Why record yourself speaking?

You want to get better at speaking English, but how?

Well, you do have a powerful communications device in your pocket.

Oh yes, that device.

You know that recording yourself speaking is a great way to judge where you're currently at with speaking, and measure your progress. So why aren't you doing it already?

Here are the most common reasons why, and some tips to help you start.

All work and no play... Experiencing British culture during your study visit.

So you're in the UK, studying hard for your language exam.  You're constantly thinking about vocabulary, grammar tips and listening practice, and free time is a distant memory.

Students hard at work

Then one day your teacher asks you a practice speaking question:

"Can you tell me about an arts performance that you attended?"

And.... your mind goes blank.  Performing arts?  When was the last time?  Back in school?  Before that?  Never?

So what do you do?

Confused by -ing and -ed adjectives? You won't be.

Two students are sitting in a lesson, trying hard to stay awake.  Student A turns to Student B and whispers "I'm boring."  Student B replies "I'm bored too."

Which one of them is right?  Do you get confused with -ing and -ed adjectives too?

No Job for a Woman? Mind your Language!

Question:  Is there anything wrong with the following sentences?

1. It's important for a doctor to be good at listening to his patients.
2. Sometimes a manager needs to make decisions that will be unpopular with his staff.
3. A nurse knows that she has a lot of responsibility for her patients' welfare.
4. If someone wants to become a scientist, he needs to study hard at school.

Answer:  It depends what you mean by 'wrong'.  Grammatically, they're all fine.  However, to many English-speakers, there's something just a bit... uncomfortable... about them.

Simply put: why are the doctor, the manager and the scientist automatically men, while the nurse is a woman?  Aren't women doctors too?  And men nurses?  In English it's now customary to include both genders in statements like these - it's polite, even!

New Year's Resolution: improve my English

Did you make any New Year's Resolutions last week, as the clock ticked towards 12, the fireworks started and people everywhere tried to remember the words to Auld Lang Syne?  If your resolution was to get better at English, what are you going to do next?

Actually, it doesn't really matter what your first step is, just as long as you do something.  You could...

• look up language classes in your local area
• find out whether studying in an English-speaking country is a possibility
• set up a new social networking account that you'll only use in English
• download a language learning app for your phone
• beg, buy or borrow a book in English to practise your reading
• start a blog
• try to meet English speakers socially to practise conversation
• do what you love - look for English videos, groups and sites relating to your hobbies and interests

And whatever you do, practise, practise, practise.  Time, effort, and repetition will all help you to improve.

Congratulations!  By taking that first step and finding a way to incorporate some more English into your daily life, you are already doing better at keeping your New Year's Resolution than most of the population!  Now for the second step, and the third...

Photo taken from http://flickr.com/eltpics by @eltpics, used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

Little differences that make a big difference

Sometimes in English it's possible to say a sentence that is perfectly correct in terms of grammar, but doesn't mean quite what you intended.  So, why not try this quiz - it could save you some misunderstandings in future!

A quick language quiz (with answers):

1) You walk up to someone and say 'What's the problem?'  What are they likely to do in response?

2) You walk up to someone and say 'What's your problem?'  What are they likely to do in response?

3) You're talking about your job, and you say 'I work like an accountant'.  Are you a qualified accountant?

4) You're talking about your job, and you say 'I work as an accountant'.  Are you a qualified accountant?

5) Your friend says she's going on holiday for three days.  When does she leave?

6) Your friend says she's going on holiday in three days.  When does she leave?

Is that priceless or worthless? Confusing words part 2

Two pictures of priceless objects, and two of worthless objects - but which is which?  This is one of those cases where the English language can seem totally illogical.  You would expect priceless and worthless to be synonyms, but in fact they're opposites.

Here's why:

The suffix -less means not having ______

• A useless thing is something that doesn't have a use.
• A homeless person is someone who doesn't have a home.
• Something worthless does not have worth - in more natural English, it isn't worth anything.

So in our picture, the bags of rubbish, the broken umbrella, and the dead fish are all worthless.

Something that is worth a lot of money is very valuable, so you would expect to pay a high price for it.  But for something completely unique, like the vases in the top-left picture, or the helmet in the bottom-right, are even more valuable than that.  In fact, they are priceless - they are so valuable that they do not have a price.  A synonym for priceless is invaluable, which means that something isn't possible to value, or decide the price of in money.

Improving your Reading skills in English

A lot of students ask me how they can improve their reading skills.  They typically say that they read a lot, but it's very slow, and they just don't seem to get better at it.  Most of these students always read in the same way in English - slowly, and with a dictionary in the other hand for the words they don't know.  This is actually quite bad for your reading skills, but more on that later...

What I tell these students is that they need to practise reading in different ways, to get better at different reading skills.  In particular, they need to practise Fast Reading and Slow Reading techniques.

Confusing words: fun / funny, typical / traditional

Learning a language can be like climbing a mountain sometimes.  At the base, all you can see is the first bit of the path, so you start out confidently.  After a struggle, you get to the top of a steep climb, and suddenly the mountain looks bigger.  You climb and climb again, and all you can see is more of the mountain.  Is there even a top?  The higher you go, the more the mountain seems to grow, as you start to understand more and more of the size and complexity of the language.

And let's face it, the English language can be pretty confusing at times.  There are vast numbers of words that are synonyms, or near synonyms, or sometimes synonyms and sometimes not.  So what's a student to do?