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Three effective ways to learn to speak English well:

 You do not need to keep trying different methods of learning English

Every year do you try something different? But you still haven’t found the best way for you to learn English.

You started with a non-native English teacher who explained everything clearly in your native language.

Have you tried English home study courses?

Have you tried English courses online?

Have you done in company classes?

Maybe it would be better to try another English language school

Maybe you have attempted to find a native English teacher

Then maybe you bought audio classes or podcast courses

Next summer perhaps you should go away and do an English course abroad

This list could go on and on

Let’s make things very clear:

Everybody can learn a language, we all learn at least one when we are babies.

Everybody can learn two or three or more languages and do it without studying or effort. Yes, language learning without effort

So………. What is the best way to learn English? To learn to understand English and to speak English is not a lottery. Every year thousands of people do it and do it well.

There are only three effective ways to learn the English language well.

• 1.Grow up in an English speaking country and go to a school with the teaching in English

• 2. Grow up in a non-English speaking country with native English parents or go to an international school where all the classes are in English

Ooooh! Ooooooh? So if it’s too late for you to be able to do either number one or number two …………. Do not despair, there is another solution.

• 3. Try and copy as many of the daily activities of the people (children) in situation 1 and 2. Only by regular contact with the English language, every week and all year can anyone realistically hope to attain an adequate level that allows communication in English.

HALF 1     HALF 2  HALF 3

half time

the interval between 2 parts of a game

At half-time Chelsea are winning 2 – nil. In the second half Arsenal will have to play better

halfway

1 midpoint between 2 things

• – They are at the halfway point in the negotiations, they should finish this afternoon

2 by a small or incomplete amount

• – You can’t go halfway when you’re organising your papers. If you don’t finish you will soon have another mess in your office!

meet someone half way

– make an agreement that partly satisfies the demands of both sides

• – I want $200 and you offer $100. Meet me halfway at $150 and it’s yours.

Meet trouble halfway

– worry before it is necessary

• – “ Your mother hasn’t phoned, do you think she’s got a problem. Should I phone the police?”
• “Hey, hey You always try to meet trouble halfway! If there was something wrong, her neighbour would have phoned us!”

Not have 2 halfpennies to rub together

very poor

• – John Cumbledaire lost his house and all his money and now he has to go to soup kitchens for food because he doesn’t have two halfpennies to rub together.

Languagewell also bring you lessons with idioms using LOVE  and FALL  as well as many other lessons and exercises with phrasal verbs and English Idioms  One vocabulary example is Book which is used in a number  of well-known English expressions such as closed book and throw the book at someone  There are more lessons with other verbs in the Phrasal Verb Index   it includes run and  think. If you want, you can  practise by doing these exercises Check out other English Language and Grammar lessons and exercises here

put your thinking cap on

– help someone to come up with an idea/solution/ suggestion

• Thanks for coming. As you know next year it’s Mum and Dad’s 50^th wedding anniversary. I think we should put our thinking caps on to come up with a good way of celebrating it.
• How about organising a trip to Australia, they’ve always wanted to go there? ….

unthinkable

– inconceivable.

• 50 years ago it was unthinkable that there would be a common currency in many European countries.
• When the modern Olympics was started it was unthinkable that there would be women boxers.
• At the moment it seems unthinkable that there will be a woman president of the USA.

think well/highly/ better/ little/ poorly of 

– have a good/ bad etc opinion of sbdy/sthng

think better of someone

– have a higher opinion of someone.

• When I first met James he seemed very self-opinionated and snobbish. But now I’ve come to think better of him, he’s a great team player and is a good motivator of the new recruits.

think nothing of

– consider to be unimportant, regard as usual, or easy:

• He thinks nothing of walking 5 km to work and back everyday.
• Graham, thanks so much for taking my mother to hospital and visiting her every day.
• Hey, think nothing of it. Any of your friends would have done the same if they could.

If you want to learn about  More expressions with THINK you will find such expressions as think ahead and think back. You could also try out your knowledge with Exercise: expressions and phrasal verbs with THINK1. You could learn about Phrasal verbs with THINK 1 and Phrasal verbs with THINK 2

No top musician, footballer, golfer, athlete, swimmer etc has got to the top and stayed there without daily dedication.This is of course very obvious if we think about it realistically.

The same can be said about language learning. If you say:

“I’d really love to speak English well”

“I’d love to understand English films and TV series” or similar,

then you have to ask yourself:

How much contact do I have every week with the English language? If your answer is less than 5 hours a week this probably means that you are NOT going to learn English very quickly. Be realistic!

How do you learn English well and effectively? If you want to learn English effectively you need to put in the hours.

Try using the Rule of Five:

– Read 5 pages of English every day

– Use 5 new English words everyday from your vocabulary lists

– Listen to 5 English songs every day.

– Speak English with at least 5 people every day, in the street, on the phone, on Messenger or Facebook.

– or speak English to yourself in the mirror if it’s impossible to find a willing partner.

