Here are tips for improving your English that REALLY work (and reading an article in English is a good way to start)
I’ll start by saying that improving my English was a goal of mine for a long time. Now, after spending a week in Dublin, interacting with people and getting compliments regarding my English — I feel confident enough to say that my methods show results, and I’m more than happy to share them with you!
I’ll start by explaining why I think it’s a good skill to acquire, then divide it into the categories you can improve in, and finish with the tips!
Why is it important?
- For your confidence. From my experience as an Israeli, your English is probably good enough. You can communicate when you need to, e.g. when you are on vacation, or when you encounter a foreign tourist that asks you for directions. But if you find yourself embarrassed to speak in English in front of your friends, or native English speakers, or at work — that’s a good sign you should work on it, so it won’t limit you in future opportunities. So when you’ll be asked to host the Eurovision — it won’t be a reason to decline. ;)
- It makes life easier. No doubt that you’d prefer reading the Wikipedia page in your native language rather than in English. But how cool would it be to be as comfortable in English, that you wouldn’t even mind? How convenient it would be to be able to talk a whole day in English without getting tired (I don’t know if you ever experienced it — but it is exhausting! at least for the first couple of times)
- To expand your knowledge base. We can’t ignore the fact that English is the international language, and that there are more resources in English. You won’t have to depend on translation, and even if there is one — it won’t necessarily be as good as the original. A good example of that: yesterday I started writing a post about something (I don’t want to spoil it!), and saw contradictory facts in the Hebrew and the English version of the Wikipedia page. The moral of the story is: DON’T LIMIT YOUR RESOURCES.
- To reach more people. If you have ideas that are worth spreading, why not spread them even more? What if your dream job, your new best friend, or your soul mate, aren’t speaking your native language? You don’t know what the future holds, this will take time and it’s best to start NOW!
- For your job. As a software engineer I encounter English on a daily basis (no one writes code in Hebrew). My project at work requires weekly video conferences with partners from all around Europe and daily correspondences by email. Even in my days as a salesperson at Fox and McDonald’s I got foreign customers every once in a while and needed to provide service in English. There is no doubt that having good English will open more doors for you professionally.
What should you do?
Like a good engineer, I’ll divide the problem into smaller problems: input and output. By input I mean understanding better, regarding hearing and reading, and improving your output means improving your writing, talking more fluently and having less of an accent (it’s not necessary, but I think it could be a great bonus).
In order to express yourself better, you need to improve your vocabulary and grammar, two triads you’ll improve by practicing ALL OF THE ABOVE.
Improving your input:
I’ll start with the easier one. It’s easier because you’ve probably practiced it more, without even trying.
Listen:
- Listen to music, watch TV shows and movies. If you are skeptical about how effective it is, let me tell you that in Israel we had Spanish soap operas that all the kids were obsessed with. It resulted in everyone that was born between ‘90-’96 understanding Spanish. Lo juro!!
- Another great benefit of listening to other people talking is improving your grammar. I earned the “knows English” crown in my team at work, and every time my colleague asks me how to phrase something, it is followed by “but why?” and I always answer “I don’t know, it just sounds right”. How do I know what sounds right? In my years as a student, I found pleasure in watching YouTube videos. Yea, I would watch episodes of shows or news pieces like you probably do, but mainly I would watch YouTubers’ videos and vlogs. So, yea, it’s pretty embarrassing, and watching THREE HOURS A DAY of nonsense is a pretty good waste of time, but it’s also a good relief after a busy day, and it really improved my grammar and vocabulary. These types of videos are reinforcing your everyday English and teaching you common English idioms because you usually watch people talking to their friends or walking you through their day. So maybe not 3 hours daily, but I do recommend introducing YouTube videos to your routine.
- Hearing podcasts/audiobooks/online courses: this one is the easiest to execute because we all have “dead times” where we can listen to a good podcast. I like doing it on my walks and on my way to work. You will finish courses and books without even noticing. I’ll add a link to my past article — Three LinkedIn Learning (Lynda) courses that may not contain code — but will help your career as a software developer— so you’ll have somewhere to start from. ;)
I have also done plenty of “soft skills” courses (as you can see on the Licenses & Certifications section on my LinkedIn profile), so if you want any recommendations on that — let me know!
Read:
It is easier listening than reading, but you’ll probably read more than listen in your everyday life, so you shouldn't skip practicing this ability.
- Read your books in English: take advantage of the fact that you read something that interests you, and read it in English. It’s gonna be hard, it’s going to take much longer — but I promise it will be worth it, and that it will get easier.
- Choose the English option: set your phone and computer language to English, put the English subtitles in your movie, get the English menu at the restaurant... I know it’s harder finding the English version of stuff in a country that doesn’t speak English — but do your best.
Improving your output:
This is the part that will give you the biggest improvement. Let’s go back to the Spanish soap-operas example: I understand Spanish, both in hearing and reading (mostly because you can write Spanish in English letters), but to get out a sentence of my own? I absolutely can’t. This is why “knowing” English isn’t enough.
So, after we improved our grammar and vocabulary in the input part, it’s time to work on our accent and fluency. I’ll highlight that by “fluency” I mean minimizing the silence between your sentences and saying as little “Ummm”s as possible, which means minimizing the time it takes you to find the words you want to say.
Talk:
My motivation for this part was that I wanted to minimize the differences between what I wanted to say, and what came out of my mouth. I remember we learned a story in high school about a man and a woman, and the man was a new immigrant and said that people assume that because you don’t have the language — that you don’t have the wisdom, and it stuck with me.
