How to speak English well. How to overcome the language barrier and start speaking English? Enrich your vocabulary

“Nature gave people one language and two ears, so that we would listen to others more than speak ourselves.”

Epictetus

So, we have already understood that the smaller we are and the more, the

Let's start again by clarifying what do we mean by “speak freely“. I once had an adult student (55 years old) who declared at the first lesson that he wanted to speak fluently. At first I thought he wanted communicate freely, but I was wrong. "What is the difference?" - you ask. And that only he wanted to speak, in other words, to conduct a monologue, not a dialogue. He only told some cases from his life, and he only asked me to correct his mistakes. As soon as I asked him something about the same story, he shouted: “ Don't interrupt me! I want to tell you all the story step by step“. Rough, right? But in life, hardly anyone will listen to long monologues. People get bored with overly talkative people who talk incessantly without asking anything. I recall the saying of A. Dumas : “No matter how well you speak, if you talk too much, you will end up talking nonsense”. Interruptions - this is a characteristic of natural dialogues. If you are interested, you ask without waiting for the person to finish telling the introduction. And although Stanislav Lets wrote that “ Human with a man from time immemorial conduct a monologue“, I think we all need to learn to have a dialog.

For this it would be good to know dialogue features. I will bring simple examples. Some of my students at first have great difficulty in speaking in class (regardless of the level - Elementary or Upper Intermediate), they are often confused when I agree with them in our conversation or continue their thought. For example: Yes, I agree with you, this is a vital problem nowadays. Very often I hear after this: Sorry. Could you repeat the question? or I didn't catch what you asked (x although sometimes this is followed by silence - which is also not good ). But I didn’t ask any questions - I agreed. It feels like from everyone is waiting for questions. But in life you will not be constantly interrogated! Dialogues consist of replicas, but they are by no means always composed according to the formula question answer( What's your hobby? – I prefer to dance at my free time ) . Others often found:

• statement-statement: I like comedies with Jim Carrey. – I like them too!
• question-question: Where will we go tonight? - What's your suggestion?
• statement-question: I don't want to talk with you. Why did you call me then?!

So, What do you need to communicate fluently in English?

1. Listening comprehension. I think that it is not in vain that the French philosopher Pierre Boist said: “ The art of listening is almost tantamount to the art of speaking well.” Listen to English speech daily. We already wrote about (communication,).
2. Ability to keep up a conversation. How is your communication going? mother tongue? Can you speak spontaneously on any topic? It is important that WHAT you say is interesting to you and the interlocutor. Do not worry about mistakes - they are forgivable. But if you are not interested, then no one will talk despite your correct grammar, pace and pronunciation. Think What are you interested in talking about in Russian? Your hobbies, outlook on life, etc.
3. Ability to express your opinion. So, for example, in life and in exams like FCE or IELTS questions are asked for reflection. But what if you never thought about it in Russian? Let's say the questions are: What should parents do so that their children spend less time playing computer games and watching TV? How can we encourage young people to read more books? Could you comment on the idea that the introduction of the computers has enormously increased unemployment? Think more about everything.
4. The ability to simplify. Use simple constructions, try to replace Difficult words simple. If you don't know how a certain word or expression is in English, try to replace it with another synonym known to you. If you don't know the word "I think", use "I think". But do not get carried away with this technique. Keep learning new words, look in the dictionary after the conversation.
5. Lexicon. Oh, that favorite question - “How many words do you need to know to speak English fluently?” I do not know how this can be calculated, but even knowing this magic number would not give you any practical benefit. Why? You may even know more words than indicated in some “reliable” source, but do not understand the meaning of a native speaker’s speech if, for example, you only taught technical terms related to your profession, and the carrier is a specialist from a completely different field. In general, you need to learn words not for the sake of striving to master a certain number of words, but for practice. When it comes to vocabulary, you can't do without a good dictionary. From English-Russian, I would recommend an electronic dictionary ABBYY Linvo and an online dictionary. Walter said: A dictionary without examples is a skeleton.” Therefore, learn phrases, not individual words. Don't forget about synonyms... Read more about expanding vocabulary in the next article.
6. Pronunciation and intonation. Yes, some pronunciation mistakes are forgivable - they will understand you, but there are also those that can lead to embarrassing situations when, due to the fact that you pronounce the word wrong, you may not be understood correctly. And what can we say about intonation - sometimes people may be offended if you speak with Russian intonation - they will think that you are not interested, and besides, you are rude! (More -

you can teach English language on one's own. But it will be, firstly, much longer. Secondly, you risk learning grammar and pronunciation incorrectly. And it's very hard to get over. An experienced English tutor will correct mistakes in time, point out weaknesses and, in general, will teach new material according to a certain curriculum adapted for the beginner. It is quite difficult to compose it yourself.

