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Ask HN: I’m already fluent in English. How can I improve further?

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Re: Ask HN: I’m already fluent in English. How can I improve further?

#51

Post by Lio »

ganonm wrote: post #26

I am going to suggest you watch a few episodes of 'Only Fools and Horses'. It's an 80s sitcom set in Peckham, South London. The show is practically considered a national treasure in the UK and most people who grew up in the UK are very familiar with it. The reason I suggest it is that it showcases a very particular dialect of British English that many people struggle with (even native English speakers) if they aren't…

Although not as good as Only Fools, I’d also throw in ‘Ello ‘Ello.

The show, set in occupied WW2 France, represents different languages by using English in different accents.

A character to particularly look out for is the British secret agent disguised as a French gendarmes. He is able to “blend in” because he “spokes prefect Fronch”.

It’s a great illustration of how much you can mangle English and still be understood ...and is also quite funny.

Re: Ask HN: I’m already fluent in English. How can I improve further?

#52

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Correction in your last para:

"If you spot out..." should be "If you spot anything you might have..."

"Articulated" doesn't quite work because the past tense shades towards meaning "movable with joints" instead of "express." I'd have gone with the simpler "said differently."

Honestly, it gets really tough at this level, because native speakers learn these shades of meaning - if they learn them at all - through years of exposure and practice. A lot of them are just conventions. There's no dictionary or textbook for them. They're just standardised language quirks which everyone knows and copies.

I would not suggest you learn by reading the great English prose stylists, because a lot of the stylings are archaic. It's great writing and can be entertaining and enjoyable, but it's not a prose style you want to emulate because it will sound stuffy and pompous in a modern context.

See also: "social register." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_(sociolinguistics)

Instead I'd buy a shelf full of novels by 20th century and later writers. Orwell is always good, but also Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, Don DeLillo, Iain Banks, maybe Thomas Pynchon at a stretch. Definitely Terry Pratchett and JK Rowling. Among many others.

Don't just read them, see if you can understand how they use social register to set tone and define character in different social contexts.

For day to day English your best bet is probably the magazine industry. Regular reading of tech magazines and wider cultural and political commentary will help a lot.

Re: Ask HN: I’m already fluent in English. How can I improve further?

#53

Post by PeterEFox »

Don't worry. Many native British people don't know what a preposition is and as for those Colonials across the Atlantic, I give up!

Rather than attempt perfect grammar (if there is such a thing), I recommend you find a writing/speaking style you find comfortable with. This might mean using interesting idioms (where most natives would use cliches) or 'talking in writing'. Consider these two alternatives:- (a) Use short sentences. (b) Here's a thing you could try. Brief sentences with just one thing in them at a time.

Vocabulary will always help, but sources can be peculiar (dumbed-down or deliberately off-centre) or jarringly out of date.

All in all, people are more interested in what you have to say than picking out silly non-conformities. Read a few news or Wikepedia articles in English you might fancy comparing with Hebrew to get the flow of sentences.

Good luck. Good reading. Good writing. Good conversation.

Re: Ask HN: I’m already fluent in English. How can I improve further?

#54

Post by JPLeRouzic »

eythian wrote: post #33
shrikant wrote: post #19

> The only option I could think of is living in an English speaking country, but that currently not an option. Speaking from personal experience, I think all this will do is change your speech patterns and modulate your accent ever so slightly. You likely read/write English better than a native English speaker already. Some of the language/grammar I've encountered from my English colleagues in both formal and informa…

> You likely read/write English better than a native English speaker already. Kinda by definition this can't be correct. English is defined by what the native speakers speak. It might be that sometimes how they say things doesn't match up to how you were taught was correct, but it is likely to be correct for their dialect.

>> English is defined by what the native speakers speak.

What about regional accents? For a non native speaker of English, understanding English as spoken in Scotland is a challenge. And I heard people born in UK complaining they had sometimes difficulties with American English (for example with real life/social things). This without speaking of people from India who speak an English which is slightly different from US' or UK's English (and equally valuable and "native").

So I guess a definition of "native speaker" is a bit difficult.

Re: Ask HN: I’m already fluent in English. How can I improve further?

