Help: Improving Thy English

[f0rk0]

Hi, guys, I am stuck in a rut here.

Maybe someone else's perspective will give me the needed push.

English being my second language, I think I have reached a decent level of communication after living in the U.S. for five years.

There is certainly no shortage of practice - from everyday personal interaction, to TV, to typing away on the Internet.

Yet my speaking skills could definitely stand some practice. I'm not exactly complaining about the accent, I know it's here to stay. But I would certainly like to minimize it and improve my diction.

I'm sure English is a second, if not third, or fourth language for some of you on JREF. So how do you, guys, keep on pushing yourself to improve?
Should I consider speech classes? Reading out loud? Taking a vow of silence to avoid communication alltogether?

Any personal experience or advice you could share?

[miu]

It might help to pay a bit more attention to phonetics. People usually think that they will just somehow pick up the sound but it doesn't always happen that easily. There are sounds in English that your mother tongue doesn't have, so recognising how they're produced might seem very difficult. I don't have any books or sites I could recommend but finding info about hwo the sounds are pronounced (e.g. where to put your tongue) might help. There might also be books about the biggest differences between your mother tongue and English. Furthermore, if you're really into this, you can always look into conversational devices such as pausing etc. For example, Finnish speakers tend to pause longer than English speakers so I atleast sometimes feel uncomfortable if someone interrupts me when I'm talking... Or maybe I'm just too fond of my own voice

I've noticed that reading poetry aloud helps me to find the 'rythm' of English a bit better. Finnish isn't a stress timed language, so I find that my English sometimes sounds a bit monotonous even though my accent doesn't sound very Finnish. Repeat after Us where you can find poems read aloud. The poems aren't most of the time read very well, though...

Also, a teacher of mine told me that listening to the radio is far more effective when you're tyring to learn pronunciation - you don't have pictures and such distracting you.

But whatever you do, don't stop talking - it's the best and most rewarding part

[Kinsao]

As well as echoing the advice that Miu has already given you, I would say, talk with as many English speakers as possible!

[f0rk0]

Thank you for the replies, guys.

There is certainly no shortage of English-speakers here in the U.S

Miu, "Repeat After Us" is a gem. Though I haven't been really repeating after them, just reading poems and fiction..

[Kaminari]

Ditto to the other comments. Best way to proceed is to listen to recorded speech and to use a tape recorder (or computer) for your own speaking, making corrections to match what you are listening to.

Errr..... that's "thine English," not "thy"

[lexico]

I highly recommend reading aloud on your own for the following reasons.

1) with the 5 yrs of listening, your auditory memory will kick in so that you vocalising will naturally drift towards the kind of English sounds you are most familiar with.

2) with the kind of text that is closest to what you like to talk about, how you like to talk about it, much of the clusters at the level of consonants, vowels, words, and grammatical forms will be hammered out. This will ease the transformation of your inner surface structure into vocalised surface structure. The rapid phonetic transformation that can often become a hurdle will be removed to an extent because you can identify where you get stuck in terms of vocalising.

3) often the spoken form itself embodies language understanding at multiple levels, it is crucial that you vocalise every chance you get; whether with a person conversing, or with yourself. Putting your thoughts into words is the best practice.

4) even if you have retained a slight Russian accent, that is really not a huge problem if you are making the key distinctions when sounding words in opposing pairs. When two words have phonemes that are differentiated due to one opposition, then as a rule the difference gets exaggerated. (Is there a long-vs.-short opposition in Russian ?)

5) do a review of Russian phonology in comparison to English phonology. The place of articulation sometimes differ; sometimes it is the manner of articulation that needs to be assimilated.

6) the reading-aloud regimen is no easy drill to keep up on a regular basis. Go easy on yourself so as to maintain neither too much practice (you'll burn out) nor too little (not exciting enough to keep you concentrated); experiment witht he amount of time you put in. I would say the analogy of the vocalist, actor, or dancer/martial arts practitioner comes pretty close in effect and principle of your English lessons. I all boils down to precision and power management. Actually work = power x time; vocal range, and maximum duration of producing sounds in English; these should be increased by your drills over an extended period. If I had the time (and if I were you) I would take an acting class or join a chorus if you like singing.

[Buntaro]

f0rk0,

I have some techniques that work well with advanced English students:

1) Select a topic and make a 3 to 5 minute speech.

2) Have a listener listen to your speech, and then ask you questions about it (kind of like an interview). Try to make it into as much of a discussion as possible.

3) Tape-record your speech. Play the speech back, sentence by sentence. Have the (native speaker) listener point out every mistake.

4) Practice the corrections. I use a question-and-answer technique that works very well.

~~~

I have a list of speech topics. Let me know if you need it.

This will work even if the listener is not a English teacher.

[f0rk0]

Thank you, guys! Some of you have gone into great detail *cough*Lexico*cough* which is devastatingly pleasant.

Seriously, though, all of the advice given is very helpful. I appreciate it all.
Now I will have to find someone to torture with my English. I hope they have medical insurance.

Errr..... that's "thine English," not "thy"

Hahah
Oh the irony.