6 tips to take your English to the next level
Achieving fluency and clarity in English takes a lot of time and hard work. Students often need at least a year and sometimes years to achieve proficiency in speaking and listening in English. The problem is that most of them quit out of anger and frustration after realizing that further advancement with the language is out of their reach. While it certainly becomes more difficult to move up the ladder to a more advanced or even near-native level, it is still very doable, but it requires a new approach to language learning and of course a lot of patience, passion and motivation. 3 major factors that most students are sadly running out of.
This article will give you 6 important tips that, if you use them, your English will never stop improving. Let’s start!
Tip No. # 1: Find time to practice a song repeatedly. Pick a song that you like, I mean, that you REALLY like and listen to it over and over again. Don’t passively listen to it though, get the lyrics and pay attention to long, short sounds, and of course word links. Practice each line of each verse separately until you can keep up with the rhythm and speed of the singer. You repeat the process until you can emulate the singer’s performance. Make no concessions! He does not move on to the next song before mastering the first.
Tip No. # 2 – Find the time to watch your favorite show and just watch your favorite actor. For example, if you are a fan of the TV show “Friends”, you can choose “Joey Tribbiani” and constantly watch him. You may be a fan of “Seinfeld” and you can choose “Kramer” and so on.
Joey tribbiani kramer
Listen to the actor’s music, style, and speech and keep listening until you feel like you can imitate him. You can start using very short sentences in the same way as the speaker, and then as you get more confident you can use longer sentences.
Tip No. # 3: Find time to review old materials. You won’t be able to memorize all the vocabulary (especially English idioms and slang) that you learn in the classroom or at home. Your brain will not be able to process this large amount of information without reviewing it on a daily basis. You need at least half an hour every day to review the materials you learned in previous lessons. Don’t think that you will get more fluent just by repeating a bunch of new words every day, it would be much more productive for you to go over the words you learned yesterday, last week, or last month. Frequency is much more important than quantity when learning English.
Tip No. # 4 – If you are studying English abroad, find time to choose a small number of interesting English expressions and plan how to use them throughout the day. Let me give you some shocking news! If you want to improve your fluency in English quickly, you need to LIE! LIE LIE LIE! Don’t lie to hurt people, just lie to use some interesting expressions that you want to remember. You can pretend you’re lost in town asking for directions and you can keep doing that until you find someone willing to talk some more and then LIE again if necessary to lengthen the conversation. Keep talking until someone tells you to fuck off!
Tip No. # 5: Observe the mouths of native English speakers in life or on television.
Don’t do that all the time, as some people might think you’re a freak, but every now and then, if you’re talking to a native speaker or watching your favorite show on TV, take the time to focus on the mouth of the speaker and the way they move their muscles like jaw, lips, tongue, etc. And while you’re at it, grab a mirror and look at your mouth. Ask yourself “am I moving my mouth the same way or do I look different?” If so, what is different? And because? You have to analyze and find out how your native language is affecting your English speaking and once you do, address it.
Tip No. 6: Once again, if you are studying English abroad, do not speak your native language. You will not believe how harmful it is for you to speak YOUR mother tongue while learning English. Your brain will never be able to digest or absorb English sounds, intonation and music if you speak English in addition to your native language. I know that it is very difficult to be in the presence of someone from the same country and not speak your mother tongue. I know it is embarrassing and uncomfortable, but you also need to be strong and resolute avoiding the company of those who are unwilling to speak English and, on occasion, perhaps politely asking this person or group to speak English for practice.
Look, there are no shortcuts to great achievements and I realize that it is not easy to use any of the tips above, but you have to keep an eye out for the prize, right? And what is the prize? Unlimited career opportunities and the ability to sell yourself and whatever else you need to sell to the world. In today’s world, we cannot afford to operate at the national level, we have to go global and that means one thing … mastering the English language.