#55

Post by DoreenMichele »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #52

Correction in your last para: "If you spot out..." should be "If you spot anything you might have..." "Articulated" doesn't quite work because the past tense shades towards meaning "movable with joints" instead of "express." I'd have gone with the simpler "said differently." Honestly, it gets really tough at this level, because native speakers learn these shades of meaning - if they learn them at all - through years…

"Articulated" doesn't quite work because the past tense shades towards meaning "movable with joints" instead of "express."

That didn't even cross my mind. That's probably "an engineer's perspective" so to speak.

These days, lots of words have different meanings to different people, depending upon the context of their lives, and it's getting really hard to treat anything as a lingua franca, even English which gets called "globish," because we have so many people with such rich and varied knowledge bases who use the same words to mean different things entirely.

I do agree that said is the better word, but mostly because it's shorter and more common and not because there is much risk of it being misinterpreted, given the context.

Re: Ask HN: I’m already fluent in English. How can I improve further?

#56

Post by tym0 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #34

My mother told me that watching TV in English made a big impact on her English fluency. Knowing which preposition to use is sometimes challenging. Prepositions are one of the hardest things to translate. Sometimes, translating it one way gives it a different meaning than you intended and other times it really doesn't but wouldn't be the "common" usage. To give an example, my sister was going on about people translati…

While "flight of death" is slightly nonsensical, "Flight from death" is just wrong, "Vol" can mean a flight in the sense of flying but not in the sense of fleeing.

Edit: I just realised you might have meant that translated literally it makes more sense in English.

Re: Ask HN: I’m already fluent in English. How can I improve further?

#57

Post by DoreenMichele »

tym0 wrote: post #56
DoreenMichele wrote: post #34

My mother told me that watching TV in English made a big impact on her English fluency. Knowing which preposition to use is sometimes challenging. Prepositions are one of the hardest things to translate. Sometimes, translating it one way gives it a different meaning than you intended and other times it really doesn't but wouldn't be the "common" usage. To give an example, my sister was going on about people translati…

While "flight of death" is slightly nonsensical, "Flight from death" is just wrong, "Vol" can mean a flight in the sense of flying but not in the sense of fleeing. Edit: I just realised you might have meant that translated literally it makes more sense in English.

Yes.

In the context of looking for Easter Eggs and hidden meanings in the Harry Potter books, "flight from death" makes more sense.

I don't actually know the proper usage of vol in French. My sister supplied that information and, obviously, she knows less French than I do. My example was just intended to illustrate that de can be translated as either from or of and sometimes which one you use completely changes the meaning in English and sometimes it doesn't.

Re: Ask HN: I’m already fluent in English. How can I improve further?

#58

Post by stevekemp »

ganonm wrote: post #26

I am going to suggest you watch a few episodes of 'Only Fools and Horses'. It's an 80s sitcom set in Peckham, South London. The show is practically considered a national treasure in the UK and most people who grew up in the UK are very familiar with it. The reason I suggest it is that it showcases a very particular dialect of British English that many people struggle with (even native English speakers) if they aren't…

I was going to suggest something similar; listening/watching English TV which doesn't have the received-pronounciation.

Other good choices would be "Yes Minister" (original series), "Fawlty Towers", and for extra-credit you should absolutely try to watch "Rab C. Nesbitt" (which is set in Glasgow.

I'd suggest that Only Fools & Horses (after the second/third series) is pretty understandable to all British people, but a lot more would struggle with the Scottish accents.

Here's a brief sample, and another Scottish themed comedy sketch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k7VoFiagfs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMS2VnDveP8

Re: Ask HN: I’m already fluent in English. How can I improve further?

#59

Post by leemailll »

you don't give specific area you want to improve, but your words sound like you might want to improve written or some type of formal communications. I think those recordings at Oyez might be an interest choice. Listen the recordings while read the transcript on screen. It is a mix of both formally written and quick verbal exchanges. And some of the recordings are really interesting and informative. If you prefer reading, I suggest ALDaily, hand-chosen light reads everyday, covers many fields of literacy, and well-writen.

Re: Ask HN: I’m already fluent in English. How can I improve further?

#60

Post by jjgreen »

iwangulenko wrote: post #11

Study "The Elements of Style" ( https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk-... ), a classic on better writing. It will teach you about how to really write for the reader and not for yourself.

Aside, for years PEP8 included the phrase "When writing English, Strunk and White apply", which used to drive me up the wall ...
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