

Ask HN: time-efficient ways to improve English for non-natives? - andreasklinger

Hi,<p>few weeks ago one of the partners of one of europe's largest VCs told me that he couldn't concentrate at my pitch because i sounded to much like http://vimeo.com/7595897<p>This kinda kept sticky in my mind. ;)<p>As i am moving now with my company[1] to London i would like to use this opportunity to improve my english, my accent and my grammar/spelling.<p>As a typical non-native i have regular problems with spelling e.g. with similar sounding words. I do have this problem especially in hectic faces.<p>Additionally I have trouble with incorrectly translated german expressions. Some of them are really below all pigs.<p>How would you suggest to level up english in a time efficient way?<p>Are there online services/startups you would suggest? Do you have other experiences here? (e.g. writing blog articles?) How did you improve you (once mediocre) english?<p>ps: i left by intention more than 4 mistakes in this post just to prove my point.<p>[1]: My Company - http://www.Garmz.com - Feedback Thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1788016
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Vargas
Spaniard in London with the same problem here.

The _BEST_ on-line material is BBC's "The sound of English"
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pr...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/)
Just watch it and practise with a mirror many, many, many times and you will
improve.

If you are willing to spend some money, I recommend doing an elocution "soften
your accent" course. I did it a couple of years ago (sorry, don't remember the
name of the company, it was close to St. Pancras Station) and I improved a
lot.

Pay special attention to "intonation patterns". Even if you make every
individual sound right, natives will have trouble understanding you. You have
to make all sounds in a sentence flow together in one of the few predefined
sound patterns found in British English in order to get understood. Just
changing the intonation pattern changes the meaning, even in the same phrase.

Example: 'I like _YOUR_ new blue dress' vs. 'I like your new _BLUE_ dress' vs.
'I like your new blue _DRESS_ '.

~~~
andreasklinger
Found one that looks interesting - maybe it helps other HN users as well:

[http://www.londonspeechworkshop.com/our-courses/dates-and-
pr...](http://www.londonspeechworkshop.com/our-courses/dates-and-prices/)

Do you have any other recommendations maybe?

~~~
Vargas
It took some fiddling with my old email archive but I found it, Joe Hudson was
my teacher:

<http://www.pronunciationlondon.co.uk/joe.html>
<http://www.anenglishaccent.com/author.html>

He is very good. We spent half of every session learning 'high level' stuff
(phrases, paragraphs) and the other half practising 'low level' elocution
(where to place your tongue and your lips for each sound).

~~~
andreasklinger
thanks contacted him.

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fatmike182
You'll stumble upon so many biz partners in London that will surprise you with
much worse accents. Big cities demand funny accents - so we Austrians are
safe… Just pay attention to the tones and stresses in conversations with Brits
& try hard to notice the differences. Changing from American English to
British feels a bit ridiculous if you're not used to it (overpronunciation?).

edit: btw: <http://www.dict.cc> shows translations of whole spoken phrases,
it's hard to find something there, but in general the database of
<http://www.phrases.org.uk/> is ok. Probably you'll find something on
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/> but I think the level is
too low.

~~~
andreasklinger
The permanent overdose of US Media makes UK English really sound different.
You are right about that ;)

Unfort. most of the online learning material is by far too low. If you have
any other suggestions let me know!

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alinajaf
My preferred way of gaining a good intuitive feel for a language is to read
tons of published written material (print magazines, books etc). The language
is edited and proofread so you're guaranteed a level of correctness.

This trains your mental 'correct-language-pattern-matching-AI' with a constant
stream of correct examples to compare all your produced language with, and for
me at least, has been the best long-term method of producing correct target
language (in my case Japanese).

The idea is that you constantly expose yourself to what correct language
sounds like, and based on the accumulated experience of reading those you can
have an intuitive feel for when a bit of produced language is wrong or right.

tldr: read more!

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tjp
The good news is that there are very few native speakers in London :).

I'm still nowhere, but three things helped me a lot at the very beginning:

1\. BBC iPlayer <http://bbc.co.uk/iplayer> \- it may not help a lot, but is
good fun :).

2\. I put my CV online - the very next minute recruiters started calling.
They're 99% completely useless (even more if you're not looking for a job,
haha), but you can have the same conversation over and over again :).

3\. Chatting in the pub. The circumstances are the absolute worst, so if you
manage to get across anything in the pub, you will be much better off under
better conditions.

~~~
andreasklinger
thanks a lot for your feedback

i am not worried of spoken language

we use english in my company as default language

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nandemo
I haven't used it myself but Lang-8 sounds useful:

<http://lang-8.com/>

Example:

<http://lang-8.com/184023/journals/661147/English-Class-No3>

PS: I just checked an entry written in Portuguese (my native language) and
there were lots of incorrect corrections, so beware.

~~~
andreasklinger
The problem with theses pages is that they advocate the same errors you make
in spoken language. Because even natives do them.

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davidw
The "easiest" thing would be to live somewhere where you speak English with
native speakers on a regular basis.

~~~
andreasklinger
as said.

i am moving to london.

and spoken language is not the problem.

its about mistakes in writing. spelling and grammar

~~~
andreasklinger
Yes you are right about the part about the accent. I missunderstood your
argument.

Actually i am not doing it on purpose. I just got used over the years to write
small-letters in forums/comments and email. Maybe you are right to make this
kind of a starting point.

~~~
davidw
(You missed the 'reply' link)

Yes, that definitely looks better! The fact is that you will surely make a few
errors, so not capitalizing and the other 'intentional' errors compound those
that naturally creep in, making the whole thing look like a big mess.

~~~
DanielStraight
Agreed. If you don't bother to follow the rules you already know, how do you
expect to learn more?

It's not like native speakers don't have problems writing correctly. At one
point, I couldn't spell the word "necessary" to save my life. One day I
decided I would simply refuse to write any word I didn't know how to spell
without looking it up. Now I can spell almost every word I know without
looking it up. I got a D (a very bad grade) on my first college essay. On
every other essay I wrote, I made absolutely certain I wasn't making the same
mistakes. I got a B+ (second-best grade) or A (best grade) on every essay
after that.

Aside from that, I would say immersion is the best thing you can do.
Immersion, not language courses, is how native speakers learn to speak like
natives. Devote an hour (or more) a day to reading modern English fiction and
an hour (or more) to reading modern English non-fiction. Write about what you
read. Ask native speakers to review what you've written. Don't just ask them
to find mistakes, ask them to rephrase anything that sounds awkward how they
would say it. Fluency is imitation. What you want is to say things the way a
native speaker would say them, not just to say them grammatically correctly.

~~~
andreasklinger
Thanks. I appreciate the feedback.

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pmoehring
Your fellow Seedcamp company www.wordy.com would help you on a written basis -
check the feedback you receive and learn from it. Being here in London,
reading english books and newspapers, and going to the movies will also help.
Disclosure: I work at Seedcamp...

~~~
andreasklinger
Actually i did that approach already. (Although not with wordy but a native PR
professional)

This would basically mean writing regulary articles and getting them checked
with wordy. Interesting approach but i would prefer a system that shows me
instantly errors i do.

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jamesteow
If you can find a penpal, that would help I think in spelling and grammar.

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petervandijck
Time-efficient? Native speaker girl/boyfriend/partner.

