How to learn English language in a proper way

LANGUAGE AND STYLE

In any language, different styles of expression are appropriate in different situations. We can go from the formal to the informal, the written to the spoken, from technical language (or jargon) to slang.

There are no "rules" as such; nevertheless, there are plenty of features which distinguish formal styles from informal styles. Here are some of them.

• Principles of English written style:
  Note: these are principles: they are by no means to be considered as "rules". Examples follow.
  a) The more formal a document  is, the more it will use inanimate nouns as subjects of a sentence.
  b) The more formal language is, the more it is likely to use passive structures.
  c) The more formal language is, the more verbal nouns it will use.
  d) The more formal a document is, the more words of Latin origin it will use.

• Conversely:
  a) The more informal or spontaneous language is, the more it will use humans as the subjects of sentences.
  b) The more informal a text is, the less it will use passive structures,
  c) The more informal a text is, the more it will use verb structures (where a choice is possible).
  b) The more informal or spoken a text is, the more words of Germanic origin it will use.
  
  Here are some examples; in each case, the same idea is expressed using three different levels of formality: look at the different changes that occur, as we move from a formal style to an informal one:
  
  1. The inclement climatic conditions obliged the President to return earlier than scheduled.
  The president was obliged to return earlier than planned due to poor weather conditions.
  The president had to go back sooner than he'd planned because the weather was so bad.
  
  2. Please await instructions before dispatching items.
  Please wait for instructions before sending items off.
  Don't send anything off until you're told to do so.
  
  3. Essential measures should be undertaken at the earliest opportunity.
  One should undertake any necessary measures at the earliest opportunity.
  You should do whatever you have to as soon as you can.
  
  4. Prior to the discovery of America, potatoes were not consumed in Europe.
  Before America was discovered, potatoes were not eaten in Europe.
  Before they discovered America, Europeans didn't eat potatoes.

== > From written to spoken styles

Written and spoken versions of a language use different styles, different registers. To talk in "written English" may be no more appropriate than to write using a "spoken" variety of English. Generally speaking, written English is always more formal than spoken English. nevertheless, there are informal forms of written English (notably in fiction and in the popular press), and formal styles of spoken English, in particular "discourse", or prepared speech.

1. Jargon, very formal. This is the style of language used in official reports, technical studies, etc. It is exclusively a style of written English, full of verbal nouns, technical words and passives.
2. Consequent to the appreciation in the exchange value of Sterling against other currencies,necessary fiscal measures were introduced by the government in order to reduce the likelihood of an import-led consumer spending surge.

A) Written, formal, clear
This is clear, written English, as found in the press or in documents aimed at ordinary educated readers.

After the international value of Sterling rose, the government was obliged to take fiscal measures to reduce the likelihood of a surge in consumer spending led by cheaper imports.

B) Written style for the general public, discourse, scripted radio or TV news style
As the value of Sterling increased compared to other currencies, the government was forced to take tax measures to head off a rapid increase in consumer spending spurred on by cheaper imports.

C) Formal spoken style - radio, seminar, talk
As Sterling's international value went up, the government had to take tax measures to head off a consumer spending boom spurred on by cheaper imports.

D) Relaxed, informal spoken style: discussion
There is plenty of use of prepositional verbs. All actions are now expressed through verbs, not verbal nouns:

As Sterling went up in value, the government had to put up taxes to stop consumers splashing out on too many cheap imports.

E) Relaxed, simplified, chat, very informal spoken style

Note the addition of repetition and fillers.

And you see, Sterling got more and more valuable, so as a result, the government had to go round putting up taxes, you see, to stop everyone going out and splashing out, spending all their money on cheap imports.

VOCABULARY

== > How to Build a Good Vocabulary

The goal of communication is to express our thoughts, ideas and feelings clearly. When you speak English, you want to be understood by those to whom you are speaking. A good vocabulary will help you achieve this goal.

The best way to improve your vocabulary is to read. Reading introduces you to words and phrases that are used regularly by native speakers. As you encounter these words and phrases, you should write them in a personal word journal. Then try to use them in an original sentence. If you are not sure how to use a word, look it up in a dictionary or ask your English teacher for help. Once you are sure you are using the word or phrase correctly, practice using it by writing more sentences using the word or phrase in different contexts.

The only way you will ever remember a word is to use it until it becomes your word. When a word becomes your word, you will be able to use it without thinking about it. Using the new word will become second nature, much like using any word in your native language.

When you learn some new synonyms, it’s important to learn not just what they share, but also what the difference is between them.

LISTENING

Does this situation seem familiar to you? Your English is progressing well, the grammar is now familiar, the reading comprehension is no problem, you are communicating quite fluently, but: Listening is STILL a problem!

