Even if they’re just tourists, invite them to dinner! They get a meal, you get an English lesson. Advertise on Craigslist. Take a class and get buddy-buddy with your teacher. Offer a language exchange. They’re hiding out there somewhere!
Watch people. Watch how their mouths form the words. Watch how emotion is communicated. Watch where the emphasis goes on certain sentences and how that provides context. Apart from just deciphering their words, take notice of the humor, the feeling, and the formality they employ.
They will be patient with you – don’t worry! You just gotta be patient with yourself. It’s much less frustrating to speak to someone who you understand even though they’re speaking slowly than to speak to someone you don’t understand at all. Speaking quickly isn’t impressive if your tongue gets all jumbly.
A great idea is to get a book on tape, record yourself reading an excerpt from it (or mimicking the narrator), and comparing yourself to the recording. That way you can do it over and over until you get it right! When that’s a bit too much effort, just read your books aloud. You’ll score points on your reading skills and your speaking skills. Half the battle is just getting comfortable with the words!
There are specialized classes you can take, too. Accent reduction classes, business English classes, tourism classes, heck, sometimes even food classes. If you see something that interests you (let’s face it, sometimes grammar doesn’t cut it), go for it! You may learn more than you think.
Heck, talk to yourself in English. Narrate your actions. While you’re washing the dishes, say what you’re doing, thinking, or feeling. It sounds a little silly (if you get caught!), but it keeps your brain thinking in English before your first language, which is huge. Once you can do that, the rest is just keeping it up.
Heck, call up an English hotline. Call up Nike and ask about their sneakers. Call a phone company and make small talk about phone plans. Start a blog. Set your OS to English. Play WoW. Get into English chat rooms. There are ALWAYS opportunities to be had.
So the next time someone says, “Do you want to pass me that bag?” and you hear, “Djuwanapassmethabag?” you’re not going crazy. Between that and all the “like,” “uh,” and “umm,” you run into it could drive a person crazy. So when you get in the listening zone, remind yourself: it’s slang time.
And the more you hear a specific individual talk, the easier it is to understand them. English has so many accents you may find yourself not understanding someone and wondering why. Be patient! Your mind will get used to their accent in time. English-speaking people have to adjust for each other all the time.
Even having the radio on in the background is helpful, just to keep your mind in the English zone. But the best case scenario is getting a movie and watching it over and over until your mind stops having to worry about understanding and instead can concentrate on the little things, like intonation and slang. And watching TV shows where you have the same characters over and over so you get used to their speech. In other words: repetition.
If that’s not a possibility, find some friends who all want to practice their English. Though practicing this language with non-native speakers isn’t ideal, it’s definitely way better than nothing. You’ll be less nervous speaking it in front of them and you can learn from each others’ strengths.
Stick to songs that are slow and clear. The Beatles and Elvis are two great places to start, though modern music is good, too – just aim for the ballads; they’re usually the easiest to understand. Rap can wait till later.
Keep it all in one place. Having a notebook or binder dedicated to your English work will keep you organized and motivated. The better you get, the easier it will be to see your progress. You can look back and marvel at how bad you used to be and how awesome you are now.
The Internet. It’s amazing; it really is. Sites like italki. com and lang-8 can correct your work for free! Don’t get off wikiHow just yet, but do keep those sites in mind. A friend. Obviously. But the great thing about writing is that you can email your friend and wherever they are, they can get it, correct it, and get it back to you. So whether they’re a mile away or in the middle of Canada, progress can be had.
A good idea is to start learning collocations. That’s a fancy term for words that go together. “Get married” is useful, but “get married to someone” is even better – that way you know not to say “get married with. " If you said you “received a cold,” you’d receive some funny looks – but not if you said you “caught a cold. " See how that works?
Unless you are a 15-year-old girl texting her friends, text speak is not okay. “You” is “you,” not “u. " “For” is not “4. " “2” means something very different than “to” or “too. " You won’t be winning any medals for writing like that.
Anki is flashcard software. Similar things can be found on websites like Memrise, too. You can basically quiz yourself. OneLook is a type of dictionary that can find words for you, define them, and translate. You only need the, cough cough, one look. It also has a reverse dictionary where you can type in the concept instead! Visuwords creates word map visualizations, connecting the word you search with similar, associated words or words that collocate with it. Great way to expand your vocabulary! Similar to Visuwords, Merriam Webster has a “visual dictionary. " If you type in “tire,” it will show you a tire, with words pointing to every little detail of it from “tread” to “bead wire. " Englishforums is a great place to pose questions and talk to speakers. It’s basically message board after message board of English-related questions.
Once you’ve corrected a piece, try to write something the next day that builds upon the mistakes you’ve corrected. This way you can prove to yourself that you’ve improved and actually notice the mistakes you’re not making anymore. You’ll get better and build your confidence. Bonus.
