times, but reading is the best way. When I needed to boost my vocabulary in high school, I'd write a word down on my hand, whenever I came across one I didn't know. At the end of the day, I'd have over 10 words, and I'd look them up. Of course you dont have to be so extreme and just keep a little notebook with you to jot down new words.
Lastly hanging around people who speak well helps a lot. I went to a prestigious humanity private high school, and I find myself speaking better English than most of my college friends whereas in high school I felt like I was lagging behind in speech and vocab.
I have completely Chinese parents(i.e. when I was born, they spoke about 10 words of English), spent the first 6 months of school in ESL, and then learned fast. Hard to do now, but reading really improved my writing. That and TV, watching the old YTV helped out. Even back then, by grade 2 my English spelling-wise was near perfect, despite the fact that I had horrible grammar. I read books like LoTR by the time I was grade 6 so I guess I was somewhat of an exception, but stuff like that really works your brain and you learn fast when reading. Most of the time you may not recognize a word, but context clues really help. Now I write near perfect English and fail English not because I have bad grammar, or poor spelling, but because I have near zero analysis ability.
On November 19 2010 23:02 pred470r wrote: Listen to a lot of metal, the songs usually have a lot of words in them and that's how I remember certain words and meanings.
This sounds retarded, but I actually learn a lot of words this way too.
Reading is the best way, but like the teacher up there said it will take some time for you to start immediately comprehending the words that are new to you.
My rather good command of the English language is the direct result of me absorbing grammar rules, reading a lot of English texts over the years, watching hundreds of movies, thousands of TV episodes, talking to native English speakers, listening to English songs, providing English audio commentary on my daily life when nobody is around, doing the same while some people are around who don't know me and are unlikely to hear me, singing English songs, writing papers for university, correcting other people's papers and last but not least: my insatiable thirst for blood knowledge in general, paired with the strong need to scrutinize every single word, sentence and paragraph I write to detect any flaws in orthography, grammar or style.
Reading is a good way to improve your grasp of English, but don't take dialogue as an example. Writers tend to take liberties with conversation in order to make a point. Otherwise, reading is a great way to improve your mastery of English. I'm not sure other things are as effective, like memorizing rules or doing exercises, because those are harder to apply in real situations. If you read a novel and encounter intriguing and challenging syntax, it can only improve your English.
Read Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Its a great, and very challenging book that will force you to expand your vocabulary and grammar and focus when reading
Subscribe to the Economist and carry it around. Read when you have free time. Start with the articles that are interesting to you and try to finish each issue. Underline every word or phrase you don't understand and look them up when you are home.
Once you can completely read through an issue before the next one comes in the mail, your English (and knowledge of current events) should be much improved
For what it is worth, I will echo what others have already stated and say that read rich material. Not only that, but also start incorporating the words into your thought patterns and conversations. Obviously, the more you use a word in the correct context, the easier it will slide into your natural vocabulary.
Great thing about this is when you use these words as commonplace in conversations, those around you will also improve their vocabulary as well. Or they might think you are an elitist. Either way it is win-win.
On November 19 2010 23:04 Slayer91 wrote: Read books with rich language. How can you learn when to use vocabulary without reading it first? Books make a beauty of words, so that's the point where they start to stick with you. I imagine you have to constantly practice writing as well in conjunction. A good example: I just spent like 30 seconds thinking of the word "conjunction" thinking of words like correlation until I got it. You learn the words and then practice using them.
It won't be quick or easy. I never was a big fan of english in school but I'd like to think that I'm pretty well acquainted with the language, mostly from reading, and some of it rubs off in writing.
This is all there is to it. Read, read, read. And choose books that aren't written for children.
Reading, just as everyone has said, is a good way to go. Personally, I have always latched onto new words that carry similar meanings but different connotations to other words because since I had to do speech therapy at a young age I have had this feeling of needing to express myself. I would recommend reading some philosophy. It is almost always an interesting read and the vocabulary involved can be incredibly challenging while not using that many subject specific words (that something like a med school book might use).
