How to Improve Your English

Let us begin strategically, paying attention to the spoken and written aspects of English. First of all, we begin with ways to develop the linguistic abilities.

Read books:

When you start reading books, don’t go for the classics or any novel because it might make the language seem difficult due to its rich literary style. So pick a book written in simple English. You could even start with short stories meant for children. Avoid comics as much as possible because they might involve too many colloquial words.

Read newspapers:

Reading newspapers is also an effective way to improve your vocabulary. People who are busy workers and who may not find time to read books should make it a habit to read the newspaper every morning. It should be programmed to become a daily routine in life. When you read newspapers, the added advantage is that you come across a variety of articles and different writing styles.

Read letters:

Certain letters written by eminent personalities have been compiled and published. A few worthy to mention are ‘Famous and Much Loved Letters from a Father to His Daughter’, Before Freedom- Nehru’s Letters to His Sister 1909-1947 and so on.

Use dictionaries:

Purchase a dictionary, probably an oxford would help a lot. While reading books and the newspaper, whenever you come across new words, refer to the synonym (meaning) of such words immediately. You could also use online dictionaries like http://www.thefreedictionary.com which include an audio clip wherein the word is pronounced orally.

Listen to speeches:

Purchase DVDs containing speeches of famous people. You could begin with presidential speeches like those of Jawaharlal Nehru, Winston Churchill, Barrack Obama and so on. Record such speeches when they are telecasted in television. Replay and listen to them repeatedly and listen carefully to see the accents and the pronunciation of words. You may also use Youtube to find such speeches.

Record your voice:

Read aloud a stanza of a poem or a paragraph from a journal or a few lines of text from a book. Record your voice on your PC or mobile phone or on your pocket tape recorder. Now replay the audio and listen to your voice. Carefully analyze the pronunciation of each word and compare it with the audio files available in some online dictionary.

Next, ways to develop your written skills.

Grammar books:

Purchase books on basic grammar. Utilize the beginner level books which teach you about tense forms, and their usage. Then, move to the intermediate level which teaches common errors in English.

Put pen to paper:

Write a few words on something that you know. Then check with the grammar books to find if you have used the correct tense forms, spellings and the proper words at the proper place.

Try new words:

Whenever you come across a new word in a book or newspaper, find its meaning and usage in online dictionaries. Make a note of these words in a diary and then utilize them while writing on any topic. Utilise the thesaurus tool provided in Microsoft Word to find other equivalents to a particular word.

These are a few simple ways you can adapt to improvise on your english skills.