Ask HN: How did you become fluent in English?

I think I’ve learned the most from listening to podcasts. I would recommend Hello Internet for the conversational nature of their “two dudes talking” genre and the show’s impecable audio quality.

I'm a native speaker, but one of my roommates didn't know much English when I met him. After about a year, he was 70% fluent in English. Coming to America and making friends is pivotal in learning English.

Firstly, be immersed in the culture of the language you're trying to learn. It's easier to learn English if everyone around you speaks it. The social pressure to learn it will trump your own motivation. You will be motivated to learn English if you want to interact with people.

Secondly, work with native speakers on a project that has nothing to do with learning English. Find something you find interesting and find native speakers with similar interests. We worked on a side project, and he was learning English and programming at the same time. We were doing something fun, and it helped him pick up the language faster.

Finally, watch English comedies with your native English friends, ask them to put on subtitles. We watched Silicon Valley (HBO) and he started to get the jokes pretty quickly. It helps to have a sense of humor. If you're new to English, your English friends will find some of your sentences funny, and that's a good thing. Laugh with them and learn more.

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.

On my first year of college at home (Saudi Arabia), we had what they call orientation year which consists of intensive English and math courses. I talked to our English instructor asking him if I could stop by his office everyday during his office hours for a casual chat to improve my conversational English, and he kindly agreed. I spent a semester doing that, and picked up his Scottish accent along the way :D

The following year I travelled to the US for school. My first year in the US had minor improvement in my English fluency because I was mostly hanging out with a group of Saudis. Later that year I learned about a local group started by an ESL teacher called English Conversation Club. They have multiple groups during the week of US Americans hosting meetings at their houses, inviting internationals for casual conversations, playing games, and making friends to improve the conversational English and learn about the different cultures. They also hold parties throughout the year for the different holidays (e.g. 4th of July, Christmas, etc.). At the time, they had 3 different group meeting during the week, and I went to all of them. I also took time to reflect on the conversations on my way back from the meetings (noting misspeeches, word-choice, etc.).

During that time, I learn that the on-campus speech clinic offers accent reduction services, and they offer 50% discount for students. I took those sessions for 9 months until the therapist decided that I have reached an acceptable level.

These were the major players in improving my fluency, in addition to reading, writing, and paying attention to conversations in movies and TV shows.

If you haven’t named this technique yet, I’d suggest “The Atlanta Method”!