Oh yea and when you are reading always find out what new words mean right when you see them. Most of the time context will give you an idea but have something handy to look them up on. A dictionary app on a smartphone makes it super easy.
If reading sounds like a chore, just discipline yourself to read one chapter every night before you go to bed. Reading a novel for weeks/months and finally finishing it is extremely satisfying. Of course you want to read an author whose style is palatable. I'd recommend George Orwell or Isaac Asimov for very clear, straight forward prose.
the best way to improve your vocab is to read alot of books. Whenever you find a word you don't know, look it up in a dictionary. Also watch UK tv shows, we use words americans don't use very often and we also use a lot of words that other english speaking countries don't use at all. easiest way to do this is to watch the BBC or listen to BBC world service on the radio, news readers have great vocabs.
Screw reading. Watch better tv. Im serious. Some people have a natural talent for talking in a colourful and interesting way. You can borrow that and apply it in your writing.
On November 20 2010 03:36 T0fuuu wrote: Screw reading. Watch better tv. Im serious. Some people have a natural talent for talking in a colourful and interesting way. You can borrow that and apply it in your writing.
i suggest that you have just proven that Tv isn't a good way to improve english since you can't construct a grammatically correct sentence. You used three periods that should be either comma's or not punctuated at all.
Reading has been proven to improve vocabulary and grammar, listening to someone speak isn't a great way to improve grammar but you will probably learn new words. You will still need a dictionary to find out what they mean and without having them written down, it's a lot harder to do that unless you have a good understanding of the rules behind how words are spelt.
Reading is better for one simple reason, people rarely use idioms when writing. When speaking people use idioms all the time and that can give you a false sense of what the word means.
there are certain skills that deteriate with age. Lots of these are discussed as things that make starcraft a hard game to play as you age. But there are also things that will improve with aging. Vocabulary is one of those things. Its something you can consciously work on or something you can just not worry about and let develop at your own pace. Being in a scholarly environment where knowing words is crucial can be helpful =).
On November 20 2010 03:36 T0fuuu wrote: Screw reading. Watch better tv. Im serious. Some people have a natural talent for talking in a colourful and interesting way. You can borrow that and apply it in your writing.
Most TV programs are so dumbed down these days it's not worth your time. It sucks.
1. Read some good books (preferably not some popular fiction, try reading something more complex). 2. Watch some good movies (if you're from US, it could be a good idea to watch something british, especially some of the BBC shows like their "Pride and Prejudice" - seriously, I hated such stuff until I saw this, and they all speak so beautifully there...), although this advice is more oriented at improving your speech than vocabulary.
Some recommended works:
Ad. 1.
J. R. R. Tolkien - The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings
I know it's cheesy, but the language it's written in is nothing short of perfect, they just don't make writers like this any more.
If you're into Sci-Fi more than Fantasy you could always check out Dan Abnett's or Graham McNeil's works, not sure how's Lem translations to English...
I'll leave it at that, reading Fantasy and Sci-Fi can help your vocabulary and language more than some straight-up things.
As already mentioned, reading is a great way to learn more vocabulary.
Personally, when I was in Junior High I had a pretty advanced vocab because I was obsessed with writing short story fan fics so I would always strive to improve my writing which in turn improved my English in general.
However, since Junior High I've stopped a lot of what I used to do (reading, writing) and now my English is as mediocre as the next person's.
Reading is great, all kinds of books all kinds of subjects.
What i know is that when you look up the words in a dictonary, make sentences using those words a few times so youre "comfortable with them. this can help you remember the words a lot better.
I add to a list any word I see or hear that I don't readily know the meaning or useage of, and I'll often have my pocket dictionary at hand for a quick lookup. Then every night I pick one or two words, write a definition, research the different ways it can be used and come up with my own sentence or two; a custom word-a-day in essence. I've added over 430 words to my vocabulary in the last year.
