So, how do I improve my English further? What’s the next step after reaching this level? Obviously online classes wouldn’t do. The only option I could think of is living in an English speaking country, but that currently not an option.
PS this entire post was written without any help from online resources, so you can take that as my current level of English writing. If you spot out anything you might have articulated differently, it’d be great to hear! Thanks!
Knowing which preposition to use is sometimes challenging.
Prepositions are one of the hardest things to translate. Sometimes, translating it one way gives it a different meaning than you intended and other times it really doesn't but wouldn't be the "common" usage.
To give an example, my sister was going on about people translating stuff in the Harry Potter books, looking for hidden meanings, and she told me Voldemort was French for "flight of death" and I told her "No, de can also be translated as from. I would translate that flight from death."
Flight of death is nonsense in English. It doesn't make sense. Flight from death has a completely different meaning and makes perfect sense -- Lord Voldemort was trying to get out of dying. He was trying to escape his own death. He was fleeing from death.
But if you are talking about someone's hometown, saying "Doreen, from Columbus" or "Doreen, of Columbus" means the same thing and most people wouldn't misunderstand it. De in French is often used that way as well and it more or less doesn't matter which of the two English prepositions you use.
Edit: I just realised you might have meant that translated literally it makes more sense in English.
In the context of looking for Easter Eggs and hidden meanings in the Harry Potter books, "flight from death" makes more sense.
I don't actually know the proper usage of vol in French. My sister supplied that information and, obviously, she knows less French than I do. My example was just intended to illustrate that de can be translated as either from or of and sometimes which one you use completely changes the meaning in English and sometimes it doesn't.
Speaking from personal experience, I think all this will do is change your speech patterns and modulate your accent ever so slightly.
You likely read/write English better than a native English speaker already. Some of the language/grammar I've encountered from my English colleagues in both formal and informal written communication is absolutely terrible, and I attribute that to them "learning" English by way of speaking and "incorrect" colloquial usage before perfunctorily running through their English lessons at school.
Kinda by definition this can't be correct. English is defined by what the native speakers speak. It might be that sometimes how they say things doesn't match up to how you were taught was correct, but it is likely to be correct for their dialect.
What about regional accents? For a non native speaker of English, understanding English as spoken in Scotland is a challenge. And I heard people born in UK complaining they had sometimes difficulties with American English (for example with real life/social things). This without speaking of people from India who speak an English which is slightly different from US' or UK's English (and equally valuable and "native").
So I guess a definition of "native speaker" is a bit difficult.
OP may very well have better-than-average spelling. To quote Harvey Pekar, "average is dumb!".
https://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5ixdsF2111qz6f4bo1_400.j...
The easiest start is to find a good accent reduction and pronunciation coach to have the initial assessment and understand your unique path.
Unfortunately one often finds that even the basic vowels you think you had nailed down might be "wrong" and have to be corrected in order to have an easily understood and enjoyable articulation.
For a long time I couldn't even hear a difference between IPA [i] and [ɪ]. It took a few weeks to properly recognize and replicate them in English.
Couple of my favorite resources: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-MSYk9R94F3TMuKAnQ7dDg https://www.youtube.com/user/rachelsenglish/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv8YBYZ2s_imUC3H84FwVFQ
Under my point of view I view keeping your accent as part of your identity and something that makes you unique.
You’re unlikely to sound like a native but it’s also not really needed. English is a really mixed up language and we (native speakers) are used to diversity.
There’s actually a huge variations between different regions of the UK let alone native speakers from the rest of the world. So feel confident that it’s OK to retain your own accent as long as it’s not so strong it stops people from understanding you.
If for some reason you did manage to adopt a regional English accent then we’d actually find that quite funny. :D
English is a beautiful language, because it lets you reach people. Honor it by always doing your very best when writing and speaking it. Pay attention to your pronunciation, and challenge yourself by writing more, if you can, and editing and sharing your work.
Other than that, perfect native pitch is over-rated, and it may take away confidence dearly needed to talk and practice more.
Noam Chomsky must have believed this too; when he was prince of linguistics he considered trying to save or document dying languages a waste of time and unfashionable.
It effectively resulted in a language genocide.
It's hubris to think English will contain all of the answers.
There was a really engaging interview with Wade Davis on CBC about this: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/saving-the-planet-means-liste...
Forgive the tangent.
It's a rule of thumb, a practical rule for life at the same level than buying groceries. I'm well aware that language incarnations form a very esoteric space, worth studying and caring about if you are in the right profession, or have the time and the inclination.