- Find yourself a language exchange partner: After months of lack of courage, I decided to go to a facebook group filled with Jewish Americans and said I was looking for a language exchange partner that we could practice Hebrew and English together. I got feedback and even found 3 wonderful people that I talk to weekly, even to this day. They are in different stages in their Hebrew, and I have to say it’s pretty cool to realize rules and similarities between words in my language that I haven’t noticed before.
One of my new American friends is living in Israel (The other two are from the USA), and after talking with her on Skype for about 6 weeks, we started meeting in person. Apparently the desire to improve our speaking in a foreign language isn’t our only thing in common, and she has become one of my best friends :) - Here are some accent tips: I think it’s a good time to compliment my other two American friends:
The second one is from my field of profession, and after talking to him I realized how important it is to improve in “professional English” as well. As a software engineer you use most of the terms in English, but there is a BIG difference in how it is pronounced ( I didn’t know NULL is pronounced so differently!).
My third American friend worked as a radio newscaster and had to change his accent for the job, so he is an expert! I’ll share with you some tips I learned from him:
1. Apparently Hebrew has shorter syllables. That is why my “dad” is too short and his “HALACH” (walked) is too long.
2. Israelis tend to say “i” sounds more like “ee”. For example, “fit” will sound more like “feet”, and it’s supposed to have more of an “e” sound.
3. There are two types of “th”: one like in “month”, and one like in “the”.
4. And if we mentioned “the”, there are two types for it as well, depends if it is before a vowel or not. “The apple” will sound differently than “the banana”. It’s hard for me to explain in writing, but let’s say that the first one sounds like “fee” and the second one sounds like “what” (regarding the vowels, of course).
- Make sure your partner has the accent you desire! If accent is important to you, you need to give this one attention because you are going to catch the accent you hear. I got stuck with “often” with pronouncing the “t” because that is how I heard it (in some youtube videos, I guess), and the accent is something that requires a lot of practice in order to change!
- Sing in the car: it may sound funny but it is the best tip I came up with by myself! If the language exchange partner is the lecture — then this is your homework. I sing in my car at least one ride a day (always in my ride back from work, and sometimes on my way there, when I don’t feel like listening to podcasts), and it improved my accent significantly!
It is not just for the accent, though. Do you have that mumbling sometimes, when you say long words or you’re just tired? This will help with that! It gets your tongue familiar with these new locations in your mouth, and the new combinations of syllables you weren’t used to.
Write:
I know how frightening it is to write in English. As opposed to speaking — It stays forever documented. But do not let that stop you!
- Use Grammarly: This one is pretty obvious but I’ll say it for those of you who are not familiar: Grammarly is an automated grammar checker that has a free version that you can install as a chrome plug-in.
- Don’t fix your spelling mistakes automatically! When you do use Grammarly or even when Word fixes your grammar mistakes, don’t fix it automatically! Fix it manually — that is the best way to improve your spelling.
- Write everything in English: At my workplace, we sometimes write our emails in Hebrew and sometimes in English. I saw by that a great opportunity to practice my writing and for the past year and a half, I have written ALL my emails in English: The important ones, the unimportant ones, the short ones, the long ones, when I felt like it, and when I didn’t… All of them. At first, it is hard and takes time, but as time goes by it gets easier. well, actually — It doesn’t get easier, you just get better.
I also write my notes in English. Both because it’s an opportunity to practice, and because it’s easier when all the terms are in English anyway. - Keep a happiness notebook (in English): This one is also a tip for life. Since June 4th I ended every day with writing at least three things that made me happy that day. Some days it’s easier to find, some days it’s harder — but you have got to write at least three! I don’t do it to document the events, I do it because writing it makes you more aware of it, which makes you more grateful and happy :)
It is such a good practice for your English because it requires you to describe your day, every day, in English.
The other cool thing about it is that now I am finishing the (first) notebook, and I have A FULL NOTEBOOK of my writing in English. It is a good proof of how far I’ve come.
- Writing publications and posts: I know this one is harder to perform because not everyone loves writing, but I have to mention it because it is very helpful. While writing my fifth publication (7 Tips for getting interviews as a recent graduate/student software developer) I couldn’t help but notice how FAST I’m typing! I GUARANTEE you it wasn’t like that with my first one. This is why I highly recommend you do it too.
Additional tips:
Here are tips that are super important and relevant to all the aspects described above.
- Practice practice practice: you won’t get the improvement you are looking for if you’re not willing to put in the hours. It took you a lot of time to master communicating in your native language, and it’s no different from a foreign one. I think you should practice on a daily basis.
- Persistence is key: there will be days that you won’t feel like it. There will be days that you would feel too tired. Yes, skipping once is OK, and nothing bad would happen, but be sure to treat it severely because once could easily turn to twice, and it’s a slippery slope from there.
3. Don’t let embarrassment stop you: I have a friend who was embarrassed to speak in front of other people, and I remember myself being embarrassed to publish an article before it was checked by my friends. I still run my articles by my friends, because it is still important to me to publish without any mistakes and to improve my English, but I don’t let it stop me. I publish my articles and then edit them if there is any need. It’s OK if I’ll have mistakes, and it’s OK if you will have them too. That is how we learn. It’s better than the alternative — not practicing so you won’t fail. You also will never reach success that way.
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And for those of you who were wondering: YES, after finding the Spanish song, I searched for the Rebelde Way albums on Spotify and listened to them during the whole writing of this article (and it took me a good couple of hours).
