How to learn English?

English as a Second Language What do you want to talk about?
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Good morning everybody,

How are you doing today? Maybe, we could share experiences on how to learn English? I think everyone of us has their own way of learning. What are your favourite methods? For example, do you have any audio books or cassettes you listen to? Do you read newspaper articles in English? Do you subscribe to any e-mail based newsletters? What about movies? Do you watch films in the original version? Let us know what works best for you and maybe we can even find new learning techniques. I’m looking forward to your responses. Regards. Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]

TOEIC listening, question-response: What were you doing in China?[YSaerTTEW443543]

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Hi Torsten!
A good topic by the way))) As for me I read books by English writers & watch films. Now Im reading "Theatre" by Somerset Maugham. Its really nice)) And Ive found a radio-station in Moscow which broadcast news & music from America..I can listen to real American English I like it...Thats what I do myself)))

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Hello Jailbird,

Do you use a dictionary when you read books in English? Also, how often do you listen to that English language radio station and what’s its name?

TOEIC listening, question-response: Why can’t we finish this report tomorrow?

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Hi Torsten!
Well, I use dictionaru while reading for a come across some unknown & new words. And as for the name of the radio-station it`s called The Voice of America)))

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Dear Torsten

Good evening.

Saying a mouthful, I don´t believe in magic recipes to learn English.
Therefore, if someone don´t knucle down to studing English, he can never get through his aims.
Particularly, I suppose in memorization method by reading and learning word for word endlessly; although it be stiffer it seems more useful.

It is about I’ve thought how to learn English. There you have it.

Best regards,

Joao Vazquez
of Brazil

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Hi,

Today is my bad day since I can not play badminton in the evening because my left shoulder has been hurt for 2 weeks. I hate it! Then I just visit every website I often visit, read all news, read a lot of posts in this forum and I noticed this post. Finally, I decided to say something.

I’m a Vietnamese, working in Japan for one and a half years. Badminton is the only one I do love here beside work. Japanese people is very friendly on the way they accept to play with however I can not speak anything about Japanese. But we can communicate by “badminton” language and body language. Giving a big smile when you have a good smash or drive; or saying “I’m sorry (go men ne – Japanese) when I or my partner made any mistake”… Those are the ways we understand each other. And of course, we’ve had a lot of fun and enjoy the games.

It sounds bad that I don’t study Japan since I’ve been here for more than 18 months. Yes, it is bad. Actually, there are a couple reasons that I don’t want to study Japanese (I think I talked about this when first time I joint to this forum last year) because I think my English is still not good, I can not speak smoothly and automatically. And also Japanese is a kind of most difficult language in the world. So I prefer to study and improve English instead.

Improving English is a different story, I’ve tried hard, very hard by joining to any website during searching in internet (by www.google.com as well); subscribing any email letters which I will easily read from my email box sometimes beside work. I keep trying to talk to anyone I meet in office, no matter what I said maybe not correct or used grammar wrongly. The point is I know it incorrect and try to correct myself for next talk. Or I requested the listeners/colleagues that please don’t hesitate to correct for any mistake/misspell of mine. And I think at least it’s working as the way it is. My English has been improved a lot if comparing to last year. But I still need more vocabulary improvement, i think. People says that “they more you read, the more vocabulary you learn” and “the more you talk, the more chances for you to correct your grammar”. I also noticed there are some other rules which suggests me that if I want to improve vocabularies, don’t learn the words individually, need to put it to a context that I can understand and easy to remember; another says for reading, I should read that words again and again… at least 30 to 50 times then I can remember and pronounce correctly; and many many other rules that I could not remember.

Nowadays, when the world is getting smaller in term of the popular of internet, you can connect to any people around the world easily, you can learn any new technology via internet. And I think also easy to study English as well if you have an Internet connection. Please visit www.google.com everyday which is the key for you to enter the world, I think.

I would agree that there is no magic recipes to learn English as “Joao Vazquez” said earlier.

All above is what I want to share my experience about learning English.
It would be considered that I’m trying to test my writing skills for what I want to say. Please don’t hesitate to correct if you find any mistake. I would really appreciate it.

