I studied in Tamil medium. When I entered college, I could not speak a sentence in English. Here are the things that helped me.
1. Read Bible cover to cover many time with a Tamil Bible side-by-side. I didn't understand many of the words / phrases. Still I kept reading as long as I understood the meaning.
2. In college we met every evening for prayer. I started sharing messages for few minutes. I made lot (a lot) of mistakes, but my friends helped me improve. Lot of folks made fun of me, but I still kept going because two of close friends kept encouraging me.
3. Watched Friends series with sub-titles. I didn't understand many of the dialogues because I lacked context. Still I would memorize sentences and repeat to myself.
4. Started writing a blog[]. The one I have currently is 2nd or 3rd one. In the first blog, I wrote primarily about what I knew well - SQL, Vantive etc. So the content was there, I had to only find ways to express it. Even now, I write about what I know or what I learn, so that makes it easier to blog.
5. When I read articles or books, I note down the sentences or phrases I like. I store them in Evernote and re-visit them often. I try to use them in some daily usage.
Next month I will deliver a keynote speech in Azure global bootcamp in my city (Chandigarh). From not able to speak a sentence in English to this, has been a long journey of frustration, encouragement, and satisfaction.
Reading the bible to learn English does not seem like a good idea. The English of the bible is not common everyday English that will be most useful for communicating with others today.
Watching films or television in English, with subtitles in your native language is good advice.
Even if you learn old English from that (rather than using a modern English translation), it'd still give you a good base (grammar etc.) for then understanding modern English. It might lead to learning a slightly odd/old variation of English, and might not be the most efficient route, but I can see it being effective for being able to understand English.
For someone not from a Western culture, it will also help them understand a lot of cultural references that won't make much sense otherwise, like "seeing the handwriting on the wall."
I've known that phrase for...I don't even know how long. But I only learned yesterday that its origin was Biblical. I love how Dan Carlin says "mene mene tekel upharsin" and wanted to read more about it, and made that happy discovery.
> Reading the bible to learn English does not seem like a good idea. The English of the bible is not common everyday English
The degree to which that is true depends on the translation. The KJV is someone arcane, many others are not. And it's one of the easiest large written corpuses to get your hands on parallel (even if separately published) versions of the same source material in English and whatever language you are coming from, and having a large written parallel corpus to study is probably a very good tool for self-study.
If you make your learning less like "learning" you will have great chance of learning anything new.
Reading, Listening, Speaking, Writing (not necessarily in any order) are key to improving your language skills.
Pick few subjects that you are reasonably excited about. Movies, Technology, Fashion, Current Affairs, Religion, Music, Designing... basically anything that do not bore you and spend some time finding channels that talk/write about these. Make sure you are able to spend at least a decent amount of time everyday watching/listening/reading about those.
I had very poor English language speaking skills even after I completed my college. I took it as a challenge and made sure I spent at least 15 minutes every day listening English news (I live in India and this was some 20 years ago, so the options were very limited back then)
Read English news papers for about 30 minutes, and always noted down new words and their meaning and kept referring to those when I wasn't preoccupied anything else.. .those notes used to stay with me for few days before I threw those away for newer ones.
Also, moving to Bangalore helped me a lot because, many of my new friends didn't share my mother tongue so English was our primary communication medium.
Thinking about it, it was kinda boring to be honest, I dont know if i will do the same for learning any other language, but I was really motivated to learn English back then so that probably kept me going.
I made a game that may help with vocab - www.esoterica.io. Would be curious to hear if helpful (peter at 3eyes.studio).
Fluency in language (and all things) comes down to practice. Converse as much as possible in English. And when you can’t find someone to talk with, read read read. Anything and everything, from message boards to magazines to books and more books. It doesn’t matter what about. Just diversify.
TV shows. I watched so much TV shows that when I first came to the United States, a taxi driver claimed that I had a "New York accent". Shows like Seinfeld are especially good, because they also help you get comfortable with american culture, which is an important part of communication.
It probably helps that I do rubber duck debugging[0] a lot :)
I can’t emphasize this more. The first show I watched without subtitles (CC) was Dr House. I watched 6 seasons and it was painful as hell but after watching 100s of episodes it starts becoming easier.
Also, I would write every single word I did not understand and google it.
Record yourself while reading a random page from a book and then listen to the recording. When I did, I found a few defects and managed to fix them, though it took some time.
To answer the question in title, I came to Canada and lived here for the last 20~ years. Since day one, I always opted to try to use English (rather than my first language) whenever possible. It was hardest at first, but the more I did it, the easier it became.
computer games for vocabulary, TV shows and movies for phrases, Simpsons and Friends are particularly good
in the end it doesn't really matter if you speak perfect English, most of the English users are not native English speakers and everyone makes mistakes, it's better to communicate with mistakes than being afraid to use language at all
i worked in China with tons of different nationalities with varying levels of English and we could always understand each other, only people who care about grammar are grammar nazis online who are most likely not speaking any foreign language and not own even passport
I also second the suggestion of things like movies, podcasts, books, etc...
I think you have to find a "cheat" that immerses you in English as a SECONDARY side effect.
For example find a TV show that you like to watch and understand then sit through it with English subtitles so you can see what you are hearing in written form. As you get better you can turn off the subtitles.
I think the methods that focus on language learning as the primary objective are not successful after you learn the basics. Perhaps because they are too boring or some other reason.
Best thing to do is travel, or language vacation. I've done a language holiday in Spain, learning Spanish, and that worked really well. I only did two weeks, but got a basic understanding of Spanish, in a beautiful old town - Salamanca. You can do the same with English. I bet you can go to London, Sydney, New York and many other places to learn English. You have to do this in a country or city where the main language is English of course. You don't want to do this in Paris or Barcelona.
I did morning study and afternoon free, but you could do much more if you wanted, like 6 or 8 hours daily, and even private classes. Besides that we had to do homework, and that could take two hours or more, so be aware of that. Two weeks is a minimum to learn anything, but if you have the money go for at least three or four weeks. Then you set something in motion.
We could stay with local families or in an appartment with other students. With a local family you'll learn a lot more, especially if they don't speak any other language. If you prefer to stay in an appartment, ask for an appartment without people who speak your language. The tendency is to go speak the easiest language, and you're not there to do that.
Have fun! Do all the tours etc. Avoid people who speak your language.
People's expectation of what is considered "fluent" is very different and many different approaches can work. Regardless of where you are, there are things that you can do.
I am Vietnamese and studied English as a second language at 10 years old. I have been living in the US for the last 10 years -- 1/3 of my life. I have very little problems communicating in English now, but I want to give you a glimpse of how confident I am with my English. I used to know a professional interpreter who is not a native speaker either but has got an excellent grip on English. He interpreted for a couple of US presidents on their diplomatic trips. He often commented on my Facebook that my English is shit when I had Facebook. He would poke fun at my misspellings and grammatical errors. I still write, listen, and speak like a machine.
If I remember it correctly, the translator fiend's advice to everyone was always that to read lots of books. His advice to learn to speak English was to go out and talk to the English expats. Many long for a friend, and you might learn a thing or two on the way. He did that when he was 20. I think those are a solid advice.