Would have he been a better writer if he had worked to eliminate this obvious influence on form? I highly doubt it.
At a certain point, you have achieved native fluency. From there, what you do with grammar and flow is up to you- the rules are not cast in stone. Borrow what you think is best from any and all languages at your disposal, and knead it in to English. If it works, we all benefit.
On 13 October 1874 Bobrowski sent the sixteen-year-old to Marseilles, France, for a planned career at sea.[15]:44–46 Though Conrad had not completed secondary school, his accomplishments included fluency in French (with a correct accent), some knowledge of Latin, German and Greek...
I am an English teacher to foreign students and have a few at your level of fluency. With these students I usually do custom classes using content from literature, poetry and current affairs, mainly to get them using advanced vocabulary and grammar, and then applying it to their own lives so that they can discuss topics in detail in a variety of ways. Making sure to know when to use colourful language, when not to, the perfect phrasal verb or idiom and so on.
One of the other comments in this thread also mentions good fiction (Conrad). I'd second that, as well as adding variety with more modern writers as well as those of the classics. For example, a book like Satchmo (story of Louis Armstrong's life written in his own vernacular - it's brilliant) is as useful to your advancement of English fluency as is Conrad, Wharton, Louis Stevenson. The thing to note with the classics is to find one or two you really enjoy (I don't particularly enjoy Austin but I love others).
Additionally to literature you could read scientific material, listen to and interpret hip hop and explain it to someone else, try to write poetry, speak with young native speakers, speak with older native speakers and so on.
If you'd like to do a class any time you can also contact me if you'd like. My vety basic website is teacherross dot com.
Good luck and keep going.
Ross.
In a very basic way, with my less fluent students I continually ask then to explain their thinking behind an opinion... Why, why, why
And of course including more advanced material than their level dictates, to push them harder and learn faster.
Hope that helps somewhat!
The reason I suggest it is that it showcases a very particular dialect of British English that many people struggle with (even native English speakers) if they aren't familiar with it. The show was so popular in fact that many modern colloquial British English phrases/words can trace their appearance to this show, not because the show invented them, but because the show exposed so many people to this dialect.
Some examples of words/phrases popularised by OFAH: dipstick, wally, cushty, lovely jubbly.
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/onlyfools/lingo/ for more.
If you want to master modern British English, check it out. It's also hilariously funny.
Other good choices would be "Yes Minister" (original series), "Fawlty Towers", and for extra-credit you should absolutely try to watch "Rab C. Nesbitt" (which is set in Glasgow.
I'd suggest that Only Fools & Horses (after the second/third series) is pretty understandable to all British people, but a lot more would struggle with the Scottish accents.
Here's a brief sample, and another Scottish themed comedy sketch:
The show, set in occupied WW2 France, represents different languages by using English in different accents.
A character to particularly look out for is the British secret agent disguised as a French gendarmes. He is able to “blend in” because he “spokes prefect Fronch”.
It’s a great illustration of how much you can mangle English and still be understood ...and is also quite funny.
"If you spot out..." should be "If you spot anything you might have..."
"Articulated" doesn't quite work because the past tense shades towards meaning "movable with joints" instead of "express." I'd have gone with the simpler "said differently."
Honestly, it gets really tough at this level, because native speakers learn these shades of meaning - if they learn them at all - through years of exposure and practice. A lot of them are just conventions. There's no dictionary or textbook for them. They're just standardised language quirks which everyone knows and copies.
I would not suggest you learn by reading the great English prose stylists, because a lot of the stylings are archaic. It's great writing and can be entertaining and enjoyable, but it's not a prose style you want to emulate because it will sound stuffy and pompous in a modern context.
See also: "social register." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_(sociolinguistics)
Instead I'd buy a shelf full of novels by 20th century and later writers. Orwell is always good, but also Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, Don DeLillo, Iain Banks, maybe Thomas Pynchon at a stretch. Definitely Terry Pratchett and JK Rowling. Among many others.
Don't just read them, see if you can understand how they use social register to set tone and define character in different social contexts.
For day to day English your best bet is probably the magazine industry. Regular reading of tech magazines and wider cultural and political commentary will help a lot.
That didn't even cross my mind. That's probably "an engineer's perspective" so to speak.
These days, lots of words have different meanings to different people, depending upon the context of their lives, and it's getting really hard to treat anything as a lingua franca, even English which gets called "globish," because we have so many people with such rich and varied knowledge bases who use the same words to mean different things entirely.
I do agree that said is the better word, but mostly because it's shorter and more common and not because there is much risk of it being misinterpreted, given the context.
