Five ways to improve your English: If English is your second language.
Five ways to improve your English English is complicated and hard language but the good news it’s not the most difficult to learn. These five simple tricks will help you improve your English and you can speak or write more confidently.
Do a crash course.
First tip on five ways to improve your English, if English is your second language. Nowadays with the internet, you can search for anything and everything is at your fingertips. Just go to YouTube and listen to the many English teachers teaching grammar and word pronunciation.e st of all it’s FREE.
The Dictionary
I’m not telling you to study it from front to back but if you come across a word you never heard of look it up in your dictionary, or even better search on google there are plenty of online dictionaries. Also, today there are mobile apps that can help with a touch a button.
Writing.
Don’t worry, I’m not telling you to become the next…..George R.R Martin and write a 1000 page novel. Writing and storytelling definitely improve your English because writing, among many sacrifices, involves lots and lots of thought. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that it requires even more coffee and patience when putting words on paper in a foreign language. The more you write, the better your English will become. If you don’t know the word in English you can always translate (it not always accurate). Trust me you will get better. So experiment and write a short story.
Watch movies or TV shows
Watching movies in English can improve your English. Apart from entertaining yourself whilst listening you can also add subtitles. The more TV you watch in English the better you will get at it.
Read, Read and Read and do more reading/ listen to audio books too.
Last tip on five ways to improve your English. I see many posts in Facebook groups of people asking how to improve their English if they want to write or just speak it. I always recommend this: read, read and read and did I mention read? Read novels, fiction, non-fiction, magazines, newspapers, even the back of the cereal box.
Found a new word? Write it down, search its meaning. Also, listen to audio books. Remember by reading you are learning at the same time. Through Movies and TV Shows, you are also listening how to words are begin pronounced and expressed. Apart from the flow and pace of the words.
So those were my tips to improve your English if English is your second language. Hope this will help you in the meantime.
Happy reading and writing xxx.
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18 Comments
Annalisa
I totally agree with all the 5 points. According to my experience, I can say that writing is an excellent method to improve. When I write in English, I always look for new ways of saying things, idiomatic expressions and synonyms and I can say I improved a lot, although I’m not as perfect as a mother tongue.
joannewritesbooks
Thanks for your comment
Iram
Great article and useful tips for non natives to learn English 🙂
I came across an online dictionary app which is quite useful. Mentioning if it could help to your readers in any way – http://www.theinfopedia.com/u-dictionary/
Cheers
Iram
Kerry
All are great tips. For me, reading is #1. English is my native language, but I’m also fluent in Spanish. I read my scriptures in Spanish and English, side-by-side so I could compare the two.
Dieter
I guess I am the TV guy, I watch TV and Movies, I would not read books or anything else. Since speaking has to do how you pronounce things I think speaking and listening is the right thing to do
Yudith
I also did all these things to improve my english. I translated the English song to my language to memorized some vocabularies. This is good article.
Stacy
Great article and you list some wonderful practical tips!!
Demi
I’m an English language teacher and I believe this is some solid advice you give there. Good job on that! I’ve recently written a blog post about how to immerse yourself in Italian / any language in order to learn it fast.
joannewritesbooks
Thank you so much 🙂
Tara
it’s amazing how much i’ve forgotten even after high school/college. i always need a refresher on grammar rules!
joannewritesbooks
I’m terrible at grammar to be honest I always have to check and have someone proofread for me.
Ari Augustine
Good points. I’d like to make a suggestion of adding in links, if you know of any, to practice reading or writing material you think might help.
joannewritesbooks
Thnaks
Sarah
I completely agree! Great tips.
joannewritesbooks
thanks
Irene
Great post! A lot of insights. Really helpful for no native English speakers.
Criticalpixie
Those are great tips, as english is my second language I can totaly relate to them .. I’m totaly scared of speaking it, sometimes it’s emberassing because I can understand almost everything but I just can’t answer propably. So my first step to “carefree talking” is to write as much in english as I can … Sometimes I find myself thinking in English, after I watched Movies in English for example
joannewritesbooks
You don’t have to feel that way the best tip is to speak it to practice the language. Thinking in English is a good way. Thanks for your comment,