You may have been a hit in your English lessons in high school, but your mastery of the language of Shakespeare sometimes leaves something to be desired. Vocabulary or more in-depth grammar may then be lacking in order to be comfortable speaking or writing. With a few simple techniques to put in place, improve your level in an easy and fun way.
Whether at work or for travel, English is an essential language today. It is the third most spoken language in the world, with nearly 380 million speakers as a native language, and around 1.4 billion as a foreign language[1].
It is also spoken on all continents, and in the majority in business circles (finance, commerce, etc.), but also in fields such as science. English is also a diplomatic language, one of the six official languages of the United Nations. In short:to be understood abroad or to work internationally, fluency in English is essential.
Without necessarily taking lessons, it is possible to improve your level thanks to habits put in place at home:confronting yourself with 15 minutes of English a day in writing or on video, only watching content in VO , etc. The idea is that English becomes a habit in your ear, in order to create recognition mechanisms. This is very useful for acquiring a good accent and memorizing vocabulary.
Read in English
Nothing better to learn a language than to confront its writings! No need to start with a long novel:a press article on a subject that interests you, a news or a blog page read daily can already be enough to improve your level in English. To find content, the UK Newspapers application brings together, for example, all English press titles:magazines, newspapers, etc.
Change your computer interface to English
This applies to both his computer and his mobile phone:set it up in English! Thus, you will not only be accustomed to dealing with this language throughout the day, but you will also learn vocabulary related to new technologies.
Watch English programs
On television or on YouTube, there are a multitude of foreign programs accessible in France. To start, you can watch them in the original version with French subtitles, then with English subtitles. Just hearing English spoken will familiarize you with the accent. This obviously also applies to films and series:swear only by the original version!
Fun apps to learn English
In public transport or at home, you can also use educational language learning apps. Duolingo offers small exercises adapted to each level, as well as a support forum. Babbel, for its part, offers lessons based on conversations:ideal for working on oral and informal communication.
Follow English content on social networks
Subscribe to English-speaking Facebook or Instagram accounts. Thus, you will have the opportunity to read a few words of English every day, which are moreover written in different tones of language according to the accounts followed (language rather sustained or not, young audience, etc.).
Translate your favorite songs
Are you used to humming English-speaking artists loudly? If you translated them before singing them? This has the advantage of helping you learn vocabulary, but also local expressions or puns used by artists in their texts. To decipher them, understand the history and origin of the songs, the participatory application Genius is very practical. For its part, Reverso can help you with the translation of unknown terms.
Learn 5 new words a day
Another very easy trick to apply is to learn 1, 3, even 5 new dictionary words a day. You can choose to pick them at random, or learn unknown words that you have noted during previous translations or readings in English. To help you, the comprehensive WordReference dictionary will be very useful.
Become fluent in English is within everyone's reach:even alone at home, you can progress every day thanks to easy-to-implement tips. Whether for work or leisure, do not shrink from this language which is not so foreign to us!
Source:
https://www.mosalingua.com/blog/2019/11/20/how-to-improve-in-english/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers
[1] https://www.ethnologue.com/language/eng
