
Ask HN: How to improve communication (listening, verbal and writing) - maheshs
How to improve communication (listening, verbal and writing) when English is not your first language. I live where most of the population are not English speaking.
Any actionable advice which I can practice daily which you or your near ones did and helped them.<p>Few thing I considered like joining Toastmasters but nearest club is too far to my place.
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tucaz
Disclaimer: I’m not passing judgement.

Whenever I hear someone with a problem and a good solution, like Toastmaster
here, but with an “excuse” it points me to question the will to actually solve
the problem.

If it’s too far you don’t need to go every week or every day, but how about
once a month? That would help a lot even if it’s just once a month.

Another suggestion is to have Grammarly installed because it does catch a
bunch of errors. However, be aware that you are sending everything you write
to their servers.

The last advice is the most obvious one.

Write a lot and look for errors. Rinse and repeat. Practice makes it perfect.

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notomorrow
Agree. It smells like an advertisement.

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krageon
Learn it the way children all over the world learn their English: Watch
cartoons, play games and talk shit on the internet. The key to learning a
language and learning it well is to not be impatient, because mastery takes
time.

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whitenoise23
If you are looking for English advice for your job. I strongly recommend to
follow courses in coursera platform or EdX.

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butteredpopcorn
Some things you could do from anywhere with internet:

\- take Skype lessons

\- listen to English-language podcasts

\- read Strunk & White

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hluska
English is my first language so I have no experience trying to learn it as a
second language. For what it is worth, it is a very difficult language and if
this ask HN is indicative of your writing, you’re doing quite well.

I’m trying to learn French now. The thing that has helped me the most is
talking to people who are French-English bilingual and kind enough to tell me
that my accent makes me sound a little soft in the head. You may not have
access to people like that. I’ve also gained quite a bit from watching parts
of the first 8 seasons of The Simpsons in French. I’m of an age where I know
the first 8 seasons like the back of my hand, so I can listen to the language
and hear how they construct sentences without getting bogged down trying to
understand.

If I wanted to improve my writing, I would find a good editor to destroy my
writing. Would it be beneficial if I edited this post for you and showed how I
would write it?

If I didn’t have access to a good editor, I would start reading as many
English books as possible. My French isn’t strong enough to start reading
actual French books so I haven’t gone down that path yet with my own learning.
You might gain from that path.

Finally, do you work in tech? If so, comment here and get involved in some
debates. If you do that though, remember that in English there are a lot of
ways to craft one sentence. For example, let’s take a look at your last
sentence.

“Few thing I considered like joining Toastmasters but nearest club is too far
to my place.”

If I deconstruct that sentence, I get:

“Few” - Few means more than one.

“thing I considered like joining Toastmasters” - thing is singular

“but nearest club is too far to my place.” - this part is fine, though you’re
missing a word.

When I add all of that together, I get a meaning like:

“I considered joining Toastmasters but the nearest club is too far from my
home.”

In this case, “too far to my place is grammatically correct, but I have an
aversion towards forming sentences like that. However, you could also write
this and few people will question it:

“I considered joining Toastmasters but the nearest club is too far to my
home.”

I don’t think that sounds as good, but that’s my own taste and my own voice.

Or, depending on who I’m writing to, I might balk at using ‘considered’. If I
wanted to be a little folkier and conversational, I’d say:

“I have thought about joining Toastmasters but the nearest club is too far
from my home.”

That is a small difference but we could also edit it completely differently.
If I felt verbose, I might say:

“I have considered a few ways to improve my English. For example, I thought
about joining Toastmasters but the nearest club is too far from my place.”

I took your last sentence and expressed it in several ways and I could keep
going for hours. I know which one I prefer, but there are many options. If
you’re looking for a good way to drill, I would practice there. Start writing
a sentence in different ways. How does the feeling change? What feels more
pleasant to read? What is more pleasant to speak out loud?

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notomorrow
Why downvoted? s/he is simply proposing a solution while introducing the
problem. Sorry, it is a clear sign of an advertisement.

~~~
hluska
Except that the vast majority of Toastmasters clubs would be of little benefit
to someone who is learning English. A club would have to be managed in a very
particular way to be of any benefit. Those particular clubs tend to advertise
as such. It doesn’t make business sense for Toastmasters International to go
after this crowd. It makes even less business sense for TI to do it in such a
sketchy way.

