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How to improve spoken English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4038 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes  Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 1 of 29 08 January 2014 at 11:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi all!
I have a question about an issue that is really bothering me. It's about my spoken English. Since the last five years I watch videos only in English and read books only in English. The first time I had a real conversation it was to my job interview to come in the Netherlands! But now I use English every day at work and also with friends but since the last 4 months I'm not improving anymore... I am still painfully slow while talking and still missing the h sound with words that start for h or adding a h in words that don't begin with that letter. Also I would like to learn the British accent but it seems to me the most difficult thing to do in the world... What can I do? All the people I know reached a level of no more improvements and they are cool with this, but for me C1 passive and b1/b2 active is absolutely not enough... Thank you 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6894 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 2 of 29 09 January 2014 at 12:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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Look for special pronunciation textbooks (with CDs). I think there is a decent book from the "In Use" series, and one with a title "Sheep or ship" or something similar. And there are dozens of other methods... As I focused on American English, I can't give you more specific advice.
I can't say I am happy with my accent in English but I do think I have made significant improvement, and this would certainly not be possible with audio input only, as my pronunciation was - and to some extent still is - full of fossilized mistakes, wrong phonemes, wrong intonation patterns etc. Using a book that points out difficulties and helps you to deal with your problems - one at a time - can be of immense help (combined with other language activities, obviously). English is a foreign language with a vast repository of learning resources for advanced speakers. If you don't feel like language input alone is enough for you to improve, go try some of the learning materials available on the market. I have seen there is an advanced English team in this year's TAC - have a look at it, it might be a source of help and inspiration you are looking for :). Edited by Julie on 09 January 2014 at 12:14am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| nicozerpa Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 4317 days ago 182 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, English Studies: Italian, German | Message 3 of 29 09 January 2014 at 12:45am | IP Logged | |||||
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A few days ago, I bought a two-book series called "Get Rid of Your Accent", which contains
audio CD's, focuses on British English (more specifically Received Pronunciation) and promises to neutralise your accent in three months. It teaches you how to put the jaw, the tongue and the mouth in the right positions for each sound, and includes some excercises to help you to use those sounds naturally in everyday speech. Having said that, I've started using the first volume of this book this week, so I can't say anything about it effectiveness yet. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5000 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 4 of 29 09 January 2014 at 1:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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If you want a British accent, choose the right models. Get rid of the american tv series and choose british ones. Imitate speakers of your choice, repeat after them. The pronunciation guides with CDs can help too. If the matter is not only the pronunciation and accent, work on the issues slowing you down. Why are you slow? Does it take you long to remember vocabulary? Are there grammar issues you stumble at? Are you translating in your head? These are all options worth considering and, eventually, issues worth solving.
Of course, your friends and coworkers are not there to teach you English and they are glad to communicate with you without much trouble. If they are not natives, than you are influencing each other and creating a kind of "shared common level" in the group. I have noticed repeatedly my spoken English is much better after a while of speaking with someone better than vice versa. It is sooooo easy to fall down to the lower level if that is what prevails in the group. If that is the case, it might be good to widen your circle of friends and find people with better English than yours. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4281 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 5 of 29 09 January 2014 at 2:19am | IP Logged | |||||
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For British English, consider Lancastrian:
Best of Bumble It is an easier regional accent that I feel that it is looser in terms of jaw motions in pronunciation compared to RP or other regional accents like Geordie, Scouse, Sheffield, Brum, etc. But perhaps I may be biased because I sound similar to this accent. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4038 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 6 of 29 09 January 2014 at 7:08am | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you all for the input!
About slowness: I think I have a decently large passive vocabulary. That means: often when someone doesn't remember some specific word, I am the guys the propose the right solution. But using the vocabulary while speaking is a different story :) At this point I am not translating in my head anymore, I even force myself to think in English but Italian wins every time I'm not putting effort on it. I have to admit that I use the grammar unconsciously due to how I learned the language (ton of input, no grammar study). So it's possible that being not too confident about the grammar makes me slower. Irregular verbs are a huge pain because I'm never sure if I am using the correct conjugation apart from a small set of them. But I think that most of the problem is due to how pronounce words. I have problems while reading aloud too. We all know which kind of huge mess is the English phonetic system. So how can I be confident with every word seems to have random pronunciation? When 'custom', 'curry', 'curios' have three completely different pronunciations for example. Also, Italian has 7 vowels (and we also mess up with open and closed 'e' and open and close 'o' depending of our regional provenience), English how many? 20?. But of course I'm not here to look for excuses, I want to improve.
That's another huge problem. I live in a city where half of the inhabitants come from abroad, I work in European center with people that is not English, but mostly Italian, and French (but also Spanish, Romanian, even a really nice person from Laos) and since now no English people. Between colleagues, friends, acquaintances and random people I hear everyday some of the most messed up and painful accents possible :) Most of them have an English and or English pronunciation that is like mine if not worse. But some of them are able to speak incredibly fast even with a not standard accent like French or Chinese or Italian and I really like to be able to speed up my speech because it's difficult to keep people's attention and therefore most of the times I have to make shorter sentences. It's so frustrating! So - I cannot rely on the other people's English as models - I cannot eliminate bad input - I can introduce good input but it's constantly in conflict with the bad one... 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4281 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 7 of 29 09 January 2014 at 7:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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Irregular verbs are annoying, but at least English only has a few conjugations compared
to the Romance languages, which have six conjugations for each tense. Also the irregular verbs with strong and weak classes are quite similar in the Germanic family-- studying Dutch helps as well: I begin, I begun, I have begun Ik begin, Ik begon, Ik heb begonnen We begin, We begun, We have begun Wij beginnen, Wij begonnen, Wij hebben begonnen compared to: comincio, comincii, comincia, cominciamo, cominciate, cominciano cominciai, cominciasti, cominciò, cominciamo, cominciaste, cominciarano ho cominciato, hai cominciato, ha cominciato, abbiamo cominciato, avete cominciato, hanno cominciato 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4038 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 8 of 29 09 January 2014 at 7:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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hehe but 'cominciare' is regular ;) and you have something like other 6 or 7 tenses more XD
try with the verb 'cuocere' (to cook) cuocio, cuoci, cuoce, cuociamo, cuocete, cuociono ho cotto, hai cotto, ha cotto, abbiamo cotto, avete cotto, hanno cotto cossi, cuocesti, cosse, cuocemmo, cuoceste, cossero ebbi cotto, avesti cotto, ebbe cotto, avemmo cotto, aveste cotto, ebbero cotto cuocevo, cuocevi, cuoceva, cuocevamo, cuocevate, cuocevano avevo cotto, avevi cotto, aveva cotto, avevamo cotto, avevate cotto, avevano cotto :) But every language has its difficulties. My question is how to overcome them in my case... Edited by tristano on 09 January 2014 at 7:35am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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