For me, it was a little bit different. I think a big part of it is that I had an itch to do it. When I was younger, I learned English by reading MSDN + VB manuals because I needed to code. Then for a couple of years in HS, I lead an indie translation project to translate a couple of Harry Potter books to Vietnamese. My schedule was totally fucked up in the summer when the books came out: Sleep in until noon, then at night just translate 1/4 of a chapter or so, or proofread other people's translations until 6 AM. After that project, I wouldn't care if my English is not good anymore, I knew I've dealt with enough shit to not be intimidated by English.
But in general, I think what works best is that you have to have a use for it. If you don't have a use for it, your work doesn't depend on it, then you need to have a hobby in which your English skill is needed to get the work done. Maybe you can make an impact or two along the way. It's just like to learn a new programming language or paradigm.
Like now, I'm a professional HN commentator, and it requires some serious English skill, don't you see ;-)?
Daily 2-3 articles of reading of papers e.g. guardian, ny times, science journals
reading the IELTS prep material
Speaking a lot English with friends
Vocabulary practice by installing google dictionary in chrome while reading
Movies with subtitles followed by without subtitles
First of all read a lot. Read local communities like Reddit, HN (here), slashdot, etc. This will make you familiar with the daily language.
Second, listen a lot. Watch movies with original sound and English subtitles. Try to understand, try to make sense of it. If you listen English songs, try to listen a little more attentive.
Then write a lot. Try to take your notes in English. Comment your code in English. Try to comment more into stories or forums around the world.
These three will sharpen you in daily English. You'll become more familiar. Becoming fluent becomes after becoming familiar. As everyone said, also read books, novels in English and take notes, however some books' vocabulary may be drastically different from others (e.g., Both Hyperion Cantos and Ready Player One are SciFi novels, but latter one has a much more accessible English than the former).
Last but not the least, don't focus on your progress. You'll advance inevitably. Just continue doing so, and you'll find yourself much more improved after some time. Fluency is best when it comes with time, and when it's built step by step, it becomes permanent.
Sound advice. Also, try to get to the next step as soon as you can, while still working on the previous ones. We are surprisingly quick to adapt even when facing complicated challenges, so take advantage of that. And always do something that you like. It will keep you both motivated and focused.
You can do all of them at the same time after getting the initial momentum, however not overloading the cognitive capacity is important. Otherwise the process may backfire.
The most important point is not forcing yourself to progress, but integrating the language in your life. A foreign language is not an achievement, but a capability (or ability), like programming in another language. You need to integrate into your life, not achieve and set aside. So not forcing is much more healthy IMHO.
There's no substitute for exposure. "Learning" and memorization can help you recognize language use. But it's exposure that makes it second nature (i.e. automatic).
And as far as speaking goes, remember that you're using muscles and nerve signals. Just like with any other physical activity, i.e. a sport, it's practice -- doing it -- that improves facility.
This is great, but you're missing out on spoken English.
I think one of the biggest obstacles in speaking is overcoming the fear of saying something wrong, or not being understood. At least that was the case for me. Once you get over that fear and get a more "I don't give a crap" attitude towards if what you're saying is correct, and instead just say it, you've come a long way and it will help you improve.
Simple version of what I'm trying to convey:
Try to not be afraid to say something wrong, just speak your mind. Don't worry about grammar when you speak. It will come naturally after a while.
Personally I learnt most my spoken English through co-operative computer games and speaking to other players over ventrilo / mumble or in-game voice comms. The fear of saying something wrong or being misunderstood was minimized in this online setting, sitting safely at home but still communicating with real people.
You're right. English is not my native language, and I learned it in the school, which included speaking, albeit not too much.
The steps I outlined is how I sharpened my skills after school, during my non-educational life, in a spontaneous manner. I understood these steps years later, and share them whenever there's a chance to share.
I've practiced my speaking skills in the university via presentations, and during my work travels. Also my work requires me to send a lot of English mails, which tend to progress conversation-like. Since they were the things which came to my way rather than I consciously selected, I have no reproducible way of practicing spoken English, so I knowingly omitted those.
This. As a native English speaker, this is a pretty good summary of exactly how I became proficient in a other languages, starting in my teens. True fluency takes years. It is not something that can just be rushed.
If you're reading in a different language, try readlang (I'm not an owner, just a happy user.) It's a browser plugin that does 2 things: (1) inline translation, including of phrases, so reading becomes much much less painful; and (2) every word or phrase you look up, it saves as a flash card for you to review. It's well worth the $5/month.
Mimicking is the critical skill for spoken English.
I bet you have ugly flaws in your spoken English, although I also bet that your written English is better than many brought up speaking English.
I often deal with tourists, and I detect serious flaws in their speaking as a result of their learning to read and write first (transliteration is a problem too). Common ways of teaching English in schools are deeply flawed IMHO.
Babies and children learn by listening, talking, mimicking, and some correction.
The best late learners of speaking English that I have met, have been those that interact by talking and mimicking, with very little (if any) reading/writing. My favourite was a young Japanese guy that had worked in East London and Australia, and his accent would switch between perfect Cockney and perfect Ocker depending upon where he had learnt a phrase!
Personally, my Spanish only really improved when I had a Spanish speaking girlfriend that didn't want to speak English with me.
Obviously if you mostly interact in English by writing, it doesn't matter.
But if you want to work in a country, you will usually be judged quite negatively if you have a strong accent.
Also clearly not everyone can find a way to talk with native speakers.
Learning by listening to movies and mimicking songs including accent of the singer helps a lot and is fun. (e.g. in my experience Spaniards typically have horrific English due to dubbing films into Spanish, while Portuguese often are way better at English).
Ideally limit reading and limit learning grammar/spelling until after you have a good grasp of the language. That's how all native speakers have done it.
This is absolutely right. One of the biggest drawbacks of reading to learn a language is that it increases your accent simply because you will start to pronounce the words the way you learned to read in your native language.
Also, it's harder to memorize information when you read it. Mimicking and speaking is the fastest way to fluency. It turns out that embarrassment or the feeling that you need to improve will help you learn.
That might be more apropos for learning Chinese (where premature focus on reading/writing can distract from actually learning the (spoken) language). I think in learning English, reading will help, because the sound/spelling correspondence is sufficient (even though English arguably has the worst orthography after the logographic ones).
> because the sound/spelling correspondence is sufficient
I strongly disagree.
Firstly on listening to tourists, some of the worst pronunciation mistakes I hear are because they have learnt the spelling: you can hear mistakes that can only occur if you know the spelling (or are due to use a "general" voicing rule).
This shows up clearly when you are in another country and you tell someone a word for something and they repeat it back to you perfectly. However they often then ask for the spelling, and after you tell them the spelling, their pronunciation changes to something incorrect. Ouch.
Speakers with English as a mother tongue on seeing an unfamiliar word will ask how to pronounce it rather than making educated guesses at how to say it because any rule is often broken, and we learn not to trust our guesses. In fact someone who is well read but mispronounces words (intuited from spelling) is often laughed at.