First of all, remember that you are not alone. Listening comprehension is probably the most difficult task (noun = exercise, job) for almost all learners of English as a foreign language.

The most important thing is to listen, and that means as often as possible. The next step is to find listening resources. This is where the Internet really comes in handy (idiom = to be useful) as a tool for English students. First you need to: Download The Real Player (www.real.com) from RealMedia.com.

The RealPlayer allows you to listen to RealAudio and use the Internet like a radio station. Once you have the RealPlayer you can begin to listen to English as it is used in everyday life. The possibilities are almost unlimited.

== > Strategies

Once you have begun to listen on a regular basis, you might still be frustrated (adjective = upset) by limited understanding. What should you do? Here is some of the advice:

• Accept the fact that you are not going to understand everything.
• Keep cool (idiom = stay relaxed) when you do not understand - even if you continue to not understand for a long time.
• Do not translate into your native language (synonym = mother tongue)
• Listen for the gist (noun = general idea) of the conversation. Don't concentrate on detail until you have understood the main ideas.

Two extremely important facts; Firstly, translating creates a barrier (noun = wall, separation) between the listener and the speaker. Secondly, most people repeat themselves constantly. By remaining calm (adjective = relaxed), you can notice that - even if you space out (idiom = to not pay attention) you can usually understand what the speaker says, you’ll discovered some of the most important things about listening comprehension:

Translating creates a barrier between yourself and the person who is speaking

While you are listening to another person speaking a foreign language (English in this case), the temptation is to immediately translate into your native language. This temptation becomes much stronger when you hear a word you don't understand. This is only natural as we want to understand everything that is said. However, when you translate into your native language, you are taking the focus of your attention away from the speaker and concentrating on the translation process taking place in your brain. This would be fine if you could put the speaker on hold (phrasal verb = to make a person wait). In real life however, the person continues talking while you translate. This situation obviously leads to less -not more- understanding. I have discovered that translation leads to a kind of block (noun = no movement or activity ) in the brain which sometimes doesn't allow to understand anything at all!

Most people repeat themselves

Think for a moment about your friends, family and colleagues. When they speak in your native tongue, do they repeat themselves? I don't mean literally (adverb = word for word), I mean the general idea. If they are like most people I have met, they probably do. That means that whenever you listen to someone speaking, it is very likely (adjective = probable) that he/she will repeat the information, giving you a second, third or even fourth chance to understand what has been said.

By remaining calm, allowing yourself to not understand, and not translating while listening, your brain is free to concentrate on the most important thing: Understanding English in English.

Tips

• Listen to something you enjoy: Probably the greatest advantage about using the Internet to improve your listening skills is that you can choose what you would like to listen to and how many and times you would like to listen to it. By listening to something you enjoy, you are also likely to know a lot more of the vocabulary required!

• Listen for Keywords: Use keywords (noun = principal words) or key phrases to help you understand the general ideas. If you understand "New York", "business trip", "last year" you can assume (verb = to take for granted, suppose) that the person is speaking about a business trip to New York last year. This may seem obvious to you, but remember that understanding the main idea will help you to understand the detail as the person continues to speak.

• Listen for Context: Let's imagine that your English speaking friend says "...I bought this great tuner at JR's. It was really cheap and now I can finally listen to National Public Radio broadcasts”. You don't understand what a “tuner” is. If you focus on the word “tuner” you might become frustrated. However, if you think in context (noun = the situation explained during the conversation) you probably will understand. For example; “bought” is the past of “buy”, listen is no problem and radio is obvious. Now you understand: He bought something - the tuner - to listen to the radio. A “tuner” must be a kind of radio! This is a simple example but it demonstrates what you need to focus on: Not the word that you don't understand, but the words you do understand.

== > Summary

It might seem to you that my ideas on how to listen encourage you to not understand everything. This is absolutely correct. One hundred percent understanding is something to work towards (phrasal verb = to have as a goal, a plan for the future) and not to expect of yourself now. Listening needs a great amount of practice and patience. Allow yourself the luxury of not becoming nervous when you do not understand, and you will be surprised by how quickly you do begin to understand.

Listening often is the most important way to improve your listening skills. Enjoy the listening possibilities offered by the Internet and remember RELAX......

STRESS

Word stress is your magic key to understanding spoken English. Native speakers of English use word stress naturally. Word stress is so natural for them that they don't even know they use it. Non-native speakers who speak English to native speakers without using word stress, encounter two problems:

1. They find it difficult to understand native speakers, especially those speaking fast.
2. The native speakers may find it difficult to understand them.

