How to Improve English

The importance of the English language cannot be overemphasized. Comfort with English is almost a prerequisite for success in the world today. Regardless of the industry, proficiency in English is an important factor in both hiring and promotion decisions.

A lot of us have studied English in school and are fairly comfortable with reading and writing. However, we hesitate while speaking because we feel that we lack the fluency and may make grammatical mistakes. We are afraid of speaking English in formal situations and we are quick to switch to our native language once we are in the company of our family and friends.

There is no quick fix when it comes to improving your command over a particular language. It always requires a lot of time and effort.

Here are EnglishLeap’s top ten tips for success in achieving proficiency and fluency in English:

10 tips for speaking in English

1.     The first thing I would do after getting up every morning was read the newspaper, front to back. It doesn’t matter which newspaper you subscribe to, as long as it is a major English-language paper, such as The Hindu, The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, etc.  While different people have different opinions on the quality of each paper, they are all more or less equally useful in getting to learn the language. It is also not necessary to read every page and article; it is time-consuming and, sometimes, boring. However, you should most definitely look for articles that interest you.

2.     I bought a pocket dictionary. They are cheap, compact and useful. There were many words I came across on a day-to-day basis that I did not know, and carrying a pocket dictionary everywhere allowed me to look up these words immediately so that the matter would not slip off my mind later.

3.     Once learned, I also made a conscious effort to use the words in conversation. This instilled the words in my head and I was able to draw on them whenever required.

4.     I convinced some of my friends to come together and form something of a ‘study group’; we were all interested in learning English, and I figured it would make it easier and more fun for us to do it together. We met twice a week in the evening and discussed the words and phrases we had come across, suggested articles, magazines, and books to each other, etc.