One further problem that well spoken English is a sign of a good education, and it is often used to judge social status. In a professional job, correct speech helps one a lot. On the flip side you hear tradesman avoid using "correct" speech because they don't want to associate themselves with "suits" (or it is a group identity thing: I am not a ethanographer!).
The result of the above is that most people find it rude to have their speech or spelling corrected because of the implicit "I am better than you". Which means it is difficult to find anyone that will correct your mistakes because most people are polite. The exception is children: they love to correct adults and they often don't mind repeatably correcting pronunciation errors.
Note I think that a child that speaks English learns "rules" for sounding words primely to help identify the spelling of words they already know how to say. A learner may guess at a spelling, but the spelling is then corrected by the teacher.
You are really overgeneralizing your personal experience. I’m a native English speaker too, and I guess pronunciations all the time. I’d argue that it’s part of the skill of English fluency.
Stop discouraging people by telling them that your way is the only way.
> Speakers with English as a mother tongue on seeing an unfamiliar word will ask how to pronounce it rather than making educated guesses at how to say it because any rule is often broken, and we learn not to trust our guesses. In fact someone who is well read but mispronounces words (intuited from spelling) is often laughed at.
I disagree - I guess at pronunciations frequently (as a native speaker), and it is a useful skill to be able to do so. For a learner, it may be _helpful_ to ask how to pronounce (especially to avoid reinforcing misconceptions), but I don't think it's a universal rule of English that people ask how to pronounce words. I also find that many of the mispronunciations are regional variations or misconceptions (e.g. hearing Worchester as "War-chester" instead of "Wus-ter", or Yorkshire as "York-shy-er" instead of "York-sha"), so even if you ask, you might not learn the "true"/regionally appropriate pronunciation.
I've also never come across the later -- I know plenty of well-read people (native and non-native) who have made mistakes in pronunciation (such as a friend who read "parser" as "pa-ray-ser"; native speaker) and they are simply corrected, not laughed at.
Granted, it's easy to mispronounce an English word from the spelling alone (try to read aloud the poem "The Chaos" [links below], infamous among advanced English learners).
However, the sound/spelling correspondence is good enough, as I said, and certainly better than in Chinese. Thus, I stand by my position that premature concentration on reading/writing is a bigger problem for Chinese learner than for English learners.
Actually, you're assuming that I'm doing all these to mimic other English speakers, and you're wrong.
I'm not a late learner. I'm exposed to English when I'm ~4 yo, and started to learn it at 7. Also, I cannot learn by mimicking. I listen and read to learn, to understand how the culture is choosing words, how it works in real world. It's a kind of practice.
Because of my Job, I'm talking with Europeans a lot, and I'm considered a very clearly speaking guy. I've some accent which is carried from my mother tongue, but not from mimicking English dialects.
My English education wasn't purely language education. Whole curriculum was in English, so there was no place for mimicking. We were forced to think in English. The language is integrated into our lives for 6+ years. As a result, I can write at the speed of speech. Also while initial spellings are given as complete words, pronunciation is taught to us. So I can reasonably read or speak a work I've never seen.
When I go abroad to attend some meetings, I cannot completely switch to my mother tongue (both in spoken voice and inner voice) when I land for 30 minutes or so.
Sorry to say it, but your written English reads very stilted to me, a native (British) English speaker. Assuming your spoken English is a similar level, your European colleagues are right - it is clear in the sense that it is easy to understand what you are trying to say. But your word choice and grammar are a very long way away from a native speaker. If you do have a desire to sound more natural in the way you use English, I would suggest you actually take the advice to listen to the way native speakers use the language and try to copy what they do. At the moment you sound much more like a tourist than you think you do.
Your English is fine and way better than my 2nd language skills. Unless you are going to become a con man or a spy, I wouldn't give it another thought.
I am a non-native speaker so I tried combing through a few of your comments to see how a native speaker might be able to pick you out as a non-native.
> listen a little more attentive
attentively
> will sharpen you in daily English
"sharpen" should be applied to the skill, not the person? ("sharpen your daily English")
> Becoming fluent becomes after becoming familiar.
"becomes after" sounds weird. Maybe "follows" or "comes".
> very clearly speaking guy
clear speaking
But I think the most glaring issue is the way you use commas (lots of unnecessary commas, comma splices, and parallel structure violations).
All of this is beyond grammar nazi-ing since some of these are just word choices that I would've made differently rather than grammatical errors. Again, I am also non-native.
Yeah well, there's a lot to nitpick here... "language skills [...] varies" - a skill varies, but skills vary. Obviously I'm making tons of mistakes too, especially in a conversation (when there's no time to think and you can't go back to correct a phrase). Besides, being technically correct - in terms of grammar, vocabulary and so on - doesn't mean it sounds natural yet.
> "sharpen" should be applied to the skill, not the person? ("sharpen your daily English")
Possibly depends on the dialect. "Sharpen your skills" is probably more common, but applying it to the person (e.g. "This will sharpen you up") sounds fine to me as a British English speaker (though if specifying a specific skill in the same sentence you probably wouldn't use that form).
> But I think the most glaring issue is the way you use commas (lots of unnecessary commas, comma splices, and parallel structure violations).
Definitely true, but that can also be a trait of some native speakers, FWIW. Some of my sentences have a ton of unneeded commas and "loose" clauses when I first write them, until I refactor them to make them more correct. It's certainly not exclusive to non-native speakers.
Thanks for your comments. I'll take note of these, and will revisit from time to time.
Most of the commas I use (before the "and" & "or"s) are Oxford Commas which dictates to use a comma before the conjunction if the sentences are separable. If the sentences are separable you don't use the comma. A more general rule is explained in [0].
My juries of my Master's and Ph.D. were very strict in this manner so I learned it the hard way. Now it's hardwired in my brain. Honestly I may be over using them, and will write more carefully.
> Most of the commas I use (before the "and" & "or"s) are Oxford Commas which dictates to use a comma before the conjunction if the sentences are separable
You seem to be confusing the Oxford (or serial) comma [0] used after the penultimate item of a list with the rule on comma + conjunction (or semicolon with no conjunction) separating independent clauses as opposed to a bare conjunction separating dependent clauses.
Generally the corrections were between independent clauses, and I made some research on the matter at that time. It's possible that I just mix the name of the rules since I got them from the back of my memory.
Thanks for clarifying these up. Will keep these in mind too.
uh....this guy's English is really excellent. it may be distinguishable from a native speaker by occasional poor phrasing or misuse of words, but it's really, really good. i think your criticism is overblown.
No it isn't, and you are not doing him any favors by saying otherwise. His usage is at a level I would consider intermediate at best. FearNotDaniel's assessment is accurate.
There is no shame in not being 100% fluent. I'm multi-semi-lingual, in that I can read a newspaper, shop at a store, etc. in several languages. But I am only fluent in English. When I speak something else, my friends will frequently correct me. I appreciate it, because that is the only way to improve.
> His usage is at a level I would consider intermediate at best. ... There is no shame in not being 100% fluent.