In English, we do not say each syllable with the same force or strength. In one word, we accentuate ONE syllable. We say one syllable very loudly (big, strong, important) and all the other syllables very quietly.
Let's take 3 words: “photograph”, “photographer” and “photographic”. Do they sound the same when spoken? No. Because we accentuate (stress) ONE syllable in each word. And it is not always the same syllable. So the shape of each word is different.

Examples:

• PHO to graph = three syllables
• pho TO graph er = four syllables
• pho to GRAPH ic = four syllables

This happens in ALL words with 2 or more syllables: TEACHer, JaPAN, CHINa, aBOVE, converSAtion, INteresting, imPORtant, deMAND, etCETera, etCETera, etCETera.

The syllables that are not stressed are ‘weak’ or ‘small’ or ‘quiet’. Native speakers of English listen for the STRESSED syllables, not the weak syllables. If you use word stress in your speech, you will instantly and automatically improve your pronunciation and your comprehension.

Try to hear the stress in individual words each time you listen to English - on the radio, or in films for example. Your first step is to HEAR and recognise it. After that, you can USE it!

There are two very important rules about word stress:

1. One word, one stress. (One word cannot have two stresses. So if you hear two stresses, you have heard two words, not one word).
2. The stress is always on a vowel.

== > Understanding syllables

To understand word stress, it helps to understand syllables.
Every word is made from syllables.
Each word has one, two, three or more syllables.

Examples:

• dogs = one syllable
• green = one syllable
• quite = one syllable

• quiet – qui-et = two syllables
• orange – or-ange = two syllables
• table – ta-ble = two syllables
• expensive – ex-pen-sive = three syllables

• interesting – in-ter-est-ing = four syllables
• realistic – re-al-is-tic = four syllables

• unexceptional – un-ex-cep-tion-al = five syllables

Notice that (with a few rare exceptions) every syllable contains at least one vowel (a, e, i, o or u) or vowel sound.

== > Why Word Stress is so important?

Word stress is not used in all languages. Some languages, Japanese or French for example, pronounce each syllable with equal emphasis.

Other languages, English for example, use word stress.

Word stress is not an optional extra that you can add to the English language if you want. It is part of the language! English speakers use word stress to communicate rapidly and accurately, even in difficult conditions. If, for example, you do not hear a word clearly, you can still understand the word because of the position of the stress.

Think again about the two words “photograph” and “photographer”. Now imagine that you are speaking to somebody by telephone over a very bad line. You cannot hear clearly. In fact, you hear only the first two syllables of one of these words, “photo...” Which word is it, photograph or photographer? Of course, with word stress you will know immediately which word it is because in reality you will hear either PHOto or phoTO So without hearing the whole word, you probably know what the word is (PHOto…graph or phoTO…..grapher ). It's magic! (Of course, you also have the 'context' of your conversation to help you).

This is a simple example of how word stress helps us understand English. There are many, many other examples, because we use word stress all the time, without thinking about it.

== > Where do I put Word Stress?

There are some rules about which syllable to stress. But... the rules are rather complicated! Probably the best way to learn is from experience. Listen carefully to spoken English and try to develop a feeling for the "music" of the language.
When you learn a new word, you should also learn its stress pattern. If you keep a vocabulary book, make a note to show which syllable is stressed. If you do not know, you can look in a dictionary. All dictionaries give the phonetic spelling of a word. This is where they show which syllable is stressed, usually with an apostrophe (') just before or just after the stressed syllable. (The notes at the front of the dictionary will explain the system used).

Example:

• PLAS-tic = /plæs'tIki/

== > Rules of Word Stress in English

There are two very simple rules about word stress:

1. One word has only one stress. (One word cannot have two stresses. If you hear two stresses, you hear two words. Two stresses cannot be one word. It is true that there can be a "secondary" stress in some words. But a secondary stress is much smaller than the main [primary] stress, and is only used in long words).
2. We can only stress vowels, not consonants.

== > Spelling

Spelling words in English is challenging work. As a matter of fact, many native speakers of English have problems with spelling correctly. One of the main reasons for this is that many, many English words are NOT spelled as they are spoken. This difference between pronunciation and spelling causes a lot of confusion. The combination "ough" provides an excellent example:

Tough - pronounced => tuf (the 'u' sounding as in 'cup')

• Through - pronounced => throo
• Dough - pronounced => doe (long 'o')
• Bought - pronounced => bawt

a) Swallowed Syllables - Three Syllables Pronounced as Two Syllables

• Aspirin - pronounced => asprin
• Different - pronounced => diffrent
• Every - pronounced => evry

b) Swallowed Syllables - Four Syllables Pronounced as Three Syllables

• Comfortable - pronounced => comftable
• Temperature - pronounced => temprature
• Vegetable - pronounced => vegtable

c) Homophones - Words That Sound the Same

• two, to, too - pronounced => too
• knew, new - pronounced => niew
• through, threw - pronounced => throo
• not, knot, naught - pronounced => not

d) Same Sounds - Different Spellings

'Eh' as in 'Let'

let
bread
said

'Ai' as in 'I'