On November 19 2010 23:15 riptide wrote: A lot of people are probably going to recommend books, tutorials, grammar exercises, and some of they may even be good. As a teacher though, let me just rehash what I tell students all the time.
Language is usually a numbers game. Looking up words is good, but usually you'll need to look up the same word a few times on a few different occasions for it to sink in. Also, in many cases, despite looking up the definition of the word, you will most likely remember the word based on the contexts you have already seen it in. That's why reading is so important - the amount you 'improve' in the written variety of a language is largely correlated to how much time you spend reading and writing in it.
If you are a native speaker, the most effective way to increased fluency is reading. It's unfortunate that you don't like to read, but my advice would be to find something you do like to read. Of course, if you're looking to really expand your vocabulary, read across genres, and read widely at that.
In fact a great way to get started in this exercise is to grab a copy of <em>The Language Instinct</em> by Pinker. It'll help you understand more about your brain's language center and why reading is such an important part of language acquisition.
Basically our brains are wired to 'learn' or acquire (in your case, acquire more, or 'improve') language while we use it, so unless you are reading (and writing, since output cements what you have acquired), you probably wont get very far.
Anyway, good luck!
Thank you for suggesting The Language Instinct. I rushed to the library and picked up a worn and yellowed copy for myself and I was immediately absorbed. I'm not a habitual reader, and have often become frustrated with the level of my language use. The book is quite easily read, but at the same time the writing is precise and the subject is fascinating.
Using words is the only way to remember them for the long term. If you are looking to improve your vocabulary try writing essays or speeches. Remember to incorporate the words that you want to learn as well.
Best thing ever. That or socialize. How else can you improve your english if you don't put it to the test in actual speaking? If you're looking for a word, look it up and understand the meaning. It's easier to figure out how to sink it in since you know it should be used (Train, either going to take the train or train your students).
As non native, the best way for me is to read/write lots of stuff online or watching films/tv-shows with subtitles.
However as a native speaker I wouldn't recommend reading as a way to improve english. The only way is to use it. Write a story or articles for a website. Use a office programm with error correction, so you'll be aware of mistakes. (it's the memorizing of those that makes you better)
But the absolutely best way is to engage in "poetry slam". Those guys use their language and the words in such a sophisticated way that it will blow your mind. They offer insight into our boring straight forward society. Encapsulate political and other interesting point of views into a colorful language that touches people. And it creates art that you'll be proud of even years later.
Just watch it on youtube (I'm sure they have it too). It's super inspiring and really cool stuff..
I actually think I have a pretty good grasp on the English language, and I don't read very many books at all. I think the main source of my vocabulary, grammar, etc. is from reading forums, articles, and wikipedia entries online.
I think the biggest part of having a broad vocabulary is understanding the roots, prefixes, and suffixes of words. If I see a word I don't understand, my first line of defense is to try to find the root and see if that is familiar in other words I have seen. If so, I look at the rest and try to determine how that modifies the root. It doesn't always work, but thinking critically about a word is probably the fastest way to get it to register in your memory once you do go out and look it up.
On November 20 2010 03:36 T0fuuu wrote: Screw reading. Watch better tv. Im serious. Some people have a natural talent for talking in a colourful and interesting way. You can borrow that and apply it in your writing.
i suggest that you have just proven that Tv isn't a good way to improve english since you can't construct a grammatically correct sentence. You used three periods that should be either comma's or not punctuated at all.
Reading has been proven to improve vocabulary and grammar, listening to someone speak isn't a great way to improve grammar but you will probably learn new words. You will still need a dictionary to find out what they mean and without having them written down, it's a lot harder to do that unless you have a good understanding of the rules behind how words are spelt.
Reading is better for one simple reason, people rarely use idioms when writing. When speaking people use idioms all the time and that can give you a false sense of what the word means.
Ouch? What do you read? It sounds pretty boring if there are no "broken rules" in it. I suppose if the only thing you read is business papers or journals then everything would be all correct.