Have a good weekend to everybody! Now is Saturday, Aug 8th, 5pm Japan time.

Cheers,
sunflower.baby

P/s: after this post, I’ve decided to go to the badminton gym and do some light exercises after a very busy week… haha… what a conflict of mine! And by the way, thank you for your reading until now.

ah, I think I should share these 7 rules I think it’s useful:
[i]***RULE 1: Always Study and Review Phrases, Not Individual Words
***RULE 2: Don’t Study Grammar
***RULE 3: The Most Important Rule-- Listen First
***RULE 4: Slow, Deep Learning Is Best
***RULE 5: Use Point of View Stories for Automatic Grammar
***RULE 6: Only Use Real English Lessons & Materials (Not Textbook English)
***RULE 7: Listen and Answer, not Listen and Repeat

( source: EffortlessEnglishClub.com )[/i]

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thanks for your sharing, I’m a Vietnamese too, now I’m very bad at English, but I believe that if I try my best, I will get a sweet result, and maybe, i will try to apply your method for my study, thanks you so much.^____________^

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I’ve corrected some typo and mistake of my post.

I think the point to study anything is “if we keep trying, we must go somewhere”.

Cheers,
sunflower.baby

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Methods of learning vary and depend on a person’s abilities.
I don’t have good “fast memory”, and so to remember new words/expressions, I need to repeat them several times on different days (over a period of a month or next to it).

Let me quote Eminem:

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I watch English movies on Zee studio channel with sub titles. It not only helps me to read but also follow the pronunciations.

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Hi buddies. Do you allow me so?
I totally agree with you one your methods. I would like to simply add that the best and most efficient way to learn a language remains “the exposure to the language” that is to live in the milieu with the native speaker and interact with them. By default, which is my case, one can tutorial (films, cassettes, cds, small talks and so on). Using titorials is very helpful. This what I do and I can feel that it is valuable.
Regards
Kalifa

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Hi Kalifa,

Many thanks for sharing your experiences and ideas with us. What kind of films and CD’s do you use and how much time do you spend listening to them each week?
Regards,
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]

TOEIC listening, question-response: Why can’t we finish this report tomorrow?[YSaerTTEW443543]

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hi sunflower

By textbook English you mean material based at learners?
By real English lessons and material you mean “authentic”?

If you see authentic (real) lessons as better, how would you define these?
Are there certain kinds of things you have come across that are not real English.
If so would you care to share examples, please?

cheers stew.t.

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I use any film and cd dvd that falls under hand. Any it helps learning be it standard or non-standard. At least 2 hours a day.

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Hi khaliph

Do you watch the dvd with or without subtitles?
And if so why?

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Hi, actually those 7 rules are from EffortlessEnglishClub.com when I subscribed the 7-days email course from them… I just wanted to share with you.
It advises us that we should learn real English if we want to understand native speakers and speak easily. We should use real magazines, audio articles, TV shows, movies, radio talk shows, and audio books… rather than following the English text book.

Hope it’s helpful…

You can also develop your own methods to learn English…

Cheers, sunflower.baby.

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I prefer to watch the DVD with English subtitles…
We can easily listen it correctly and would be able to repeat.
Once we’re getting better, we can turn the subtitles off and try to understand its conversations…

There are some advices that we should watch the movies many times with and without subtitles… but I can not even watch any movies 2nd time! ha-ha…

my 2-cent… :slight_smile:

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Hi Sunflower,

Just a quick note to let you know that the noun “advice” is uncountable while “cent” is. So you can write “there is some advice” and “just my two cents”.

Thanks,
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]

TOEIC listening, question-response: Can you call headquarters and confirm this information?[YSaerTTEW443543]

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hi sunflower baby

Although I agree with your and the sites observation about authentic English against textbooks in general.

There is a little more authenticity in newer material on the market though.

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Thank you very much for your correction, Torsten.
I know that “cent” is countable but I thought it would be acceptable if writing “2-cent” (with hyphen).
Something like 12-year-old child…

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