I agree; I don’t think the alternate meaning of 'jointed movement' is going to occur to the majority of people - it’s really not in common use.
Rather than "would sometimes" as "will sometimes".
I'd rephrase "current thought" to "thoughts" or "train of thought".
I'd rephrase "I’m also aware of my grammar not being perfect." as "I'm also aware that my grammar is not perfect."
"but that currently [is] not an option" (presumably a typo).
I'd also add that in changing any of those I could easily be proof-reading a native speaker's writing.
With the exception of:
> if you spot out anything
unless it's an AmE idiom or something, to me that's the only think that marks you out as non-native. I'm aware I've said both 'picked out' and 'marks you out', and I have no idea how to explain why this is different, it just sounds weird.
> if you spot anything
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Sense-Style-Thinking-Persons-Writing-...
look for games like https://research.google.com/semantris
Play online games with teamspeak
1. it assumes that the references to the writings of Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, William Blake etc. etc. do not litter the linguistic landscape and that people could not improve their understanding of the language by picking up on those references (John Buchan maybe not so much)
2. that there are not levels of usage of the language where these references are required (which I called deep fluency), one can certainly be fluent and argue points, but not know how to adequately poke fun at Alan Simpson's quote of "Who steals my purse, steals trash" without some familiarity of Iago.
3. Finally it assumes that there will never be any conversation or situation in which there will be people familiar with these references, and that they would do anything like sprinkle those references throughout their speech, as a sort of intellectual spice. Widely read people may often do this and, as like seeks like, their acquaintances are probably widely read as well, so it can be helpful to know what these people are talking about.
If you cannot recognize the reference, you cannot respond in kind.
At any rate I thought it a truth universally acknowledged that some phrasings don't go out of style, and must be in want of insertion into any discussion they could possibly fit.
I think the most broadly applicable answer is to read the most famous English stylists such as Gibbon, Carlyle, Arnold, or novelists like Austen, Eliot, Henry James, etc. This writing is complex and sophisticated enough to be challenging even to native speakers, but the vocabulary is still almost totally congruent with modern English.
However, since you're posting on HN, I suspect you'd like a response from a more technical perspective, in which case my answer is: read and write open source documentation! Writing good docs requires complete understanding of the terminology and concepts involved, as well as compositional skill and precision. It's a great exercise which will improve your English, as well as your understanding of the code you're writing about - and as a bonus you're giving something back while you learn.
I disagree. You need very little language skill to read technical docs if you're familiar with the topic, and only slightly more to write them yourself.
I'm not a native speaker, but I'd use "spot" rather than "spot out". Don't know why, just looks a bit unusual.
I suspect that the OP has merged one idiom into the other :)
As a native speaker, "spot" by itself or maybe more formally a verb like "notice" would be something that I would use in normal everyday speech in this context.
I would probably write: “If you spot anything you might have articulated differently, it’d be great to hear about it!”
OPs grammar & vocabulary is really impressive. Internalising all these entirely unwritten rules that are implicit to native speakers of a language is what makes the difference between someone who is "merely" (! hah: like there’s anything unimpressive about being fluent in a non-native tongue) fluent & someone who sounds like they grew up with the language.
(I know someone who has lived in Paris for decades & speaks fluent French, but to this day still speaks French with an obvious Yorkshire accent. Not even just an English accent: it’s obviously a Yorkshire one!)
"Strategies for enhancing English language fluency: General fluency" https://www.washington.edu/teaching/programs/international-t...
I guess for me the main question is, what do you mean by 'fluency?' Do you want to speak/be thought of as someone from an English speaking country? Or is it more a personal feeling that you want to be better?
For someone with an already high-level of English speaking and writing, I think the remaining barrier is more cultural than language. Like can you decipher common codes as someone who lives in the culture of that English-speaking country. And from my experience, a lot of that is broken up into two categories - 1. childhood identifications, things like education system, curriculum; regional, national milestone events, etc.; and 2. pop culture today, things like TV shows, current events, views on social, economics, politics, etc.
I think it's easier for the US case just because how pervasive American soft power is. But in any case, my feeling just from your post is that it's perhaps really more culture rather than language that you want to focus on.
What I want to say with it is: do not worry too much. Read, listen and speak English with natives, and you will keep a decent enough level to gain real fluency any time you get immersed in an English speaking environment.
For me the question is - for a global or a widespread language like that of English, is there any characteristic which can be defined as 'native'. English speaker from Scotland would sound very 'non-native' in Australia and vice versa.