Your notions about language proficiency are wildly out of whack. The speaker you're talking about is clearly articulating their ideas, coherently and without (one presumes) halting or grasping. That's fluency.
I'm sure you meant this reply to be constructive, but without describing the experience in question or saying which category from your link you think applies here, it doesn't convey anything.
For me, my experience is two years as an English teacher and my opinion based on that experience is that someone who can convey complex ideas clearly and without effort is fluent. If you define that to be intermediate, what's left for "fluent" to mean?
Based on the criteria given, I would estimate that his English writing ability is ~2+. Without hearing him speak, I can't properly assess. Perhaps a 3.
None of this is a criticism or a put down. Achieving this degree of competency in a second or third language takes a great deal of work over a long time, and is something to be proud of. But true fluency happens at level 4 and above.
(My father was a professional linguist and diplomat, and I spent much of my pre-adult life living in different non-English-speaking countries. I say this just so you know where I am coming from. I also want to spread awareness of what the various professional standards of fluency are.)
Thank you in kind, and I understand where you're coming from, but I still think the standard you're applying is pretty far removed from normal. Separate from any subjective rankings, the person describes having been educated solely in English for 6+ years, and from context appears to have been actively speaking it for at least 15-20 years overall. If one ranks that as intermediate, one winds up calling someone with 10 years experience a beginner, and such absurdities.
As for subjective rankings, I'm more familiar with CEFR, under which I see no obvious reason not to rank this person C1 or C2, which is what one would expect for someone with more than 800-1000 hours of study.
> If one ranks that as intermediate, one winds up calling someone with 10 years experience a beginner, and such absurdities.
I'm sure you are aware of people that have spent decades+ in an English-speaking environment, yet still speak in a stilted manner. Time alone isn't enough- you need active correction. A few folks are able to self-correct via listening, but almost everyone does best with regular instruction by qualified teachers.
Thank you for the CEFR link.
Part of the problem with English in particular (I am sure you are aware of this, I am just stating it for other readers) is that the number of ESL speakers exceeds the native population. This rather unusual case means that many learners are receiving instruction from English speakers who themselves are not fluent, compounding the error. From a strictly academic standpoint, it is fascinating tracing the growth of all the different flavors of English (some mutually unintelligible) but it does present certain practical difficulties in communication!
> people that have spent decades+ in an English-speaking environment, yet still speak in a stilted manner
Again, the standard you're applying is unreasonable. English doesn't have any One True dialect - it's spoken natively in various ways, some of which sound stilted to you. I went to college with a guy from Malaysia whose speech you'd likely find highly stilted (or I did, anyway), yet English was his first language - the only language he used with his parents, the only language he ever used in school, etc. That is what it is - a person can be fluent or native and still sound stilted to you. You may well sound stilted to them!
This is why the rankings you linked don't use such language - they talk about whether someone can use complex grammatical structures clearly and without effort, and so forth, and when judging someone's fluency that's the sort of standard to apply. Saying they sound stilted just says that their English doesn't sound the way you expect correct English to sound, which is neither here nor there.
The guy's English _is_ excellent (100% intelligible and reads fine), but there can still be a long way between excellent/"functional fluency" and a native speaker. A native speaker wouldn't say "I'm exposed to English when I'm ~4 yo" (they would say "I _was_ exposed..." or "I've been exposed... since...") or capitalise "Job". Small things in the grand scheme of things, but they make it fairly obvious it's a non-native speaker.
Thanks for your comments. I generally write at the speed of thought, and don't read my comments for a second time to correct my errors.
These tense changes happen when I change the structure of the comment in my head in the real time, and don't revisit the beginning of the sentence to align things back.
When I read them for the second time after I send, I spot the errors, but don't always correct them since they are online and intended people possibly read the comment already.
Maybe I should write a little slower while commenting, and read again before sending.
> I'm exposed to English when I'm ~4 yo, and started to learn it at 7.
It's not. He didn't even use the right tense in the first clause. It should be:
I've been exposed to English since I was 4 years old, and started to learn it at 7.
His English is certainly perfectly understandable, but also 'a very long way from a native speaker'.
It has very good vocabulary, but a whole lot of verb tense and subject-verb disagreement errors, and use of the wrong parts of speech in ways which are (especially combined with the excellent vocabulary) very emblematic of a non-native English speaker who either learned late or learned early but had much of their use of English with other non-native speakers.
Now, it's very good for someone with either of those backgrounds (and much better than my command of any language that isn't English), but the upthread comment that it is very far from that of a native speaker is spot on.
Let me see, if nine out of 10 people asses this poster as having non-fluent english and 1/10 seem to think he is fluent, the most resonable explanation is that there are now 2 people who are not fluent in english. Stop trying to grasp at straws, it quite clear the poster is not a native english speaker nor does he fool fluent speakers.
> Watch movies with original sound and English subtitles.
Something I've heard over and over is that using subtitles actually stunts your growth, because it's too easy to fall back on instead of making sense of what you hear.
Yes, I believe some polyglots recommend that you never watch a movie with a disconnect between subtitles and the audio track.
English audio/English subtitles is fine. Assuming you are French, English audio/French subtitles is bad. French audio/English subtitles is also bad but not as bad as the previous combination.
The reason is that if you have subtitles in your native language, you will tend to just focus your brain on reading them and kind of ignore the audio portion.
GP is saying to watch with subtitles in the language to be learned, not your native language.
IMO it's good advice. When I do it, I inevitably wind up looking for and finding differences between the audio and text, thinking about how I might have translated things differently, and so on.
Adding more to @bayindirh's comment.
I am currently the active user of this app called 'memrise'. This app will help beginners improve their vocabulary. Also talk to yourself in the language you are learning, that will help you eliminate the translation lag.
I've to completely disagree. Only way to learn to "speak" is to be in environment where you can only speak the new language and you have to speak.
You can read 10 years and won't be fluent. You can watch for 10 years and won't learn a thing. I've been watching Japanese animes before high school. Do I speak Japanese, no! Only 10 or so words.
One thing that cements this the fact grammar is something that's not absolute.
Again from experience, very important, you can take 5 semester of esl courses and still sound like you came over here last month.
English is everywhere, so it's very easy to consume English media to improve your vocabulary and comprehension skills. As for speaking (for me, that was - and still is - the hardest part), I'd try to find native speakers to communicate with. If you live in a big city, there are probably foreign students teaching English. You can also find a remote tutor on italki.com.
One thing I did when I came to the US was to have no pride and to invite and even insist on people correcting my English. This can be really annoying and often embarrassing but I think it stopped a lot of mistakes really early before they became a habit. I see a lot of people who have been here for a long time making really bad mistakes and nobody tells them. In general Americans are very hesitant to give direct criticism so it takes a while to find people who are willing to play that role.
I had a lot of problems understanding people for a while and there watching movies and listening to radio helped.
There are some online services where you can find a language exchange partner (to help practice each other's native languages). This is useful if you don't want to pay for professional classes. You can meet periodically by video chat and help each other practice.
