People keep asking me ‘how did you get your English?’
How to speak English like a native?
How to be fluent?
It is not actually Faculty or even Primary School.
But it is a crucible or a melting pot of all the experience I had in my life in English of course.
A good mum; who used to teach me English with boards and coloured letters.
A good school; where they depended on building our self-esteem and mental abilities, along with good pronunciation.
I cannot deny that when I came to Egypt, I was the first of my classes all 6 years of prep and secondary that in my prep finals, the police escorted me home because I prohibited cheating in class since I did not want to be an equal to losers who went to technical schools after that.
Anyway, this is due to proper elementary education in KG and Primary stages.
Actually, I am not quite sure of this, but you have to work a lot to get that…a lot
Listening and I mean a lot, a lot of Listening
Listen to anything and everything!
News Channels; like BBC and CNN, and even Nile TV
Radio; like Monte Carlo, Nile FM and BBC…of course to improve your listening skills without connecting them to lips’ reading
Songs; any kind of songs starting from Lionel Richie till Liona Lewis
It is actually important to practise the different accents of all people & also the short-cut and tuned accents used in singing, in general
TV for sure; all English programmes; MBC 2, MBC 4 and when I learned English, I did not have the luxury of MBC Action, MBC Max and the wonderful channel MBC Persia, which you can watch without bothering yourself watching the subtitling as well
You may also try to delete the stf. File of the subtitling from all the series you are watching on your PC to improve your listening and understanding skills.
Listen to word, if even you did not listen to it properly and keep checking your dictionary till you find it. This will teach you never to forget it. Pursue it as if it is a target or a life goal
Ask friends, teachers or colleagues
Do not be ashamed for not knowing!
It does not make you an illiterate, but it makes you a learner.
English is every where, but you have to be alerted enough to notice
First of all, learn how to pronounce the alphabet
Notice the misspellings and typos in everything you read
Be like a sponge who absorbs English from any source you find in front of you and even hidden behind anything else
Read like a rat…Read everything everywhere; Labels on shampoo, food products and Medical prescriptions.
Always check your dictionary for pronunciation
Learn how to pronounce "pronunciation" and how it is derived from "pronounce" and it did not consequently become "pronounciation"
Learn how to differentiate between "luxury" and "luxurious"
Learn how to pronounce "Suggestion" and when to put a stress in ‘idea’!
Learn the American slang!
Read! I read ‘Al-Ahram Weekly’ weekly for 4 years.
Choose a theme or a topic to talk about it and start looking for the vocabulary you need!
Read about all topics in English!
Religion
Ethics
Love and Relationships
Novels and Plays
Poetry
Politics
Law
Economics
Science Fiction
Astronomy
Movies and Critiques
Business
Language itself; etymology, morphology and syntax
Use your Arabic- English dictionary and then check the word senses or connotations in your beloved dear friend, your English- English dictionary
I would recommend Cambridge or Oxford
You shall keep a glossary of all the new words you discovered over a period of time
You must have a usage dictionary
Always link; link English words to Arabic words; English emotions to Arabic emotions…
Get angry in English!
Get excited and thrilled in English!
Love in English!
Think in English!
Write you diaries and future plans in English!
Be an English freak!
Do everything in English!
Talk with your family, friends and colleagues in English!
Pronounce!
Talk! Speak! Pronounce!
Try audio books!
Subscribe in these two websites:
www.urbandictionary.com
www.businessdictionary.com
Be an internet lunatic!
You may also find these links very helpful:
www.wikipedia.org
www.wikionary.org
www.acryonymfinder.com
www.onelook.com
www.nytimes.com
www.bbc.co.uk
Besides many other websites, which certainly I cannot list
English is a sense. It is not a language to study and get bored of by the passing of time. If you did all this, you shall have no problem writing anything. You shall no more fear misspelling and grammatical mistakes.
Make it your mother tongue!
Good Luck!
Enjoy your fruitful journey with English Learning!