From the first day of study, listen to English phrases that are spoken around you. Don't take them as background that doesn't apply to you - you have to really hear every word to begin to understand the language. This will help you expand lexicon, understand the features of the construction of sentences and the use of specific words. You will learn to catch intonation, which plays a very important role in the English language. To listen, you need to immerse yourself in the environment. When you found yourself in English speaking country, you just need to take the subway or walk through the supermarket to hear English speech. If you are not yet planning a move to New York, radio, television and music will help you out.

To speak at the native level, you need to know about 3000 words. 1000 words will allow you to express your thoughts and understand others. And when you first start learning, you don't have a vocabulary. Learn verbs, nouns, adjectives and other parts of speech daily. If you know 20 nouns, 20 verbs, and 20 adjectives, you can make a couple of hundred phrases with different meanings. Of course you will talk like a child. But this is how a child learns a language!

In study foreign language The main emphasis is always placed on speech practice. At the same time, communication is an effective tool for further improvement of English. A language parent is your friend who knows English well. This is a native speaker who really likes you in a human way, and he is interested in helping you. You will become for him a child, which we began to talk about in the previous paragraph.

Parent rules:

• try to understand what you are saying;
• not correct you;
• pretend that he understands everything you say;
• use unfamiliar words.

This gives an amazing effect. After all Small child learning to speak from adults. They use new words and behave loyally with the child, portraying a complete understanding of even the most unintelligible baby talk. Result: the child begins to talk, every day doing it better and better.

We use the muscles in our face to pronounce certain sounds correctly. The sounds in English are different from Russian, so you need to learn how to pronounce them correctly. To do this, copy the facial expressions of native speakers - peer into the faces of the heroes of TV shows and talk show hosts. Repeat phrases after them, trying to copy facial expressions and intonation as much as possible. Do you know what awaits you after such training? Pain in the muscles on the face! This means that you are doing everything right!

You will say: “What simple advice! Can they really help?" Why complicate the simple? Especially if these recommendations work effectively with millions of people around the world who are learning English.

Try it and after 3 months you will say: “Unbelievable! It worked! And it will be true.

Fluent spoken English means being able to communicate quickly, easily, without difficulty. Many people think that fluency is equivalent to perfect knowledge of the language, but this is not entirely true. If you think about it, listen carefully to the speech of native speakers, you will notice that they also make mistakes in grammar, the choice of suitable words, and sometimes in pronunciation.

Here are a few tips to help you speak fluently—quickly and easily, but not flawlessly.
“I want to learn how to speak English fluently. What needs to be done for this?

This question is asked by many of my friends. After discussing what is meant by this "fluent", I ask how often they speak English. Naturally, the most common answers are “only in the classroom” or “only with a tutor”. This is clearly not enough.

If you need to learn how to do something well, the only way to achieve it is by practice. In relation to English, this statement is completely true. The best thing you can do to achieve fluent, fluent speech is just practice: talking with friends, classmates, foreigners on Skype, live meetings with native speakers, and so on. The more you practice, the better your speech becomes, obviously.

Continuing communication, you find out that the typical emotions in relation to a conversation in English are “scary”, “worried”, “shy”. Therefore, the second advice is to relax, there is nothing to be afraid of. Mistakes were, are and will be. Pauses in speech early stages inevitable. You don’t know which word is more suitable or what time to choose - do not be silent and do not worry, say at least something, express your thought as best you can.

In order to achieve fluency, in addition to speaking, listening is also important. WITH educational materials There are no problems, there are a huge number of them for every taste. Just play an audiobook or movie in the background daily affairs. Even if you do not concentrate on the narration, you will still imperceptibly fix some turns, pronunciation, variants of the use of words and gradually begin to automatically use all this in your speech.

If you are in study group, then the game “Just a minute” is well suited for developing fluency. The rules are simple - any topics are written on the pieces of paper, for example: holodays, Michael Jackson, being rich, dogs, my favorite movie. Each in turn takes a piece of paper and talks non-stop for a minute on a topic that has come across. Moreover, you cannot repeat the same thing several times and you cannot change the subject. Yes, at first it is not easy, but the more you practice, the easier and easier this game will become. A monologue on a certain topic can be difficult even for a native speaker, so mistakes and pauses should not confuse you at all.

Comments

I listen, I read, and I understand everything. But here they ask me a question, but I can’t connect two words in response. Yes, and there is nothing special to connect: all the words seemed to have evaporated from memory ...

I think the described emotions are familiar to many. There is a so-called "dog problem" or “I understand everything, but I can’t say” due to the fact that the student from the very beginning does not develop active skills - speaking and writing. It seems to him that first he needs to master the English language perfectly: learn all the rules, frequency words, etc.

This is especially common among ardent perfectionists. They end up getting so stuck in "learning" that they bring their passive skills to above average levels, but never dare to open their mouths themselves.

