I will learn english!!! / you will learn german??

[soulleader]

Hi Caroline Johnson, thats would be a nice idea. Please write me a personal message with your Yahoo-ID, than we can improve uor English .

[gijoe]

Hello my name is gijoe
I want improve my english skills.
I search someone who want chat with me, help me to improve my english skills and i can help him by german.

[Zimti]

Hello Everybody,

My name's Cindy and I' m 22 years old. I want to learn English, for my private Live and I need it for the business.
This blog is really intersting and I think it's a good Learn-System for all of us want to learn the Language. So, my Question is, what's the best strategy for effective learning about the language? Do you have personal experience which you can recommend?
I look forward to hearing from you.

best regards,

Zimti

[Alex321]

Hello everybody!

My name is Alex, I study in Germany now and even though English is not my native language, I still can be quite helpful for somebody wishing to learn English. I have got 105 points in TOEFL iBT if that tells you anything. My knowledge in German language is very basic. I know simple phrases, some basic words and basic grammar (I believe my level is something in between A1 and A2), but not much more than that.

[Alex321]

Hello Everybody,

My name's Cindy and I' m 22 years old. I want to learn English, for my private Live and I need it for the business.
This blog is really intersting and I think it's a good Learn-System for all of us want to learn the Language. So, my Question is, what's the best strategy for effective learning about the language? Do you have personal experience which you can recommend?
I look forward to hearing from you.

best regards,

Zimti

Hello Cindy!

I think there is no unique answer to your question. I guess the best strategy is to attend good courses with several lessons per week, with native English speakers. In such courses you can quickly get qualified help with every language-related question which may arise during your studies. However, no courses will really advance your knowledge and skills unless you USE what you learn in practice. When I was learning English 2 years ago (well, I still learn it every single day but definitely much less intensively than before), I was taking a course from one well known (internationally) school of English. It was not a cheap one I must say, the content and the teaching methods used were quite balanced (given the emphasis of the school was on colloquial language, not written or anything else). I have accomplished my goals with the help from that school (I have passed TOEFL examination with a decent grade), so I do not complain it was not helpful, after all it appeared it definitely was. However, I could find negative comments about that school in the Internet, and schools of that kind in general. Somebody would even claim all sorts of schools with bright commercials promising quick results only with thier unique methods of teaching are actually deception of naive clients.

I think they are both right and wrong.

They are right in the sense that in general there are no short cuts to success in learning the language (I think it is true for ANY language, not only for English). There is no silver bullet for the beast of language illiteracy, especially if it is a foreign language (I am not sure whether this sentence makes sense please, correct me if it sounds weird for a native speaker). Anyway there is no one-size-fits-all approach, THE optimal solution for every student, so you have to find something that works for you. School X methods may be appropriate for an average attendee of school X, but not for you. They may reason about and make it plausible for their customers why their methods are superior to others'. The one I heard was: "With us you learn the language as children learn their native language: first audition, then speaking, then reading, then writing". So it is supposed to be evident why it is efficient to learn with them. Nonsense, if you ask me! What is appropriate for children is not necessarily appropriate for adults, given the time constraints, the way of thinking etc.
And there are also other disadvantages, e.g. if you study in a group, there always will be somebody less skillful than you who will be silent most of the time, make "stupid" mistakes, from whom you cannot learn much. On the other hand, there also may be students more knowledgeable than you, but you never know in advance which of the two will be your case. This is of course not applicable for individual lessons.

They are wrong if they think the school should provide some magical way of implanting the knowledge into one's head and that you can just do the required minimum during the lessons, and forget about English as soon as instruction time is over. You actually have to practice the language outside the class room, the more the better.