On November 20 2010 06:27 Triscuit wrote: I actually think I have a pretty good grasp on the English language, and I don't read very many books at all. I think the main source of my vocabulary, grammar, etc. is from reading forums, articles, and wikipedia entries online.
I think the biggest part of having a broad vocabulary is understanding the roots, prefixes, and suffixes of words. If I see a word I don't understand, my first line of defense is to try to find the root and see if that is familiar in other words I have seen. If so, I look at the rest and try to determine how that modifies the root. It doesn't always work, but thinking critically about a word is probably the fastest way to get it to register in your memory once you do go out and look it up.
Das entspricht übrigens einem FQ von ~44, ab 5 gibt's 'ne 6 für Orthographie.
I have read some The Economist issues, but they weren't particularly stimulating, to be honest. If you want to enrich your vocabulary (and if you are into Sci-Fi), you can (try to) read the Neuromancer trilogy. I consider my vocabulary to be vast, but the first book made me doubt that assumption for a while. I have yet to read part two and three, but I expect they aren't going to be very easy reads, either. Gibson uses a wide variety of low-frequency words, it seems.
On November 20 2010 06:27 Triscuit wrote: I actually think I have a pretty good grasp on the English language, and I don't read very many books at all. I think the main source of my vocabulary, grammar, etc. is from reading forums, articles, and wikipedia entries online.
I think the biggest part of having a broad vocabulary is understanding the roots, prefixes, and suffixes of words. If I see a word I don't understand, my first line of defense is to try to find the root and see if that is familiar in other words I have seen. If so, I look at the rest and try to determine how that modifies the root. It doesn't always work, but thinking critically about a word is probably the fastest way to get it to register in your memory once you do go out and look it up.
i.e. spend a year or two learning Latin
Studying a foreign language is a great way to learn about grammar in general.
I'm not sure the OP has explained exactly what he wants out of this though. If he wants to build a better vocabulary he can either study sheets, which I don't think will help him incorporate the words, or read a lot.
If he's interested in becoming a better writer, then he needs to read and write.
The Baldur's Gate series did pretty good for my vocabulary when I was in probably middle school. Had a pompous little noble throwing around words like "asinine" over in BG2.
I like playing the game banana-grams It's like free form scrabble but basically you get about 20 (depending on players) tiles and you have to make a crossword with them with no repeat words and whenever one of the players finish they call draw or peel and everyone gets another tile until there are none left. I like to play it right after I study for English class and try to use some new words and it helps to sink in some of the new words I just learned.
Just read up on as previously mentioned, books, blogs and listen in on streams and shit. My vocabulary isn't great so whenever I see a word I don't know the meaning of I just pop it in to Google and try to memorize it
Read a dictionary for fun, although personally i prefer encyclopedias, i have a complete set of Britannica take some time to understand denotation and connotation. Words do not work on death ears.
Grammar is nice but as long as people understand you,i don't see a problem. Although i do have fun when using words in uncommon ways.
Watch movies. Lots of english movies, mainstream ones, anything. Just watch a lot. I am Korean, but I came to NZ when I was like 1 year old (almost 18 now). My korean sucked ASS, but after watching like ~100 movies, it is up to par with people my age, although I am still a bit lacking in specific vocabulary (e.g. in school subjects, stuff like cytoplasm in korean, etc)
Definitely find myself looking up words multiple times for definitions and spelling. It took me like 25 years to to get the first word in this post correct every time.
I still struggle with words i've written, typed, and looked up tens of times.
i would suggest posting more frequently and paying attention on reviewing and refining your posts. Posting on forums force you to make one point in a concise manner in a limited amount of words. Try to use new vocabulary on forums will make it into a game so that it wont be such a chore. Furthermore, this practice will also help refine your thinking and have the double benefit of upping the average posting quality on team liquid. Win win for all.