Practice or study with native speakers is valuable because native speakers have a "native speaker intuition" to quickly and confidently resolve uncertainties about how to say things. On the other hand, if people haven't studied linguistics or language teaching, they might not be able to explain why they say things a certain way (because we all know and use rules in our native languages that we've never thought about consciously and never tried to explain). So you shouldn't assume that native speakers will always be able to give you helpful explanations of why they chose one way of saying something over another.
Personal anecdote from which you may be able to pick a thing or two: back in the day RPGs were not translated. I stumbled upon Chrono Trigger and found the game amazing but could barely understand anything beyond the basics. I sucked it up and got a paperback dictionary. Mid game I was barely referring to it, and by the "end" of it (several dozens of hours, possibly hundred; got 10 of the 14 or so endings) things were treading along nicely.
I followed up with Day of the Tentacle for which the complete Full Talkie was only in English (the French one had only partial voice over in English) and since it was so hot at the time to listen to voices in games I really wanted to get that experience, so again, I went for it. It was much more involved as DotT relies on wittiness and humor a lot, so that was definitely a step up. By the end of it I was really getting good at listening instead of just reading the English subs.
From then on I got lots and lots of exposure from movies and TV shows because I began to catch how flawed or lacking some of the French dubs were for the stuff I watched.
The missing part was speaking, and for this I happened to be repeatedly tasked with preparing and presenting some stuff in English class. The key points being: "repeatedly", like, a lot (once a week for three years) and "preparing" which really helps in progressing (you can't realistically be expected to wing it at talking if you only were doing "passive" activities like reading and listening) because I had to both write and rehearse presenting beforehand, which are both "active" tasks.
The "fluent" part then comes out as the sum of all this experience.
(Also, at some point I switched all of my OS/software/phone to English. Little tidbits like this mean I was faced with English every single days for the most trivial things, so that it just becomes second nature)
(Also also, getting involved in online communities, but not lurking: interacting instead, stepping right outside the comfort zone.)
Get a native anglophone partner and go live with them, force them and yourself to speak in English exclusively, especially when you argue or when you do errands together.
This forces you to simplify concepts to get your point straight at first, then pushes you to ampliate your vocabulary.
My advice to improve one's oral comprehension: there are great podcasts on the BBC radio 4 website. Find a topic that interests you (maths, science, sociology, fictions...) and start listening to it. You may no understand everything but you will soon see that the context helps a lot.
After reading many answers, I'll add one step I didn't see fully stressed: after getting used to read and listen to English, find a way to start speaking it. You can't become fluent without actually speaking it.
For me, what did the trick was actually going to a advanced spoken English course where I lived (I was already very proficient with written English): what we were doing most of the time was just discussing things in English, with the supervision and help of our teacher. Among my best "investments".
Today, you could probably find something online, but I'm not sure if it would be as useful.
Regular speaking is definitely important. I'll add a related advanced tactic. Switch your inner monologue language to English. So whenever you're thinking with the help of language, do it in English. This will go a long way towards making your verbal speaking faster and more natural, because you'll no longer be doing quick translations in your head.
To be more precise, at least for me, this thinking language system seems to be heavily influenced by learning. I've been doing most of my thinking in English for the last decade or so, and most of the things I've learned during this time are stored in my head in English. [1] However my earlier life lessons are still in my memories in my original native tounge. This is interesting because I started learning English more than 25 years ago, but even things I consumed in English got translated and stored in memory in my native language.
--
[1] Of course there are more factors in play than just thinking in English. I've also been better than ever in English and English media makes up for a larger percentage than ever in my total consumed media. I'm sure all of these and more have played a role, in addition to changing my inner dialogue language, in storing my memories in English now.
To improve my english I listened to a lot of Country and Rap music. This way I kinda learn a lot of slang words and expression.
First job in the states my coworkers weren’t really talkative. I used to go to a stripclub during the weekends. Trust me your brain will be more than motivated to learn english when you need to talk to half nudes girls haha.
Probably not helpful, but here's how it went for me
I think I started out pretty well from school and my mom videotaping some "learn english show" on TV when I was a kid - but once I got my first computer and had to read stuff about problems online in English.. well that helped a lot. I've also been on IRC for like 17 years now, reading and writing at least 50% in English.
Reading books in English is really good once you can make enough sense of it (not so useful if you have to look up all the words - but I still did that for a while). Children's books for age ~10-12 are really good for this imho, they're usually not so complicated and can still have meaningful content (think more Harry Potter, less Teletubbies).
The final "wow, this helps a lot" was working in a company where the official language was English and thus using it for hours, daily, and we also had some folks with bad/non-existant German skills. I was lucky to sit next to a native speaker for a while who also shared a lot of my interests, so we were talking a lot about.. stuff in downtimes.
186 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 246 ms ] thread1. Read Bible cover to cover many time with a Tamil Bible side-by-side. I didn't understand many of the words / phrases. Still I kept reading as long as I understood the meaning.
2. In college we met every evening for prayer. I started sharing messages for few minutes. I made lot (a lot) of mistakes, but my friends helped me improve. Lot of folks made fun of me, but I still kept going because two of close friends kept encouraging me.
3. Watched Friends series with sub-titles. I didn't understand many of the dialogues because I lacked context. Still I would memorize sentences and repeat to myself.
4. Started writing a blog[]. The one I have currently is 2nd or 3rd one. In the first blog, I wrote primarily about what I knew well - SQL, Vantive etc. So the content was there, I had to only find ways to express it. Even now, I write about what I know or what I learn, so that makes it easier to blog.
: https://jjude.com
5. When I read articles or books, I note down the sentences or phrases I like. I store them in Evernote and re-visit them often. I try to use them in some daily usage.
Next month I will deliver a keynote speech in Azure global bootcamp in my city (Chandigarh). From not able to speak a sentence in English to this, has been a long journey of frustration, encouragement, and satisfaction.
Good luck.
Watching films or television in English, with subtitles in your native language is good advice.
Also it worked well for him. Thus, I assume any method would be met with your derision.
Not to mention there are natural english versions of the Bible, so you are casting that one.
I've known that phrase for...I don't even know how long. But I only learned yesterday that its origin was Biblical. I love how Dan Carlin says "mene mene tekel upharsin" and wanted to read more about it, and made that happy discovery.
Yeah, there are a lot of things like that which people have forgotten the origins of...
The degree to which that is true depends on the translation. The KJV is someone arcane, many others are not. And it's one of the easiest large written corpuses to get your hands on parallel (even if separately published) versions of the same source material in English and whatever language you are coming from, and having a large written parallel corpus to study is probably a very good tool for self-study.
I had very poor English language speaking skills even after I completed my college. I took it as a challenge and made sure I spent at least 15 minutes every day listening English news (I live in India and this was some 20 years ago, so the options were very limited back then) Read English news papers for about 30 minutes, and always noted down new words and their meaning and kept referring to those when I wasn't preoccupied anything else.. .those notes used to stay with me for few days before I threw those away for newer ones. Also, moving to Bangalore helped me a lot because, many of my new friends didn't share my mother tongue so English was our primary communication medium. Thinking about it, it was kinda boring to be honest, I dont know if i will do the same for learning any other language, but I was really motivated to learn English back then so that probably kept me going.
