10 tips to improve the way you speak English

Anita D'Souza

i. Observe the mouth movements of those who speak English well and try to imitate them. When you are watching television, observe the mouth movements of the speakers. Repeat what they are saying, while imitating the intonation and rhythm of their speech. ii. Until you learn the correct intonation and rhythm of English, slow your speech down. If you speak too quickly, and with the wrong intonation and rhythm, native speakers will have a hard time understanding you. Don't worry about your listener getting impatient with your slow speech -- it is more important that everything you say be understood. iii. Listen to the 'music' of English. Do not use the 'music' of your native language when you speak English. Each language has its own way of 'singing'. iv. Use the dictionary. Try and familiarise yourself with the phonetic symbols of your dictionary. Look up the correct pronunciation of words that are hard for you to say. v. Make a list of frequently used words that you find difficult to pronounce and ask someone who speaks the language well to pronounce them for you. Record these words, listen to them and practice saying them. Listen and read at the same time. vi. Buy books on tape. Record yourself reading some sections of the book. Compare the sound of your English with that of the person reading the book on the tape. vii. Pronounce the ending of each word. Pay special attention to 'S' and 'ED' endings. This will help you strengthen the mouth muscles that you use when you speak English. viii. Read aloud in English for 15 -20 minutes every day. Research has shown it takes about three months of daily practice to develop strong mouth muscles for speaking a new language. ix. Record your own voice and listen for pronunciation mistakes. Many people hate to hear the sound of their voice and avoid listening to themselves speak. However, this is a very important exercise because doing it will help you become conscious of the mistakes you are making.

x. Be patient. You can change the way you speak but it won't happen overnight. People often expect instant results and give up too soon. You can change the way you sound if you are willing to put some effort into it.

T i ps f o r s p e a ki n g E n g l i s h fl ue nt l y ! - W he r e d o y o u g e t i n p ut fr o m ?
There is English input available everywhere. Here are a few tips and suggestions for

you to find input of English around you and improve your English speech:

Re nt o r b uy a n Englis h m ovie DV D

Rent or buy an English movie DVD. Put the English subtitles on. Follow the movie.

This has many advantages:

y y y

You will be able to compare the written words to the correct pronunciations.

You will get a feel of how real English sentences are formed when speaking.

You will be learni ng English but it will not be frustrating and boring because you will

be watching a movie.

Please note: When you watch the movie be sure to keep your dictionary handy.

Whenever you come across a new word, pause the movie and look it up in the

dictionary. If you dont do this, the whole experience will be quite pointless.

Read abo ut any s ubj ect t hat i nt er est s you

There are a lot of English magazines available on a lot of different topics.

No matter what subject interests you, there must be some magazine that talks about it.

There are English magazines about Business, Brides, Guns and Ammo, House Keeping,

Stock Market, Sports, Computers, Electronics, Linux, Graphic Designing, Cooking etc.

Find the magazine that interests you and read it cover to cover. Be sure to look out for

new words and new phrases and look them up in the dictionary as you go.

If you cannot find a magazine of your choice, look for information you are interested in

on the Internet. There is information available on every topic under the sun on the

Internet.

Read I nt er net fo r um s of subjec t m at ter t hat i nt erests you

Got to Internet forums of the subject matter that interests you. Generally most of the

forums are in English language and are a great source of English input.

For those of you who are not familiar with Internet forums, these are places where

people interested in a particular subject can get together and share their views and

opinions about a particular subject. You can also ask specific questions to other people

and they will help you out if they can. On the Internet, there are forums available about

each and every subject.

Forums are a great source of information. Also in forums real people talk about real

problems. Most of the information typed in forums is written in an informal way.

Because of this the forums make a good source for English input. Reading forums

exposes you to a lot of phrases of daily use.

You could find forums on any subject matter that interests you at: Google Groups

You could also go to "Google" and search for the forum of the subject matter you are

interested in by typing in something like C programming forum or Cooking forum

etc.

When reading forums also make sure you find out the meaning of every new word or

phrase you come across or the whole exercise will be useless.

Read Engli s h fict ion nov els

Read English fiction of your choice. This is our India. Books are not costly here. You get

cheap book in every nook and corner. If you want to pick up an interesting cheap

English novel, go to the closest "raddiwalla" (You know, the guy you sell your old daily

news papers to...) They will generally also have old novels, book and magazines. These

wont be good quality. They will all be second hand. But thats okay, they will be nice

and cheap. Pick up some thing that interests you. Take it home and read it. Be sure to

look up all the new words you come across in the book.

Lis t e n to t he r adio and TV

Our "All India Radio" has some good programs that are designed to teach English to the

listener.

Besides this, there are also many different radio stations available now-a-days in the

big cities. Some of these radio stations are in English. Listen to them to get a feel of the

language.

Besides the radio, you could also listen to the "News In English". Its available on a

wide variety of channels. The news is a good place to get input of the English language

because it is spoken in a very clear, easy to understand way.

Chat wi t h fl uent Englis h speakers

Chat with fluent English speakers real or online. Make friends with interesting English

speakers. Become pen-pals with a fluent English speaker.

While talking to them look at their lip movement for tips on how to pronounce words

correctly.

M os t ef fec tiv e ti p: " Thi nk i n Englis h"

One of the most common mistakes that English learners make is, they think in their

mother tongue. When they want to say something in English, they think in their mother

tongue, translate it to English and then say it in English. The result is a very flawed

English sentence. Never do this!

If you want to speak in English fluently you will have to learn to "think" in English.

When you are constructing sentences in your mind before saying them, think in English

and form them in English in your mind.

Get y our s elf s om e Englis h l ea rni ng s of tw ar e!

To help you with your English, you could get your self a English learning kit OR English

learning software! We recommend that you buy either "Cafe English" OR "Learn to

Speak -English"

This link will take you to ebay.in where you can purchase this software and have it

delivered to your home. If you are new to ebay, do not worry, you can just sign up from

here free and buy whatever you are interested in right now! It's quite easy!

Once you are signed up, search for "Cafe English" OR "Learn to speak - English". You

could then choose one of the results and buy the kit!

We recommend that you buy the kit from Ebay.in since it is quite safe & secure and you

will get a good deal. If you are not comfortable with Credit Card payments, there are

always other options like DD, money order etc. that you can go in for.

BEST OF LUCK!

Jai Hind.

3 Tips to Speak English Fluently

By John Doey

If you want to speak English fluently, you are in the right place. In this article I'm going to show you three very important tips on how to do it. Here they are! 1. Confidence You should develop confidence to speak English. Don't be scared to speak. You are learning and making mistakes is a part of the process. If you want to develop confidence to speak English you should... speak a lot. That's it - there's no secret. At the beginning, you will probably be scared, but it should be easier for you to speak with each conversation. Start practicing with your friends! 2. Pronunciation rules Learn pronunciation rules if you want to speak more clearly. You s hould be able to correctly pronounce every consonant, every vowel and diphthong. Pay attention to how native speakers pronounce certain words and try to repeat after them. 3. Build up your vocabulary One of the reasons that you are scared of speaking may b e the fact that there a lot of English words that you don't understand. Actually, it's not that important to know thousands of words (you can understand a new word from the context), but if you really feel that your vocabulary isn't big enough, set up a ro utine to learn at least 10 new words every day. It's 300 words monthly! You should always keep in mind that you can't learn how to speak English fluently in a week or so. It can take you a few weeks (if you are already good in English) or a few months (if you practice regularly!) to become really fluent in English. If you practice every day, I'm pretty sure you will quickly become fluent. Good luck!