Definitely read a lot of books. There are so many words you'll come across that you just don't see every day... I don't know where I would have learned them anywhere else.
Aside from that, umm... I'd recommend looking up words/phrases that you use but don't fully understand. There are quite a few people who just repeat what they hear without even understanding the words they are saying.
Examples: "should of" instead of should have, "for all intensive purposes" instead of for all intents and purposes (a phrase that sucks and shouldn't be used anyway), "wah-lah" instead of voila, and so on.
I would say it depends. One (<== damn you english teacher) has to make a distinction between spoken and written language. According to most linguists, any sort of spoken language/dialect is valid. However, if one is talking about written language, one has to make an effort to read, not just newspaper articles, but books. However, reading is a nice way to start. As you can see, I have trouble with starting my sentences with "however," but I know that is because I don't read enough and through reading I can get more variety in making contradictory sentences. Even starting a sentence off with "but" (yes it is allowed in some circumstances) can spice up sentence variety and make for a more interesting post. Overall though, if you are having trouble with vocabulary, try and look up words and then immediately find ways to use them. For example I didn't know what the word byzantine meant, as in "That is a byzantine plot." So I went to dictionary.com, looked up the definition and immediately put it in my own words. So now, instead of saying something is byzantine and being confused by what I just said, I understand that in essence what I said was that something was complex (definition of byzantine, outside of the empire definition). It makes new vocabulary words much easier to use.
PS You really only use big diction if simple words don't quite "fit" or you want to feel esoteric.
Read a lot. Watch news networks that don't dumb down their broadcasting (I've found English News>Canadian News>US News). Converse with articulate people.
On November 19 2010 23:02 pred470r wrote: Listen to a lot of metal, the songs usually have a lot of words in them and that's how I remember certain words and meanings.
you mean like: Hamster, a dentist, hard porn, steven seagull, warrior, this rifle?
On November 20 2010 03:36 T0fuuu wrote: Screw reading. Watch better tv. Im serious. Some people have a natural talent for talking in a colourful and interesting way. You can borrow that and apply it in your writing.
i suggest that you have just proven that Tv isn't a good way to improve english since you can't construct a grammatically correct sentence. You used three periods that should be either comma's or not punctuated at all.
Reading has been proven to improve vocabulary and grammar, listening to someone speak isn't a great way to improve grammar but you will probably learn new words. You will still need a dictionary to find out what they mean and without having them written down, it's a lot harder to do that unless you have a good understanding of the rules behind how words are spelt.
Reading is better for one simple reason, people rarely use idioms when writing. When speaking people use idioms all the time and that can give you a false sense of what the word means.
Ouch? What do you read? It sounds pretty boring if there are no "broken rules" in it. I suppose if the only thing you read is business papers or journals then everything would be all correct.
Stupid assumption. Proper grammar is necessary in order to make one's reading experience as clear and as enjoyable as possible. Your sentences in the other post read very awkwardly. Any good writer will have near perfect grammar and the part of the editors job is to insure EVERY SENTENCE is perfect grammar.
"boring" writing tones (informative) and grammar are totally unrelated.
I used to enjoy reading a lot, but that was when in High School when I had classmates who would readily lend me books once in a while or make good recommendations. Nowadays I occasionally learn some new vocabulary from reading articles online, but that's no where as good as reading a good book.
I think some people did mention songs as an avenue to learn new words and I think that's fairly accurate. I do actually learn some new words that way.
A good way to learn more words, in my opinion, is to read reputable publications and newspapers. Coming across new words in those publications and subsequently finding out about them is good.
if you really want to get better at english learn latin.
yes I know that english is still a germanic language but there is no better way to learn the interaction of words than to learn latin.
also, focus on specificity. nothing pisses me off as much as reading something that says "all" or "no" or "always" or "never" when it's self-evident that there are exceptions. that's more important in graded work than anything else but I have noticed that there is a big issue with that in many people's writing.