Fluency in language (and all things) comes down to practice. Converse as much as possible in English. And when you can’t find someone to talk with, read read read. Anything and everything, from message boards to magazines to books and more books. It doesn’t matter what about. Just diversify.
It probably helps that I do rubber duck debugging[0] a lot :)
[0]: https://rubberduckdebugging.com/
Also, I would write every single word I did not understand and google it.
Get a browser plugin for quick translations of words you don't know.
Jump in the water and use english. Sadly this can be the easiest and the hardest part because it requires the right circumstances.
TED.com is my favourite channels.
in the end it doesn't really matter if you speak perfect English, most of the English users are not native English speakers and everyone makes mistakes, it's better to communicate with mistakes than being afraid to use language at all
i worked in China with tons of different nationalities with varying levels of English and we could always understand each other, only people who care about grammar are grammar nazis online who are most likely not speaking any foreign language and not own even passport
I think you have to find a "cheat" that immerses you in English as a SECONDARY side effect.
For example find a TV show that you like to watch and understand then sit through it with English subtitles so you can see what you are hearing in written form. As you get better you can turn off the subtitles.
I think the methods that focus on language learning as the primary objective are not successful after you learn the basics. Perhaps because they are too boring or some other reason.
I did morning study and afternoon free, but you could do much more if you wanted, like 6 or 8 hours daily, and even private classes. Besides that we had to do homework, and that could take two hours or more, so be aware of that. Two weeks is a minimum to learn anything, but if you have the money go for at least three or four weeks. Then you set something in motion.
We could stay with local families or in an appartment with other students. With a local family you'll learn a lot more, especially if they don't speak any other language. If you prefer to stay in an appartment, ask for an appartment without people who speak your language. The tendency is to go speak the easiest language, and you're not there to do that.
Have fun! Do all the tours etc. Avoid people who speak your language.
I am Vietnamese and studied English as a second language at 10 years old. I have been living in the US for the last 10 years -- 1/3 of my life. I have very little problems communicating in English now, but I want to give you a glimpse of how confident I am with my English. I used to know a professional interpreter who is not a native speaker either but has got an excellent grip on English. He interpreted for a couple of US presidents on their diplomatic trips. He often commented on my Facebook that my English is shit when I had Facebook. He would poke fun at my misspellings and grammatical errors. I still write, listen, and speak like a machine.
If I remember it correctly, the translator fiend's advice to everyone was always that to read lots of books. His advice to learn to speak English was to go out and talk to the English expats. Many long for a friend, and you might learn a thing or two on the way. He did that when he was 20. I think those are a solid advice.
For me, it was a little bit different. I think a big part of it is that I had an itch to do it. When I was younger, I learned English by reading MSDN + VB manuals because I needed to code. Then for a couple of years in HS, I lead an indie translation project to translate a couple of Harry Potter books to Vietnamese. My schedule was totally fucked up in the summer when the books came out: Sleep in until noon, then at night just translate 1/4 of a chapter or so, or proofread other people's translations until 6 AM. After that project, I wouldn't care if my English is not good anymore, I knew I've dealt with enough shit to not be intimidated by English.
But in general, I think what works best is that you have to have a use for it. If you don't have a use for it, your work doesn't depend on it, then you need to have a hobby in which your English skill is needed to get the work done. Maybe you can make an impact or two along the way. It's just like to learn a new programming language or paradigm.
Like now, I'm a professional HN commentator, and it requires some serious English skill, don't you see ;-)?
Second, listen a lot. Watch movies with original sound and English subtitles. Try to understand, try to make sense of it. If you listen English songs, try to listen a little more attentive.
Then write a lot. Try to take your notes in English. Comment your code in English. Try to comment more into stories or forums around the world.
These three will sharpen you in daily English. You'll become more familiar. Becoming fluent becomes after becoming familiar. As everyone said, also read books, novels in English and take notes, however some books' vocabulary may be drastically different from others (e.g., Both Hyperion Cantos and Ready Player One are SciFi novels, but latter one has a much more accessible English than the former).
Last but not the least, don't focus on your progress. You'll advance inevitably. Just continue doing so, and you'll find yourself much more improved after some time. Fluency is best when it comes with time, and when it's built step by step, it becomes permanent.
The most important point is not forcing yourself to progress, but integrating the language in your life. A foreign language is not an achievement, but a capability (or ability), like programming in another language. You need to integrate into your life, not achieve and set aside. So not forcing is much more healthy IMHO.
And as far as speaking goes, remember that you're using muscles and nerve signals. Just like with any other physical activity, i.e. a sport, it's practice -- doing it -- that improves facility.
I think one of the biggest obstacles in speaking is overcoming the fear of saying something wrong, or not being understood. At least that was the case for me. Once you get over that fear and get a more "I don't give a crap" attitude towards if what you're saying is correct, and instead just say it, you've come a long way and it will help you improve.
Simple version of what I'm trying to convey:
Try to not be afraid to say something wrong, just speak your mind. Don't worry about grammar when you speak. It will come naturally after a while.
Personally I learnt most my spoken English through co-operative computer games and speaking to other players over ventrilo / mumble or in-game voice comms. The fear of saying something wrong or being misunderstood was minimized in this online setting, sitting safely at home but still communicating with real people.
The steps I outlined is how I sharpened my skills after school, during my non-educational life, in a spontaneous manner. I understood these steps years later, and share them whenever there's a chance to share.
I've practiced my speaking skills in the university via presentations, and during my work travels. Also my work requires me to send a lot of English mails, which tend to progress conversation-like. Since they were the things which came to my way rather than I consciously selected, I have no reproducible way of practicing spoken English, so I knowingly omitted those.
I bet you have ugly flaws in your spoken English, although I also bet that your written English is better than many brought up speaking English.
I often deal with tourists, and I detect serious flaws in their speaking as a result of their learning to read and write first (transliteration is a problem too). Common ways of teaching English in schools are deeply flawed IMHO.
Babies and children learn by listening, talking, mimicking, and some correction.
The best late learners of speaking English that I have met, have been those that interact by talking and mimicking, with very little (if any) reading/writing. My favourite was a young Japanese guy that had worked in East London and Australia, and his accent would switch between perfect Cockney and perfect Ocker depending upon where he had learnt a phrase!
Personally, my Spanish only really improved when I had a Spanish speaking girlfriend that didn't want to speak English with me.
Obviously if you mostly interact in English by writing, it doesn't matter.
But if you want to work in a country, you will usually be judged quite negatively if you have a strong accent.
Also clearly not everyone can find a way to talk with native speakers.
Learning by listening to movies and mimicking songs including accent of the singer helps a lot and is fun. (e.g. in my experience Spaniards typically have horrific English due to dubbing films into Spanish, while Portuguese often are way better at English).
Ideally limit reading and limit learning grammar/spelling until after you have a good grasp of the language. That's how all native speakers have done it.