Memorize all new words you have learned during the class, use them in speaking and writing (if appropriate) thus reinforcing your memory. Read articles, newspapers, listen to radio, watch TV in English, identify synonyms of the words you already know so that you know when different words bear the same meaning. Learn more new words. At some stage (I think intermediate level is enough for that) it makes perfect sense to listen to radio and watch TV in English. Try reading literature in your field of study or work in English, thus killing two birds with one stone (you will learn the language and will not have to spend your time on something irrelevant to your current occupation). Or read whatever else you prefer. Practicing written language is more difficult, because it is not only the question of looking up an appropriate word in the dictionary. The addressees of your writing would most probably not ask for clarification as far as they understand what you mean, no matter how clumsy your writing is. And of course they will definitely not correct you. But anyway you can read and learn how native speakers write. Different books have different complexity of the language (the number of words used being one of the reliable metrics). When I passed the TOEFL examination, I have got an email from the organizing party (it was for sure an automatic message, but still) with recomendation on improving my reading skills. They host a website from which you can choose a book (from the list of available ones in their database) for which they have a vocabulary index calculated, which corresponds to your results in the reading section. Probably that kind of service is also available on different websites in one form or another. If you are interested in writing letters, you can get help in specialized web forums in the Internet. I myself do not have much experience in writing long and fancy official letters, but sometimes when I enter a query with a typical phrase in Google (how I think it should be written correctly), it returns a list of links at least one of which leads to some forum discussion of the very same phrase I wish to write. And there are usually at least one person willing to give a qualified answer.

Speaking can only be mastered by speaking. Try talking to as many people as possible. Of course it all depends on your current level, and if it is not very high, you may find yourself in a situation where you say something grammatically correct, but get a long answer which you do not understand completely, or worst case do not understand at all. That is what I now experience with German language, but the same thing is appropriate for English as well. I think for some time how to construct my sentence (a sign of a neophyte as I am ). Then I ask the person I wanted to ask making sure I pronounce all the letters and syllables correctly, "as Germans do", and I can understand that they understand me judging by their facial expression and words they say, but I cannot understand what they mean in real-time even if I would understand if it was written. Sometimes I understand what was said in half a minute after it was pronounced. In a fluent conversation there should be now deliberate pauses for contemplation about grammar structure or particular words appropriate for the current context of the talk, it should be "all there ready to be taken out of the head without hesitation". This comes only with practice and experience. Once you have enough words for speaking and a decent knowledge in basic grammar (colloquial language does not require as deep knowledge of the grammar and words as written language, unless you are having a very formal talk on highly intelligent matters or giving a speech in front of a big audience full of PhDs and want to make a good impression). In general it is not worth improving your pronunciation once native speakers understand you. Have no worries because of "bad", "not as native speakers have" accent. It does not make much sense because even native speakers' pronunciations vary significantly depending on what country they are from and particular region within the country. Just understandable accent is fine. I have been learning English for a very long time, but I sometimes do not understand even native speakers who have pronunciations I have not had experience with before, especially when they talk very fast. I ask to repeat the sentence in case I do not get it.
In informal conversation you always can compensate for the lack of knowledge of some fancy words by paraphrasing it using synonyms you know or by making a longer phrase with more simple words instead of a more compact and "sophisticated" one.

I can write more on the topic, but I guess I have already written too much I hope you understand my point and good luck with your studies.

[Delfino]

Hello everybody,

My name's Cindy and I'm 22 years old.

I want to learn English for myself and I need it for my business / my career.
This forum is really interesting and I think it's a good system for all of us
who want to learn the English language.

So, my question is, what's the best strategy for effective learning about the language?
Do you have any personal experience and which approach can you recommend?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Zimti

Englische Grammatik - Regeln und Erläuterungen
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/inhalt_grammar.htm

[Jill]

Hi Gijoe

it would be good to help you with your English and you help with my german if you still need help I am only just starting to learn the language

Hello my name is gijoe
I want improve my english skills.
I search someone who want chat with me, help me to improve my english skills and i can help him by german.

[Keswick]

Hi Gijoe

it would be good to help you with your English and you help with my German if you still need help I am only just starting to learn the language

Hello my name is gijoe
I want improve my english skills.
I search someone who want chat with me, help me to improve my english skills and i can help him by german.

Sorry but I had to correct this common mistake.