How to Speak English

Do you want to know how to speak English well and to become more fluent?

You probably know some English grammar and vocabulary, but you maybe don't know how to speak English fluently.

Here are 10 useful things to think about which will help you to speak better English:

First of all, the GoSpeakEnglish website has many free video lessons which explain everything in a way which is really easy to understand, and to remember.

You can test your knowledge of English, by watching the video lessons and then trying to see if you get 100% in the quizzes.

You can even record your own voice while reading the video text, to compare your pronunciation, to that of the native speaker in the original video lesson.

Go Speak English - Video Learning

1. Do you have the possibility to go to a native English speaking country?

If you are lucky enought to have the possibility to go to Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa, then you will be able to learn English really quickly!

When you are in one of these countries, you are surrounded by people speaking real English; you can see signs and posters written in English; you can listen to conversations on the street or in cafes; you can listen to the tv and radio...Everything is in English!

You can also go into stores and supermarkets to see many different categories of food and drink, clothes, and other objects. The name of each type food or object is printed on a sign or label, in English, and you know what the type of food or object is called in your own language! Everything comes with subtitiles!

If you don't have the possibility to go to an English speaking country, then the next best thing is to do as many listening exercises as possible.

2. Do you listen to enough English being spoken?

Listening is the most important thing you can do to improve your understanding of English, and subsequently, your spoken English.

The more you listen to native English speakers, the more you “automatically” learn all of the following things:

• How to distinguish and recognise the sound of single words in a sentence
• How to construct sentences appropriately
• How to prononounce words correctly
• How to use keyword stress and emphasis
• How to understand new words through intuition, or by guessing

Here's a great lesson about Keyword stress in sentences:

Stressing Keywords

Whenever you listen to someone speaking English, you should concentrate on key words which help you to understand the basic meaning of each sentence.

If you think that you have understood something, then you probably have understood it!

If you don't understand anything, just say: “Sorry, can you repeat that again please?”

The person speaking, will always appreciate it if you say that you don't speak English very well, rather than you not saying anything, and pretending to understand him or her, which would only create problems and frustration.

Here are several different listening exercises you can do:

• Watch movies and tv programmes in English without subtitles, that you have already seen in your own language, to concentrate on your understanding of spoken English.
• Watch movies and tv programmes in English with subtitles which will allow you to learn new vocabulary and expressions.
• Listen to English songs or talks on the radio

Movies and tv programmes have visual aspects which allow you to see what's happening, while the actors are speaking, so it's easier to guess what they are saying.

The actual words in any language, only count for about 60% of communication.

The remaining 40% of communication, includes the following factors:

• Voice intonation
• Facial expressions
• Visual context – whatever you can see in different situations
• Other periferal sounds, noises, or music

Talk shows with young interviewees such as a business person, actor, or singer, are great for learning different tenses, because there are questions and answers related to what the person did in the past, what they are doing in the present, and what plans they have for the future.

It is quite difficult to understand talk shows, however, as there are not many visual aspects to help you understand what they are talking about, apart from facial expressions.

There are many different ways to do listening exercises:

• You can concentrate on the way people speak in general to understand their voice intonation, and which words they emphasize.
• You can concentrate on the way native speakers, smoothly link words together which allows their spoken language to flow naturally.

Here's a great video lesson which explains how to link words, smoothly together:

Linking words together

• You can concentrate on the way native speakers construct sentences.
• You can concentrate on just 1 thing such as the position of adverbs, or the type of adjectives used in different situations.
• You can concentrate on how, and when pronouns are used.
• You can concentrate on different verb tenses: past, present simple, present continuous, present perfect, one of the 3 forms of future tense, and many other things!

3. Do you think too much about grammar and sentence construction?

Don't think too much, just speak!

Just try to speak in a natural and flowing way, without stopping, or correcting yourself.

It's much easier and more pleasant to listen to a person who makes some mistakes, but who speaks in a confident manner, rather than listening to a person who hesitates too much, and takes a long time to say anything.

4. Do you feel shy or lack confidence when speaking English?

If you become shy, or lack confidence whenever you speak in English to a native speaker, you just need to think that that person does not speak YOUR language!

So YOU are the person who is more “important” because you are trying to speak in another language.

The person listening to you should have a lot of respect for you, because YOU are the one who is doing all the hard work, not them!

5. Are you afraid of making mistakes?

If you don't know how to say a word in English, then just try inventing it, or even say it in your own language to see if the person listening will understand.

If you say something and the person listening doesn't understand, who cares?!

You can just try to say it again in another way.

It's much better to try to say something and make a mistake, with the possibility that the person listening might understand you, rather than not trying at all.

