How Can Improve A Basic Knowledge In English?
1. 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.
- 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.
2. 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. .
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Read the lyrics to a song.
- 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.
- 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
- If you have not read the book before, reading a plot summary from the internet can also help in the same way.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. 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.
22. 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.
- 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.
24. 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.
- 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.
26. 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.
27. 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
28. 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.
29. 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.
30. 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!
31. 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.
32. 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.
33. 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.
34. 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.
35. 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.