Also, it's harder to memorize information when you read it. Mimicking and speaking is the fastest way to fluency. It turns out that embarrassment or the feeling that you need to improve will help you learn.
I strongly disagree.
Firstly on listening to tourists, some of the worst pronunciation mistakes I hear are because they have learnt the spelling: you can hear mistakes that can only occur if you know the spelling (or are due to use a "general" voicing rule).
This shows up clearly when you are in another country and you tell someone a word for something and they repeat it back to you perfectly. However they often then ask for the spelling, and after you tell them the spelling, their pronunciation changes to something incorrect. Ouch.
Speakers with English as a mother tongue on seeing an unfamiliar word will ask how to pronounce it rather than making educated guesses at how to say it because any rule is often broken, and we learn not to trust our guesses. In fact someone who is well read but mispronounces words (intuited from spelling) is often laughed at.
One further problem that well spoken English is a sign of a good education, and it is often used to judge social status. In a professional job, correct speech helps one a lot. On the flip side you hear tradesman avoid using "correct" speech because they don't want to associate themselves with "suits" (or it is a group identity thing: I am not a ethanographer!).
The result of the above is that most people find it rude to have their speech or spelling corrected because of the implicit "I am better than you". Which means it is difficult to find anyone that will correct your mistakes because most people are polite. The exception is children: they love to correct adults and they often don't mind repeatably correcting pronunciation errors.
Note I think that a child that speaks English learns "rules" for sounding words primely to help identify the spelling of words they already know how to say. A learner may guess at a spelling, but the spelling is then corrected by the teacher.
Stop discouraging people by telling them that your way is the only way.
I disagree - I guess at pronunciations frequently (as a native speaker), and it is a useful skill to be able to do so. For a learner, it may be _helpful_ to ask how to pronounce (especially to avoid reinforcing misconceptions), but I don't think it's a universal rule of English that people ask how to pronounce words. I also find that many of the mispronunciations are regional variations or misconceptions (e.g. hearing Worchester as "War-chester" instead of "Wus-ter", or Yorkshire as "York-shy-er" instead of "York-sha"), so even if you ask, you might not learn the "true"/regionally appropriate pronunciation.
I've also never come across the later -- I know plenty of well-read people (native and non-native) who have made mistakes in pronunciation (such as a friend who read "parser" as "pa-ray-ser"; native speaker) and they are simply corrected, not laughed at.
However, the sound/spelling correspondence is good enough, as I said, and certainly better than in Chinese. Thus, I stand by my position that premature concentration on reading/writing is a bigger problem for Chinese learner than for English learners.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ruize-rijmen/De_Chaos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chaos
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~clamen/misc/humour/TheChaos.html
From my comment: "Limit reading and limit learning grammar/spelling until after you have a good grasp of the language."
You have misquoted me.
I'm not a late learner. I'm exposed to English when I'm ~4 yo, and started to learn it at 7. Also, I cannot learn by mimicking. I listen and read to learn, to understand how the culture is choosing words, how it works in real world. It's a kind of practice.
Because of my Job, I'm talking with Europeans a lot, and I'm considered a very clearly speaking guy. I've some accent which is carried from my mother tongue, but not from mimicking English dialects.
My English education wasn't purely language education. Whole curriculum was in English, so there was no place for mimicking. We were forced to think in English. The language is integrated into our lives for 6+ years. As a result, I can write at the speed of speech. Also while initial spellings are given as complete words, pronunciation is taught to us. So I can reasonably read or speak a work I've never seen.
When I go abroad to attend some meetings, I cannot completely switch to my mother tongue (both in spoken voice and inner voice) when I land for 30 minutes or so.
However, this is not to dismiss your comment as moot or anything, I'll keep this in mind. Thanks for the heads up.
> listen a little more attentive
attentively
> will sharpen you in daily English
"sharpen" should be applied to the skill, not the person? ("sharpen your daily English")
> Becoming fluent becomes after becoming familiar.
"becomes after" sounds weird. Maybe "follows" or "comes".
> very clearly speaking guy
clear speaking
But I think the most glaring issue is the way you use commas (lots of unnecessary commas, comma splices, and parallel structure violations).
All of this is beyond grammar nazi-ing since some of these are just word choices that I would've made differently rather than grammatical errors. Again, I am also non-native.
Possibly depends on the dialect. "Sharpen your skills" is probably more common, but applying it to the person (e.g. "This will sharpen you up") sounds fine to me as a British English speaker (though if specifying a specific skill in the same sentence you probably wouldn't use that form).
> But I think the most glaring issue is the way you use commas (lots of unnecessary commas, comma splices, and parallel structure violations).
Definitely true, but that can also be a trait of some native speakers, FWIW. Some of my sentences have a ton of unneeded commas and "loose" clauses when I first write them, until I refactor them to make them more correct. It's certainly not exclusive to non-native speakers.
Most of the commas I use (before the "and" & "or"s) are Oxford Commas which dictates to use a comma before the conjunction if the sentences are separable. If the sentences are separable you don't use the comma. A more general rule is explained in [0].
My juries of my Master's and Ph.D. were very strict in this manner so I learned it the hard way. Now it's hardwired in my brain. Honestly I may be over using them, and will write more carefully.
[0] https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/30516/should-i-u...
You seem to be confusing the Oxford (or serial) comma [0] used after the penultimate item of a list with the rule on comma + conjunction (or semicolon with no conjunction) separating independent clauses as opposed to a bare conjunction separating dependent clauses.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma
Thanks for clarifying these up. Will keep these in mind too.
uh....this guy's English is really excellent. it may be distinguishable from a native speaker by occasional poor phrasing or misuse of words, but it's really, really good. i think your criticism is overblown.
There is no shame in not being 100% fluent. I'm multi-semi-lingual, in that I can read a newspaper, shop at a store, etc. in several languages. But I am only fluent in English. When I speak something else, my friends will frequently correct me. I appreciate it, because that is the only way to improve.
Your notions about language proficiency are wildly out of whack. The speaker you're talking about is clearly articulating their ideas, coherently and without (one presumes) halting or grasping. That's fluency.
You might be interested in http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale5.htm as an example of the scales used when defining levels of competency.
For me, my experience is two years as an English teacher and my opinion based on that experience is that someone who can convey complex ideas clearly and without effort is fluent. If you define that to be intermediate, what's left for "fluent" to mean?
http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale2.htm
Based on the criteria given, I would estimate that his English writing ability is ~2+. Without hearing him speak, I can't properly assess. Perhaps a 3.
None of this is a criticism or a put down. Achieving this degree of competency in a second or third language takes a great deal of work over a long time, and is something to be proud of. But true fluency happens at level 4 and above.
(My father was a professional linguist and diplomat, and I spent much of my pre-adult life living in different non-English-speaking countries. I say this just so you know where I am coming from. I also want to spread awareness of what the various professional standards of fluency are.)
As for subjective rankings, I'm more familiar with CEFR, under which I see no obvious reason not to rank this person C1 or C2, which is what one would expect for someone with more than 800-1000 hours of study.