I
sigh
buy
either

e) Silent Letters

B - comb, dumb
D - sandwich, WeDnesday
G - sign, foreign
GH - daughter, light, right
H - why, honest, hour
K - know, knight, knob
L - should, walk, half
P - cupboard, psychology
S - island
T - whistle, listen, fasten
U - guess, guitar

W - who, write, wrong

HOW TO READ A TEXT

Unfortunately, students often insist on understanding each word when reading. Realizing that a text can be understood in a general sense by using contextual clues can go a long way towards helping students cope with increasingly difficult texts. At the same time, the use of contextual clues can also provide a means by which students can rapidly increase their existing vocabulary base.

MAKING SMALL TALK

The ability to make 'small talk' is highly valued. In fact, many English students are more interested in making effective small talk than knowing correct grammar structures – and rightly so! Small talk gets friendships started and “breaks the ice” before important business meetings and other events.

What is a small talk? Small talk is a pleasant conversation about common interests.

== > Why is small talk difficult for some English learners?

First of all, making small talk is not difficult only for English learners, but also for many native speakers of English. However, small talk can be especially difficult for some learners because making small talk means talking about almost anything - and that means having a wide vocabulary that can cover most topics. Most English learners have excellent vocabulary in specific areas, but may have difficulties discussing topics they are unfamiliar with because of a lack of appropriate vocabulary.
This lack of vocabulary leads to some students “blocking”. They slow down or stop speaking completely because of a lack of self-confidence.

== > How to improve Small talk Skills?

Now that we understand the problem, the next step is to improve the situation. Here are some tips to improve small talk skills. Of course, making effective small talk means lots of practice, but keeping these tips in mind should improve overall conversational skills:

A) Do some research
Spend time on the Internet, reading magazines, or watching TV specials about the type of people you are going to meet. For example: If you are taking a class with students from other countries, take time after the first few days of class to do some research. They will appreciate your interest and your conversations will be much more interesting.

B) Stay away from religion/strong political beliefs
While you may believe in something very strongly, beginning conversations and making small talk about your own personal convictions may abruptly end the conversation. Keep it light, don't try to convince the other person that you have the 'correct' information about a higher being, political system or other belief system.

C) Use the Internet to gain specific vocabulary
This is related to doing research about other people. If you have a business meeting, or are meeting people who share a common interest (a basketball team, a tour group interested in art, etc.), take advantage of the Internet to learn specific vocabulary. Almost all businesses and interest groups have glossaries on the Internet explaining the most important jargon related to their business or activity.

D) Ask yourself about your culture
Take time to make a list of common interests that are discussed when making small talk in your own culture. You can do this in your own language, but check to make sure that you have the English vocabulary to make small talk about those subjects.

E) Find common interests
Once you have a subject that interests both of you, keep to it! You can do this in a number of ways: talking about travel, talking about the school or friend you have in common, talking about the differences between your culture and the new culture (just be careful to make comparisons and not judgments, i.e. The food in our country is better than the food here in England).

F) Listen
This is very important. Don't get so worried about being able to communicate that you don't listen. Listening carefully will help you understand and encourage those speaking to you. You might be nervous, but letting others state their opinions will improve the quality of the discussion - and give you time to think of an answer!

== > Appropriate Subject for Small Talk

Here is a list of common small talk subjects. If you have difficulties speaking about any of these topics, try to improve your vocabulary by using the resources available to you (Internet, magazines, teachers at school, etc.).

• Sports - current matches or games, favourite teams, etc.
• Hobbies
• Weather - boring, but can get the ball rolling!
• Family - general questions, not questions about private matters
• Media - films, books, magazines, etc.
• Holidays - where, when, etc. but NOT how much!
• Home town - where do you come from, how is it different/similar to this town
• Job - once again, general questions not too specific
• Latest fashion and trends
• Celebrities - any gossip you may have

== > Here a list of topics that probably aren't very good for small talk

Of course, if you are meeting a close friend these topics may be excellent. Just remember that 'small talk' is generally discussion with people you don't know very well.

• Salary - how much do you make? - That's none of your business!
• Politics - wait to you get to know the person better
• Intimate relationships - only for you and your partner - or maybe your best friend
• Religion - tolerance is the key!
• Death - we need to face it, but not the first time we meet someone new
• Financial - related to salary above, most people prefer to keep financial information to themselves
• Sales - Don't try to sell something to someone you have just met.