– Listen (or hear) small sections (10 -20 minutes) of dialogues 5 times a day

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To speak English well

to understand English well

to write English well

to learn English well

You have to remember to do some English every day, if you want to run a marathon you need to train regularly, to learn English or any language it is the same. Children do hours and hours every day to learn their mother tongue, you have to do the same

Look for ideas in the top 10 articles from 2014

• There are variations of English around Great Britain and around the world – but the essence of the language is the same.
• An Australian can be understood in London, New York or Durban

But it is absolutely essential to remember that:

It is not French, Italian, Chinese, Swahili, Spanish, Russian or any other language.

You cannot expect that one verb form (tense) in the English language will be the exact equivalent of a verb form in your own language.

Or that one translation of an English word will be the same translation in all situations.

English verb forms are relatively easy to form but sometimes it is difficult to know when to use one form or another. It is important to get to know the basics of  English Grammar but please do not get obsessed with grammar. The most important part of learning a language is the practical day to day understanding and communicating in English

Beware of having a non-native English teacher,  they could possibly make the same wrong assumptions about the use of language as you!

But not all native English people will know why they use one verb form or another ……… but they will usually use grammar correctly and will know when you use the wrong form.

Receiving a good model of English is very important.

Try looking at this article Is Grammar Important .. ? to see another viewpoint on the importance of English grammar

If we want to speak English well, understand the English language well  or write English well

it is necessary to find out how to understand English grammar.

How we use English verb forms (tenses) is essential to developing good communication in English. Effective use of the English language is the key to good communication.

To learn English well does not necessarily mean that you have to exclusively study English grammar:

Studying grammar is one option – it is one that must be accompanied by regular contact with written and spoken language.

Most of the millions of native speakers of English around the world never studied English grammar. They acquired their grammar at an early age through regular access to a good model of language.

I am not going to talk about how we construct the verb form but I want to emphasise the need to access the basic concepts of how these grammatical forms are used by native English speakers.

Sometimes people try and complicate English Grammar . English grammar has evolved over many hundreds of years to become a simplified version of what went before. The basic rules of verb forms (tenses) are very simple, they are perhaps different from your own language but they are not difficult. Look here for more information on English verb forms

Read the article Is grammar important ?

After learning the basic verb forms and using them correctly, English becomes more complicated because it is difficult to find rules to follow. It is at this stage that it is essential to have regular, daily, contact with the language.

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I have posted and will continue to post many articles showing how to form and use English verb forms, in the links below you will find practical lessons and practice tests for the main areas of grammar that you need.

Go to English language and GRAMMAR lessons here

Go to English language and grammar EXERCISES here

Exercise for practising basic English

When you finish, why not try more English language and grammar tests?

OR do some English grammar lessons here >>>

Try Elementary Practise Test 2 now >>>

When you finish, why not try more English language and grammar tests?

OR do some English grammar lessons here >>>

I think it’s very important to remember how we learnt our native language(s). If you want to to learn the English language well you need to have exposure to that language on a regular basis.

Young kids are exposed to their maternal language(s) for up to 3 years before they utter a clear sentence in that/those language(s). Their brains are accumulating language information so that they can process it into usable phrases.

It all comes from having repeated access to an ever-increasing language input (from Mum, Dad, big sister/brother, grandparents, neighbours etc etc)

I picked up, with very little study, both Spanish and Catalan after the age of 30 by having regular exposure to the two languages.

A child hears the word “nose” tens or even hundreds of times before they use it in a sentence.

• You must find good examples of the spoken language, break it up into small manageable sections (10-30 minutes) and listen to the same section at least twice a day.
• You can get material from the BBC downloads, or search for podcasts on internet.
• If you record 1 or 2 minutes of classical music (without words) at the beginning it also helps to open up both hemispheres of your brain, then you learn with your whole brain
• Look for online chats with native English speakers
• You do not need to listen attentively: listen while you are driving, cooking, running, biking, walking etc
• My younger students listen to between 10 and 20 minutes twice a day, older students listen to longer sections.

You might like this fun article to put things in context:     English learning is child\’s play

Doing English language and grammar exercises is also OK

Both

I like eating fruit and

I like to eat fruit

are correct but they have different meanings.

I like eating fruit means that I enjoy eating fruit, when I taste an apple or an orange etc I feel good.

I like to eat fruit means that I think that it is good to eat fruit. I have read articles about a healthy diet and I see that it is better for our health to eat 5 pieces of fruit or vegetables a day

Another example:

I don’t like wearing a seat belt when I am in a car

• (I find it uncomfortable in hot weather, I don’t enjoy wearing a seat belt)

but I like to wear a seatbelt

• (it is good to wear a seat belt because if I’m involved in an accident it could save my life)

These rules can also be applied in the past.

I liked playing football in the park with my friends but my mother liked me to wear a hat when it was cold

If “like” is used together with a modal verb we can only use the “like to” model.

I would like to eat early today, I have a meeting this afternoon

If you want to know more about how to learn the English language well, have a look at this article.

Find English grammar lessons here >>

Go to vocabulary index here >>