CEFR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...
I'm sure you are aware of people that have spent decades+ in an English-speaking environment, yet still speak in a stilted manner. Time alone isn't enough- you need active correction. A few folks are able to self-correct via listening, but almost everyone does best with regular instruction by qualified teachers.
Thank you for the CEFR link.
Part of the problem with English in particular (I am sure you are aware of this, I am just stating it for other readers) is that the number of ESL speakers exceeds the native population. This rather unusual case means that many learners are receiving instruction from English speakers who themselves are not fluent, compounding the error. From a strictly academic standpoint, it is fascinating tracing the growth of all the different flavors of English (some mutually unintelligible) but it does present certain practical difficulties in communication!
Again, the standard you're applying is unreasonable. English doesn't have any One True dialect - it's spoken natively in various ways, some of which sound stilted to you. I went to college with a guy from Malaysia whose speech you'd likely find highly stilted (or I did, anyway), yet English was his first language - the only language he used with his parents, the only language he ever used in school, etc. That is what it is - a person can be fluent or native and still sound stilted to you. You may well sound stilted to them!
This is why the rankings you linked don't use such language - they talk about whether someone can use complex grammatical structures clearly and without effort, and so forth, and when judging someone's fluency that's the sort of standard to apply. Saying they sound stilted just says that their English doesn't sound the way you expect correct English to sound, which is neither here nor there.
These tense changes happen when I change the structure of the comment in my head in the real time, and don't revisit the beginning of the sentence to align things back.
When I read them for the second time after I send, I spot the errors, but don't always correct them since they are online and intended people possibly read the comment already.
Maybe I should write a little slower while commenting, and read again before sending.
It's not. He didn't even use the right tense in the first clause. It should be: I've been exposed to English since I was 4 years old, and started to learn it at 7.
His English is certainly perfectly understandable, but also 'a very long way from a native speaker'.
It has very good vocabulary, but a whole lot of verb tense and subject-verb disagreement errors, and use of the wrong parts of speech in ways which are (especially combined with the excellent vocabulary) very emblematic of a non-native English speaker who either learned late or learned early but had much of their use of English with other non-native speakers.
Now, it's very good for someone with either of those backgrounds (and much better than my command of any language that isn't English), but the upthread comment that it is very far from that of a native speaker is spot on.
I told that to two people. Both of them had very thick accents. 6 months after watching, they lost their accents.
The movies are inspirational and full of guidance. And they are funny.
When I start to read everyday and watch series with english subtitles, I fell that I was moving forward.
I need to focus on writing and conversation.
Something I've heard over and over is that using subtitles actually stunts your growth, because it's too easy to fall back on instead of making sense of what you hear.
English audio/English subtitles is fine. Assuming you are French, English audio/French subtitles is bad. French audio/English subtitles is also bad but not as bad as the previous combination.
The reason is that if you have subtitles in your native language, you will tend to just focus your brain on reading them and kind of ignore the audio portion.
IMO it's good advice. When I do it, I inevitably wind up looking for and finding differences between the audio and text, thinking about how I might have translated things differently, and so on.
You can read 10 years and won't be fluent. You can watch for 10 years and won't learn a thing. I've been watching Japanese animes before high school. Do I speak Japanese, no! Only 10 or so words.
One thing that cements this the fact grammar is something that's not absolute.
Again from experience, very important, you can take 5 semester of esl courses and still sound like you came over here last month.
I had a lot of problems understanding people for a while and there watching movies and listening to radio helped.
Practice or study with native speakers is valuable because native speakers have a "native speaker intuition" to quickly and confidently resolve uncertainties about how to say things. On the other hand, if people haven't studied linguistics or language teaching, they might not be able to explain why they say things a certain way (because we all know and use rules in our native languages that we've never thought about consciously and never tried to explain). So you shouldn't assume that native speakers will always be able to give you helpful explanations of why they chose one way of saying something over another.
I followed up with Day of the Tentacle for which the complete Full Talkie was only in English (the French one had only partial voice over in English) and since it was so hot at the time to listen to voices in games I really wanted to get that experience, so again, I went for it. It was much more involved as DotT relies on wittiness and humor a lot, so that was definitely a step up. By the end of it I was really getting good at listening instead of just reading the English subs.
From then on I got lots and lots of exposure from movies and TV shows because I began to catch how flawed or lacking some of the French dubs were for the stuff I watched.
The missing part was speaking, and for this I happened to be repeatedly tasked with preparing and presenting some stuff in English class. The key points being: "repeatedly", like, a lot (once a week for three years) and "preparing" which really helps in progressing (you can't realistically be expected to wing it at talking if you only were doing "passive" activities like reading and listening) because I had to both write and rehearse presenting beforehand, which are both "active" tasks.
The "fluent" part then comes out as the sum of all this experience.
(Also, at some point I switched all of my OS/software/phone to English. Little tidbits like this mean I was faced with English every single days for the most trivial things, so that it just becomes second nature)
(Also also, getting involved in online communities, but not lurking: interacting instead, stepping right outside the comfort zone.)
This forces you to simplify concepts to get your point straight at first, then pushes you to ampliate your vocabulary.
Learned Portuguese in 1 year this way.
For me, what did the trick was actually going to a advanced spoken English course where I lived (I was already very proficient with written English): what we were doing most of the time was just discussing things in English, with the supervision and help of our teacher. Among my best "investments".
Today, you could probably find something online, but I'm not sure if it would be as useful.
To be more precise, at least for me, this thinking language system seems to be heavily influenced by learning. I've been doing most of my thinking in English for the last decade or so, and most of the things I've learned during this time are stored in my head in English. [1] However my earlier life lessons are still in my memories in my original native tounge. This is interesting because I started learning English more than 25 years ago, but even things I consumed in English got translated and stored in memory in my native language.
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[1] Of course there are more factors in play than just thinking in English. I've also been better than ever in English and English media makes up for a larger percentage than ever in my total consumed media. I'm sure all of these and more have played a role, in addition to changing my inner dialogue language, in storing my memories in English now.
First job in the states my coworkers weren’t really talkative. I used to go to a stripclub during the weekends. Trust me your brain will be more than motivated to learn english when you need to talk to half nudes girls haha.
Tip well.
Then I bet you know the difference between a violin and a fiddle.
A violin has strings; a fiddle has strangs.
I think I started out pretty well from school and my mom videotaping some "learn english show" on TV when I was a kid - but once I got my first computer and had to read stuff about problems online in English.. well that helped a lot. I've also been on IRC for like 17 years now, reading and writing at least 50% in English. Reading books in English is really good once you can make enough sense of it (not so useful if you have to look up all the words - but I still did that for a while). Children's books for age ~10-12 are really good for this imho, they're usually not so complicated and can still have meaningful content (think more Harry Potter, less Teletubbies).
The final "wow, this helps a lot" was working in a company where the official language was English and thus using it for hours, daily, and we also had some folks with bad/non-existant German skills. I was lucky to sit next to a native speaker for a while who also shared a lot of my interests, so we were talking a lot about.. stuff in downtimes.