I would imagine for a languages like Mandarin or Russian which is spoken in a particular geographical region with homogeneous population can have that characteristic - "Spoken like a true native". But for languages like English not so, same could be true for languages like Spanish and Hindi (3rd most widely spoken - contained in a geographical region but spoken among very diverse and non-homogenous population).
Error! Missing oxford comma! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma
In all seriousness, your post reads better than most native speakers.
If you're writing something formal, and you're unsure if something is technically correct, find a style guide you agree with and consult it. The journalistic styles are intended to be clear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP_Stylebook
There are many style guides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_guide#United_States
When I'm struggling with a sentence, I make sort of a mental graph of the sentence and apply rules (usually around commas, and mostly without thinking, it just happens). I think it's because I was trained as a kid with these diagrams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_diagram
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_usage_controversies is a useful list. Most speakers are bad at one or more of these. I was never able to train myself to pick out a split infinitve, for example, but I would be able to if I were better educated.
Also, Grammarly is an AI thing that's supposed to detect and correct, but I haven't used it. It's quite popular with the kids these days, so they'll probably be dictating what "english" is if they get big enough: https://www.grammarly.com/
You might also not want to speak perfect English. Most Americans certainly don't. What I mean is, is that a "double copula" is technically "wrong", but it does convey extra information and give a cadence and a degree of informality. English has lots of little choices like that.
I speculate that you get better when you are pushing past your limit, whereas comfortable practice stops you from regressing. For example, being in a situation where you are too tired to speak English but you have no choice. Also, you could try more challenging forms of text such as poetry or older English literature. While I doubt you have need to speak like Shakespeare, forming a bit of fluency with 16th century English may prime your mind to be more aware of the subtle differences you hear in modern English. Anyway, just speculation so take with a pinch of salt!
I'm proficient in English and I feel confident speaking. I don't think my accent hurts me in my professional or personal life. On the contrary, I think that it enriches the conversation. I can count with one hand the number of times a bad accent or not knowing a word or expression caused even the slight issue in my life during the last few years.
Going back to the question, it comes from experience. To this day I still hear words that I don't know or want to say expressions that I only know how to say in my mother tongue. In those situations, I give a literal translation and then look for a similar expression in English. You'll find that many times there is an equivalent, but other times such expressions don't really exist in other languages. And that's great! it adds to the richness of knowing more that one language. As a side, if you find yourself in these situations, make very clear to your conversation partners that you want to get corrected when you make a mistake, otherwise some people will keep quiet out of politeness.
Lastly, keep in mind that not all native speakers of a language talk perfectly all the time (far from it!). There is a good chance you already write better than some people by virtue of paying more attention to it. Once you realise that language is about communication and not about getting a perfect grade, it will lift a weight out of your shoulders and allow you to enjoy it more.
There's a branch of linguistics called "applied linguistics". Within it the people studying it learn how to - and this part is crucial - teach a person of a given nationality a foreign language of choice using proven, mostly effective methods. As you see, the AL process is going to look like differently for an Italian leaning Spanish and an American learning Polish. This is why the person that can guide you, a teacher, must be of your native nationality. It takes on average 2,5-3,5 years of not that hard work to make a person speaking let's say English into someone who's impossible to distinguish from native speakers. I've seen the results myself, and I was glazing my eyes!
Instead of looking for a regular teacher take the one that's been studying applied linguistics instead. Those people aren't much more expensive. You need a guidance of that kind because someone knowledgeable must tell you what you, specifically, do wrong. Having that knowledge and reasonable tools to address your challenges you're going to love what you can get from the learning process.
I'm the best example :) My teacher told me after 2 years that I'm the most untalented, lazy, not motivated enough, stubborn person she's ever seen in her life. Plus that the fact that she made me who I am today is her greatest success ;) Kudos to her - I'm doing pretty fine with English (being Polish). Moreover, I know what I don't know, so now I can work on my own. You can't put a price on that.
Good luck!
Just learn how to do that properly, and maybe learn why certain things are spoken/written the way they are (the history behind English is quite fascinating). Google exact match is a godsend for this :D
> The only option I could think of is living in an English speaking country, but that currently not an option.
That may actually turn out to be a major disappointment. Native English speakers don't care about how they speak (or even write). Aside from your accent, which may never improve, you will likely be better than half of the country you'll be living in :D
On the accent: You can sound native, but always a bit off to anyone paying attention. Physiological differences due to growing up with another language in the very early years. Perhaps constant everyday training and speaking only English can help.