As everyone said, reading will improve your language. But do not listent to people who recommend books to you, go to a library of a book shop and just take a book that interests you, I never liked reading until I discovered some really tense thriller book, those books are my thing and thats how I improve my language ( German ) !
In my opinion, reading is the best way to learn new words in english. I have a pretty decent vocabulary myself but I'm deaf so I commonly mispronounce words or neglect to use the full extent of my vocabulary in conversation because I'm not sure of the way to pronounce certain words. If you really want to learn a lot of new words, I'd suggest reading a dense book and actually read it out loud to yourself! you probably should do that in your room alone or something because of how annoying that would be for others but it's a fantastic way to get words down.
I'm from Poland. My way to improve vocabulary is to read very difficult articles on internet and play a lot of RPG games with subtitles on (also reading sci-fi books) . The most important thing is to have strong will to learn and kind of plan how it's going to look like after 1 year. I hope that helps.
I've been trying to improve my English as well (I'm a native English speaker). Problem is that I can't articulate things, or pen things down as eloquently as others. Reading definitely helps, but I'm sure there's a limit to it as different people have different writing styles, you'd have to personalise your own writing style eventually, and making that sound eloquent is the hard part.
I immigrated to Canada from Korea at the age of 7. In the early years in Canada, i grew up in a Caucasian/Polish-majority community and i spoke fluent English by 2nd year because i was young. Then i went to an IB high school which consisted of 40% Asian, 40% Southern Asian and like 20% Caucasians so i had the experience of observing people who were trying to learn English.
The best way to learn English in my opinion is by hanging out with friends that speak English. There are many Koreans/Chinese that are only friends with their own race, which is understandable, but they have major problems with English. Even the hardcore "fobs" that has been in Canada for over 3 years have issues with English since their friends are like them as well. If you hang out with your country of origin crowd only, you exclude most of the other population from your group, thereby reducing chances of close friends from other backgrounds, whereas if you know English, you can be friends with virtually anyone in Canada.
I would say watching TV would be the second best option because it allows you to learn the casual conversation vocabs. My one friend is like half-fob, and also has a small vocab pool even though he was in Canada for 6 years. It's quite embarrassing that he does not even know some of the most commonly used words/phrases and it's sad that he doesn't even know who people like Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus are. He only listens to Korean music and hang out with too many Korean fobs. TV is good for word choice learning because the things people say on TV shows especially comedy are perfect sentences to say during conversations, so it improves word choices greatly. Plus, comedy could be enjoyable.
What i wouldn't really recommend is gaming because i tried to improve my french through games and it didn't work out too well because the internet uses so much slang and short forms that you're just completely lost and kids on games rarely use vocabs that are useful in real life. Anyways, gaming wouldn't improve speaking at all. I am above average at writing/reading french, but when it comes to speaking it, i wouldn't survive a day in Paris.
On November 21 2010 04:26 Swagga wrote: I immigrated to Canada from Korea at the age of 7. In the early years in Canada, i grew up in a Caucasian/Polish-majority community and i spoke fluent English by 2nd year because i was young. Then i went to an IB high school which consisted of 40% Asian, 40% Southern Asian and like 20% Caucasians so i had the experience of observing people who were trying to learn English.
The best way to learn English in my opinion is by hanging out with friends that speak English. There are many Koreans/Chinese that are only friends with their own race, which is understandable, but they have major problems with English. Even the hardcore "fobs" that has been in Canada for over 3 years have issues with English since their friends are like them as well. If you hang out with your country of origin crowd only, you exclude most of the other population from your group, thereby reducing chances of close friends from other backgrounds, whereas if you know English, you can be friends with virtually anyone in Canada.
I would say watching TV would be the second best option because it allows you to learn the casual conversation vocabs. My one friend is like half-fob, and also has a small vocab pool even though he was in Canada for 6 years. It's quite embarrassing that he does not even know some of the most commonly used words/phrases and it's sad that he doesn't even know who people like Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus are. He only listens to Korean music and hang out with too many Korean fobs. TV is good for word choice learning because the things people say on TV shows especially comedy are perfect sentences to say during conversations, so it improves word choices greatly. Plus, comedy could be enjoyable.