What to do? Speak more often!

And now I can already see how rotten tomatoes flew at us. 🙂 Tell the person "talk more often", when there is a reinforced concrete language barrier in front of him, it's like saying to a crying person: "Well, you, this ... don't cry".

I think you already know what to say without us: communicate with foreigners on special sites; conduct in English (foreigners can also check them); go to courses where they talk a lot, etc.

BUT! You can and should independently perform special "exercises".

First: we translate the passive dictionary into an active one

Yes, the main difficulty lies precisely in the fact that words and grammatical units are in our passive. We learn the word - we learn, but we ourselves cannot say it.

But what if you already have an impressive passive vocabulary? We have 3 ways to activate it:

1. Read texts your level and retell the content aloud. So you first remind yourself of the words (during reading), and then activate them in speech (during retelling).

You already have a vocabulary, just activate it!

2. Before the planned communication - with a foreigner, in a language club, etc. - make for yourself a list of words that you want to activate and use them purposefully in speech.

3. Practice back-translating practice more often - when you are translating Russian word into English, and not vice versa. These are workouts.

WE RECOMMEND: set a goal to pump and activate the vocabulary that you already have. That is, align the levels of proficiency in passive skills (listening and reading) and active ones (speaking and writing). The most effective way to do this is to retell the read texts at YOUR level, where you know ≈ 85% of the vocabulary.

Second: get rid of language barriers

Another one common cause"silence" is fear of speaking in a foreign language. How will I sound? What's wrong with my pronunciation? How is it even possible to speak a foreign language?!

Calm down. You have the opportunity to rehearse. And you will overcome your fear, and at the same time you will shake other skills:

1. Speak along with the announcer. Work in this sequence: first you just listen to the recording, then you listen and repeat FOR the speaker - you pause after some passage and pronounce his phrase after, the third step - you speak at the same time as him.

So you will accustom yourself to rhythm, intonation and, in general, to pronunciation English speech.

2. Read English lyrics aloud. Then you will get used to the sound of your voice in English + it will help you at the level of "mechanical memory": at this moment you will speak! Let not your thoughts, but still - speak!

Relax and rehearse by yourself. The image is a frame from the film The King's Speech.

3. Talk to yourself. You are constantly thinking about something. So think in English. Happened? Now, think out loud! Try to speak out loud in the language you are learning as often as possible.

WE RECOMMEND: train your brain speech apparatus, hearing to their own English speech. Speak audio recordings - monologues, songs, etc. - after the announcer, read aloud, talk to yourself. Then it will not be so scary to “open your mouth” and speak English with a real person.

The main thing is not to be afraid of mistakes. Don't even call them "mistakes". These are temporary errors that will be corrected in the future. To do this, you just need to keep practicing the language. In any case, your speech, sometimes incorrect, will be better than proper silence.

To sum up: how to start speaking English

1. If you are just starting to learn a language, then learn from the mistakes of others: immediately, from the first day of learning, develop not only passive skills, but also active ones.
2. For speech practice, use not only obvious means - special sites for communicating with foreigners, language courses, etc. - but also independent exercises.
3. First of all, set yourself the goal of pumping, activating the existing vocabulary.
4. Also work on the language barrier: get used to the sound of your voice in English.
5. Do not be afraid of anything. Be ready to be corrected, ask for it yourself and rejoice in the opportunity to correct your small mistakes.

Are you already on Lingualeo?

We will finish for today. to pump all other skills: reading, listening, writing. 🙂

A few tips from my personal experience of learning English. So how do you learn to speak English on your own? All this I will describe further.

About learning English from personal experience

Last but not least, PRACTICE! If you want to speak English, you must speak! I found very good pen pals and we talked a lot. It was difficult in the beginning, but week after week it got better and better. Try to speak as often as possible and it will serve you well! Try to practice your speaking skill every day. It doesn't have to be face to face, you can also just chat, it's quite useful too. Just remember "If you want to talk, you must talk"!

So after 3 months of studying I started to speak slowly, after 4 months it was better, and after 5-6 months I could speak English and understand people very well!

You can say that you don't have free time for all this, but I didn't either. I also worked and studied at the university. Surround yourself with English, immerse yourself in it! Try to combine English with your everyday life! It's not difficult, and if you really want to succeed in your studies, then you definitely can do it!

Try, friends! Study hard and never give up! Just remember that "If you only speak one language, you can't speak" (c)!

Read my articles, they will help you in your study! Subscribe to blog updates in the form on the right, as more than 3,000 people have already done! Download for free. In it, I have collected all the most valuable knowledge and recommendations that will help you speak English as quickly as possible! Now you know how to start speaking English, the main thing is not to be lazy.

Keep learning English and take care of yourself!

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