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Ask HN: time-efficient ways to improve English for non-natives?

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Re: Ask HN: time-efficient ways to improve English for non-natives?

#11

Post by andreasklinger »

andreasklinger wrote: post #6
davidw wrote: post #2

The "easiest" thing would be to live somewhere where you speak English with native speakers on a regular basis.

as said. i am moving to london. and spoken language is not the problem. its about mistakes in writing. spelling and grammar

Yes you are right about the part about the accent. I missunderstood your argument.

Actually i am not doing it on purpose. I just got used over the years to write small-letters in forums/comments and email. Maybe you are right to make this kind of a starting point.

Re: Ask HN: time-efficient ways to improve English for non-natives?

#12

Post by andreasklinger »

fatmike182 wrote: post #7

You'll stumble upon so many biz partners in London that will surprise you with much worse accents. Big cities demand funny accents - so we Austrians are safe… Just pay attention to the tones and stresses in conversations with Brits & try hard to notice the differences. Changing from American English to British feels a bit ridiculous if you're not used to it (overpronunciation?). edit: btw: http://www.dict.cc shows tr…

The permanent overdose of US Media makes UK English really sound different. You are right about that ;)

Unfort. most of the online learning material is by far too low. If you have any other suggestions let me know!

Re: Ask HN: time-efficient ways to improve English for non-natives?

#13

Post by andreasklinger »

pmoehring wrote: post #8

Your fellow Seedcamp company www.wordy.com would help you on a written basis - check the feedback you receive and learn from it. Being here in London, reading english books and newspapers, and going to the movies will also help. Disclosure: I work at Seedcamp...

Actually i did that approach already. (Although not with wordy but a native PR professional)

This would basically mean writing regulary articles and getting them checked with wordy. Interesting approach but i would prefer a system that shows me instantly errors i do.

Re: Ask HN: time-efficient ways to improve English for non-natives?

#14

Post by davidw »

andreasklinger wrote: post #11
andreasklinger wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as said. i am moving to london. and spoken language is not the problem. its about mistakes in writing. spelling and grammar

Yes you are right about the part about the accent. I missunderstood your argument. Actually i am not doing it on purpose. I just got used over the years to write small-letters in forums/comments and email. Maybe you are right to make this kind of a starting point.

(You missed the 'reply' link)

Yes, that definitely looks better! The fact is that you will surely make a few errors, so not capitalizing and the other 'intentional' errors compound those that naturally creep in, making the whole thing look like a big mess.

Re: Ask HN: time-efficient ways to improve English for non-natives?

#15

Post by alinajaf »

My preferred way of gaining a good intuitive feel for a language is to read tons of published written material (print magazines, books etc). The language is edited and proofread so you're guaranteed a level of correctness.

This trains your mental 'correct-language-pattern-matching-AI' with a constant stream of correct examples to compare all your produced language with, and for me at least, has been the best long-term method of producing correct target language (in my case Japanese).

The idea is that you constantly expose yourself to what correct language sounds like, and based on the accumulated experience of reading those you can have an intuitive feel for when a bit of produced language is wrong or right.

tldr: read more!

Re: Ask HN: time-efficient ways to improve English for non-natives?

#16

Post by Vargas »

Spaniard in London with the same problem here.

The BEST on-line material is BBC's "The sound of English" http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pr... Just watch it and practise with a mirror many, many, many times and you will improve.

If you are willing to spend some money, I recommend doing an elocution "soften your accent" course. I did it a couple of years ago (sorry, don't remember the name of the company, it was close to St. Pancras Station) and I improved a lot.

Pay special attention to "intonation patterns". Even if you make every individual sound right, natives will have trouble understanding you. You have to make all sounds in a sentence flow together in one of the few predefined sound patterns found in British English in order to get understood. Just changing the intonation pattern changes the meaning, even in the same phrase.

Example: 'I like YOUR new blue dress' vs. 'I like your new BLUE dress' vs. 'I like your new blue DRESS'.

Re: Ask HN: time-efficient ways to improve English for non-natives?

#18

Post by andreasklinger »

Vargas wrote: post #16

Spaniard in London with the same problem here. The BEST on-line material is BBC's "The sound of English" http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pr... Just watch it and practise with a mirror many, many, many times and you will improve. If you are willing to spend some money, I recommend doing an elocution "soften your accent" course. I did it a couple of years ago (sorry, don't remember the name of…

Thanks a lot for your feedback.

I really like the idea of the "soften your accent" course.

Re: Ask HN: time-efficient ways to improve English for non-natives?

#19

Post by andreasklinger »

Vargas wrote: post #16

Spaniard in London with the same problem here. The BEST on-line material is BBC's "The sound of English" http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pr... Just watch it and practise with a mirror many, many, many times and you will improve. If you are willing to spend some money, I recommend doing an elocution "soften your accent" course. I did it a couple of years ago (sorry, don't remember the name of…

Found one that looks interesting - maybe it helps other HN users as well:

http://www.londonspeechworkshop.com/our-courses/dates-and-pr...

Do you have any other recommendations maybe?

Re: Ask HN: time-efficient ways to improve English for non-natives?

#20

Post by DanielStraight »

davidw wrote: post #14
andreasklinger wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you are right about the part about the accent. I missunderstood your argument. Actually i am not doing it on purpose. I just got used over the years to write small-letters in forums/comments and email. Maybe you are right to make this kind of a starting point.

(You missed the 'reply' link) Yes, that definitely looks better! The fact is that you will surely make a few errors, so not capitalizing and the other 'intentional' errors compound those that naturally creep in, making the whole thing look like a big mess.

Agreed. If you don't bother to follow the rules you already know, how do you expect to learn more?

It's not like native speakers don't have problems writing correctly. At one point, I couldn't spell the word "necessary" to save my life. One day I decided I would simply refuse to write any word I didn't know how to spell without looking it up. Now I can spell almost every word I know without looking it up. I got a D (a very bad grade) on my first college essay. On every other essay I wrote, I made absolutely certain I wasn't making the same mistakes. I got a B+ (second-best grade) or A (best grade) on every essay after that.

Aside from that, I would say immersion is the best thing you can do. Immersion, not language courses, is how native speakers learn to speak like natives. Devote an hour (or more) a day to reading modern English fiction and an hour (or more) to reading modern English non-fiction. Write about what you read. Ask native speakers to review what you've written. Don't just ask them to find mistakes, ask them to rephrase anything that sounds awkward how they would say it. Fluency is imitation. What you want is to say things the way a native speaker would say them, not just to say them grammatically correctly.

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