Go Speak English!

6. Do you learn enough vocabulary, often enough?

It's important to learn some new vocabulary, as often as possible, which helps you to start thinking in English.

One of the best ways to learn new words, is to go online to see different categories of things.

For example you can search for the website of a Supermarket in the UK, and then go to see the different types of food and drink, divided into different categories, such as:

Meat

Fruit

Vegetables

You can also watch online videos about things you like, such as:

Music

Photography

Sport

Cars

Love

Whenever you walk around every day or when you drive to work, try looking at different objects and think what they are called in English.

If you don't know, then write them down on your mobile phone, and translate them later.

You can also watch people and actions that are happening around you, and think about how to say the different verbs, adverbs, and adjectives, in English.

So to learn new vocabulary it's also important:

• To listen to new words which are used by native speakers so you can hear the correct pronunciation.
• To see them written so that you can see how they are spelled.
• To say them out loud yourself, so that you can practise saying them correctly.

When you do all of the above exercises, it allows you to learn, and remember new vocabulary, efficiently and quickly.

7. Do you think like a native English speaker?

The more you listen to native English speakers, the more you learn how they think and how they behave.

English is not just a language – it's a culture – a way of living.

Another issue to consider, is that the English language and culture gives considerable importance to "how", "where", and "when" anything happens.

Here's a video lesson which clearly explains how to use these words appropriately, and where to position them in sentences:

Sentence structure - Manner, Place, and Time

English is a very precise language which often includes a lot of information and details.

This makes it very quick and easy to understand everything that someone wants to ask, or tell us.

When the English language is spoken correctly, it doesn't leave any space for confusion, or misinterpretation.

8. Do you know the importance of pronunciation when speaking English?

English is the language with the largest number of words, and many of these words are similar to each other!

The English language contains many words which have been adopted from foreign languages, and whenever a new word is integrated into English, a few interesting things happen...

• The spelling of the new word is kept as close as possible to the original foreign word, but changed to make it easily pronouncable by native English speakers.
• Then we have to make sure that the spelling and/or pronunciation of the new word doesn't create any conflict with other words which already exist in English.

There are many words which sound the same or are similar, but which have different meanings, so if they are not pronounced correctly then there is a high risk that the people listening, will either not understand what you say, or they might understand something completely different!

Here are some examples of words which sound similar, but which have different meanings:

"Can you close the door because it's too close?"

"I've made plans to buy some new plants for our garden."

"I used to put my mind to good use, but now I don't use my brain because I'm lazy."

"Can you tear off a piece of paper to wipe the tears off his face?"

"I can't bear to see bears or birds when I drink beer and I'm bare with only a beard on my face!"

"They might give me a present if I present their new product in the presence of our clients."

"He read a red book and then is going to read the instructions which will lead us to where the lead pipes are."

"She likes to walk to work with a wok, and she also likes to write a new word every day for everyone in the world".

"This one is better than these ones, but then it's not much better than those ones".

"We need to assure them that it's best to insure their car fully, to ensure a full refund in the case in which they cause an accident."

"I thought that we had to go through the tunnel, because that's what I was taught, but I think that that would be tougher though".

9. Do you know how to speak with intonation and pauses?

Keyword stress and pauses within sentences are also important to allow people to understand exactly what you want to say.

It's important to emphasise the specific words which are the most important in any sentence, and to make pauses whenever necessary, through the use of commas.

For example, if you say:

"We're hungry, so let's eat, Granny"

then this means that you're telling my Granny that both your Granny and you are hungry, and you're suggesting that you should both eat something...

...but if you say:

"We're hungry, so let's eat Granny"

then this means that your telling someone else that both you and that person are hungry, and that you should eat your Granny!

Talking about eating...here's a great video lesson which will teach you how to talk about where we can eat and drink:

Talking about where we eat and drink

Here's another funny example:

Panda eats shoots and leaves

or if you add 2 commas...

Panda eats, shoots, and leaves

So only 2 commas can completely change the meaning of a sentence!

In the first example without any commas “shoots” and “leaves” are nouns, and in the second example with commas, “shoots” and “leaves” are verbs.

Incredible, isn't it?!

10. Do you know that English, is a very strange language?!

English is full of some really strange things!

Don't think too much about why you say some things in strange ways that don't exist in your own language...just accept them, and move on...that's the way it is!

The more you listen to native English speakers, the more you will understand everything.

When you begin to “feel” the language...that's when you know that you've got it!

So what are you waiting for?...Go Speak English!

Copyright - Steven Walthew, President of Go Speak English Ltd. 2018