This question and related suggestions might vary by English speaking country, or even region. The beauty is there is no 'right'.
https://twitter.com/SirPatStew
This was my second stage of enjoying learning my mother tongue. Not Patrick Stewart specifically (he's superb), but doing Shakespeare in secondary school (UK). Great fun. This was an inner London comprehensive not a fancy school at any level, yet everyone loved it. Who hates shouting 'Ho!' at the rest of the class? The interpretation, flexibility, etymology, was enlightening.
The third stage was writing a thesis in university. I think you're there for precise writing already. I think you're > a lot of native speakers already. Try some Shakespeare. Lots of good other suggestions here too; find one that fits, and try a few that might not seem they do, but then do.
Disclaimer: Am no linguist.
Secondly, I'm in a similar position to you with German. I have two advantages over you:
1. I lived and worked in Germany for several years; 2. I am married to a German.
That said, there are a few things that I try to do to improve. Not sure if they're relevant to you, but take what you can from them.
1. I ask lots of technical questions. I enjoy languages and try to get to the root of both my own language and others, and to find the connections between them. I talk about German grammar and idiom to my wife to the point of tedium.
2. I listen to lots of podcasts by people from different regions with different dialects.
3. I try to read some older German texts, to get a feel for how the language has evolved over the last few hundred years.
Honestly though, you're getting to a level of proficiency that is quite rarefied for a non-native speaker, so returns will naturally diminish.
One final thought:
> spot out
is not good English idiom. "Spot" would suffice. :-)
Good on you for making such an effort, mate. Best of luck.
It's available freely online at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm?la... or https://www.comeuntochrist.org/requests/free-book-of-mormon . (I have more info at my web site, linked to my profile; feedback or questions there are welcome.)
Rather than attempt perfect grammar (if there is such a thing), I recommend you find a writing/speaking style you find comfortable with. This might mean using interesting idioms (where most natives would use cliches) or 'talking in writing'. Consider these two alternatives:- (a) Use short sentences. (b) Here's a thing you could try. Brief sentences with just one thing in them at a time.
Vocabulary will always help, but sources can be peculiar (dumbed-down or deliberately off-centre) or jarringly out of date.
All in all, people are more interested in what you have to say than picking out silly non-conformities. Read a few news or Wikepedia articles in English you might fancy comparing with Hebrew to get the flow of sentences.
Good luck. Good reading. Good writing. Good conversation.
English idioms are hard, even for native speakers, so you might want to get a book on those.
I knew of someone that kept his English sharp by reading whole newspapers every day. You might want to do the same thing by going to one of the big English newspaper sites. The opinion/review area is usually where you will find writers using the more common form of the language.
Additionally, to that, I would start a blog or some other writing form that will force you to practice what you've learned on a regular basis. You need to go back and review what you've written and see where you've made mistakes. You might need some help with that.
Good luck!
In all three languages I feel confident, can tell jokes, understand and have tested level C2 (https://www.efset.org/cefr/).
Still, every once in a while, I "have this feeling" my proficiency is subpar. Still I learn new expressions and grammar twists that I was now aware about before.
What helps me getting more certain and better in the word craft of the local language is asking locals to correct me and ask them to explain words and constructs that seem strange or unknown to me.
Little things I would tweak as American speaker
“I’m aware my grammar isn’t perfect”. “But that’s not currently an option”
Also “holiday” is a British English term. If you’re speaking to Americans use “vacation”.
This doesn’t seem to be a problem for you but the biggest area I usually see is verb tense, and singular / plural. “I want two watermelon” “I asks for the watermelons” “25% is roughly align with what I see” (should be “aligned”, or “roughly aligns” and drop is) “They hasn’t shared the results yet” (should be “haven’t” for plural subject)
If your goal is to improve your writing too, I cannot recommend enough "The elements of style" by Strunk and White.
In my experience, the only way to really get a feel for that is to have conversations with native speakers. I had some native (Canadian, British) speaking colleagues in the past, at a time when I falsely believed that my English was near perfect, and it was amazing how much I noticed that I still had to learn.
As a native English speaker is this funny since English grammar is a bit fluid.
> Knowing which preposition to use is sometimes challenging.
True that. Also adjective order.
My suggestion is read and watch popular English fiction. I say that because I'm dubious that your English is technically deficient. More likely has to do with the intersection of culture and language. As in when and how to shift from formal to informal depending on situation. Also remember the English speaking world itself is fragmented. For instance I can often tell where someone grew up in the Bay Area by their speaking style.
But Winston Churchill said it best, and this is great advice: “short words are best, and old words, when short, are best of all”.
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/r...
