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Advanced English: How to progress? | ||
Tags: Advanced Level | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4073 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes  Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 1 of 16 16 February 2014 at 2:52am | IP Logged |
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My English is decent, however it is not good enough. How does one progress beyond a 15-
16 year old native level (the typical level of newspapers, websites, hollywood) without taking collegiate classes? I am thinking of reading some fiction for improving English - which authors would you recommend? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7196 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 2 of 16 16 February 2014 at 9:21am | IP Logged |
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Novels are more challenging that newspapers, so that seems like you have a good idea. There are a lot of audiobooks in English as well. Some great books I read in high school have a regional dialect. Would that be something you would be okay with or would prefer to avoid right now? How old are you and what sort of books do you enjoy most?
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| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4073 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 3 of 16 16 February 2014 at 4:18pm | IP Logged |
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Regional dialect books would be fine. I am middle aged. The books I have been reading
recently have tended to be on the current events and science side of things, these would be my first preference (but I am not sure these books are the best for improving my English). For fiction, I enjoy SF, detective novels, adventure. I used to read Asimov, Agatha Cristie, Alistair MacLean, Michael Crichton. I like fantasy and historical novels the least (eg., LOTR). However, if something has exceptionally good diction, I can slog it out regardless of genre. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4379 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 4 of 16 16 February 2014 at 6:19pm | IP Logged |
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I would use books/audiobooks that you find interesting and also radio podcasts . There are lots of
programms about lots of different topics both on bbc radio and npr . 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6694 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 16 17 February 2014 at 12:23pm | IP Logged |
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I also prefer documentaries and scientific magazines and all that, and it is clear that you learn other words and expressions from this kind of material than from novels (fewer imperative forms, fewer 1. and 2. person forms, less slang). But it all comes down to what you want from your language studies.
If you want to have lots of informal conversations with native speakers then that would point in the direction of literature with such conversations - plus a lot of practical training. But I mostly speak to hotel people, people I meet in museums and zoos and people in shops, and there it isn't strictly necessary that I know all the newest slang expressions or the names of local celebrities. In contrast, it is practical for me to know the names for things from the past in the places I visit so for me learning some halfway antiquated vocabulary wouldn't be a bad idea. Or some scientific vocabulary, but this is less of a problem as it normally is quite internationalized. The advice about dialectal sources is of course relevant for both types of learners. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| PeteP Newbie United States Joined 5028 days ago 27 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Romanian | Message 6 of 16 17 February 2014 at 5:13pm | IP Logged |
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Gemuse, you might like novels by Dan Brown (DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons, and a few
others.) They are long novels with VERY short chapters (a page or 2 or 3). They have lots of dialogue, and audiobooks are easily available. Also, many of the books have been made into movies. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 DavidStyles Octoglot Pro Member United Kingdom Joined 3932 days ago 82 posts - 179 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, French, Portuguese, Norwegian Studies: Mandarin, Russian, Swedish, Danish, Serbian, Arabic (Egyptian) Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 16 17 February 2014 at 11:54pm | IP Logged |
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You asked about fiction, and I will answer that, but first:
You may benefit from the learning materials for the "Cambridge Advanced English" certificate, commonly abbreviated to CAE. Whether or not you want to actually get the certificate is up to you, but the textbooks will help you get your English to a standard higher than that held by the majority of native English speakers. Now, about fiction, the authors you mention are certainly all great. In the category of fantasy, you may like Stephen Donaldson, who was much compared to Tolkien in his day. In the category of crime, maybe Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" stories. For sci-fi and detective rolled into one, perhaps Douglas Adams' "Dirk Gently" series of books, depending on your opinions regards English humour - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Gently#Novels - though, while Adams is respected as a very popular writer, the English is generally much more simple than that of many of the above authors, and certainly not beyond that of a native 15-16 year old, as you hope for in your initial post. Even with the other recommendations I made above, I suppose it depends on the native 15-16 year old in question :s I don't think anything English would have challenged me at that age. Your profile says "Speaks: English, Studies: German". What is your native language? Edited by DavidStyles on 18 February 2014 at 12:00am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5253 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 8 of 16 18 February 2014 at 3:24am | IP Logged |
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Despite the clunky nature of the forum software, it is relatively easy to edit the languages. Just click on a language under your name in a post ("speaks" or "studies") while you're logged on and then click on "edit" and change the languages to "speaks" or "studies". It does help us when giving advice to know which is the native language and which is the target language. Edited by iguanamon on 18 February 2014 at 3:25am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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