What i wouldn't really recommend is gaming because i tried to improve my french through games and it didn't work out too well because the internet uses so much slang and short forms that you're just completely lost and kids on games rarely use vocabs that are useful in real life. Anyways, gaming wouldn't improve speaking at all. I am above average at writing/reading french, but when it comes to speaking it, i wouldn't survive a day in Paris.
As some who took ages to read i was 13 before i was literate reading helps alot especially books and broadsheet newspapers i.e. not tabloids as the word usage is usally limited. I set myself the target of reading 1 book a week and now my spelling is not outstanding but is much improved
On November 19 2010 23:15 riptide wrote: A lot of people are probably going to recommend books, tutorials, grammar exercises, and some of they may even be good. As a teacher though, let me just rehash what I tell students all the time.
Language is usually a numbers game. Looking up words is good, but usually you'll need to look up the same word a few times on a few different occasions for it to sink in. Also, in many cases, despite looking up the definition of the word, you will most likely remember the word based on the contexts you have already seen it in. That's why reading is so important - the amount you 'improve' in the written variety of a language is largely correlated to how much time you spend reading and writing in it.
If you are a native speaker, the most effective way to increased fluency is reading. It's unfortunate that you don't like to read, but my advice would be to find something you do like to read. Of course, if you're looking to really expand your vocabulary, read across genres, and read widely at that.
In fact a great way to get started in this exercise is to grab a copy of <em>The Language Instinct</em> by Pinker. It'll help you understand more about your brain's language center and why reading is such an important part of language acquisition.
Basically our brains are wired to 'learn' or acquire (in your case, acquire more, or 'improve') language while we use it, so unless you are reading (and writing, since output cements what you have acquired), you probably wont get very far.
One person suggested The Economist in this thread and I second that. They're very well written and they don't lean to either side of the political spectrum that much when it comes to US politics (Im not so sure about Britain, where they're mainly located). I know when people think The Economist they think boring economics, but that magazine's interesting world news.
If that isn't your cup of tea, then find what you're interested in (that's not video games) and find a good publication that writes about the subject.
I didn't read all the suggestions, but if you are already in the habit of looking up a word then also add this word to a list when you do, either on your computer if you prefer to look them up online or on paper which you keep next to or inside the dictionary. And then like once a week just go over the list and try to recall the meaning of those words if you can't remember a word right away just look it up again. Repetition is the easiest way to remember something.
well the key to learning anything is repetition, of course you won't learn a word instantly if you only read it's definition once, it's got to be something that is a part of your vocabulary for it to stick. Some people mentioned listening to music, this is a good idea as you will want to learn something that has meaning to you, especially music. Basically anything that you like and has good vocabulary will allow the word to stick with you for ever. For example, I had no idea what rax, pool or other starcraft vocabulary meant for quite awhile but my love for the subject allowed me to learn it's vocab despite most of it being abbreviations.
I'm sure if I wanted to, I could learn the korean words for starcraft related material if I tried hard enough and wouldn't be too over whelming since I love starcraft so much.
perhaps it's a bit sad, but i read dickens, swift, etc. in 6th grade just as trophy books. books that you read just to say you read them. it wasn't that i didn't understand most of it (yes, there are some outdated phrases and sayings that can be hard to comprehend the first time through), but as you read more of the same stuff, you start to get a feel for how the english language is typically used and most importantly what is considered "masterful usage of the english language." personally i could not give two craps about how people use language so long as they get the point across and it isn't obnoxious (think per say instead of per se). still, there is a standard for what is "appropriate" in english and mass reading is the best way to get acquainted with it. as a bonus, your reading speed should increase dramatically which can only help you later in life (reading scientific articles, law briefs, etc.)
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