Tips on How to Speak English Fluently

Melbourne Classical Radio - Tell me if you struggle with these 4 specific problems while speaking in English. If you do, this article is for you. Please stay tuned for the end of this article. I will show you my method, how Zayn and I are learning different languages by following this specific strategy and press the like button that will make Zayn and me very, very happy. 

The way English is taught in schools is actually a joke. I'm saying this in the nicest way possible, but it actually is a joke. You would end up getting advice like that, go read a novel, go read English newspapers, go watch news anchors, whatnot. Right. I tried doing this stuff when I was in school and it did not work out for me. In fact, till 9th standard I was horrible in my English because I was following traditional ways of learning languages and it did not work out for me. 

So in my case, I was a state level cricketer, so I used to miss school many a times. So the structure just was not working for me. So I had to devise my own method of learning English. So by the end of this article, I am hopeful that you would be able to pick some of the key strategies and points that I'm telling you and incorporate that in your own speaking style. Thanks to our sponsors Cambly, they enable you to practice English in a live format by working with English speaking native tutors. Do check the description box and you can use the code mentioned to get discounts on Cambly. 

So let me structure this article into four specific problems that you might face and how you can overcome that. So the first key problem that you will face in terms of speaking in English is that you would say that the words are not coming in my mind, therefore I am not able to speak fluently. So you need to identify that problem as a vocabulary problem. 

Now, whether you are a beginner, whether you are an intermediate user or if you are an advanced English speaker, you can always work and improve upon your vocabulary. So this tip is relevant for everyone. Now the way English is taught in schools, they do what consultants usually call it, boiling the ocean. 

So schools try to teach you literally everything about English. So imagine a circumstance or a scenario where you are just trying to pick up a language and you will think about grammar rules, you think about sentence structuring, you think about building vocabulary. 

It is just mind boggling and it will confuse you and your learning speed will be slow. I am not saying that you will not learn anything, but your learning speed will get hampered very, very quickly. So what you need to do is that you need to follow something called as 80-20 rule. 

Now this is again a rule that is followed extensively and religiously by management consultants. And the rule simply says that 80 percent of the results can be generated by 20 percent of the efforts. So you need to be smart in terms of building your vocabulary first. So what do I mean by being smart in terms of building your vocabulary? So do tell me in the comment box, if your teachers have told you this, they would say that, hey, go buy an English dictionary and start memorizing words from alphabet A and go order wise. 

So were such tips given to you? The short answer is yes, these were given to me also that, hey, if you want to improve your English speaking skills and if you are looking to build your vocabulary, go and mug up the dictionary. It is madness. There are 172 thousand words in English, one hundred and seventy two thousand words in English. 

If you try to learn the dictionary, it is extremely inefficient and it will take you years to accomplish anything in terms of developing a good vocabulary. So what is it that you should rather be doing? So you should develop your conversational style of vocabulary. So in English there are approximately three to five thousand words. Out of 172 thousand words, there are good three to five thousand words that are frequently used. 

So these would be called as conversational words and multi use words. So you should go and pick it up and you can get a very easy list on the Internet. Just go and Google that most frequently used words in English and you will get a lexicon of five thousand words. Those are the words that you need to pick up. 

Now, you can be an absolute beginner that you do not know anything in English and you can be an intermediate user. You must first pick up these five thousand words so that you can start speaking English, understanding English first, because the more and more you would hear these common words, you will get extremely good at using it, contextualizing it and speaking fluently. 

So first step that you need to build your vocabulary. Yes, but you don't need to go and learn the entire dictionary. All you simply need to do is that you need to pick up multi use words. So multi use words would be something like beautiful. So beautiful can be used in multiple context. It can be said that this flower is beautiful or it can be said that this car is beautiful or it can be said that this painting is beautiful. 

So you need to pick up these multi use words first and get good clarity around it. If you pick single use words like oregano. So it might have very limited applicability when you're just starting to build your vocabulary. So very important point for you to consider that those words are not coming in your mind because you have not developed your vocabulary in the Right manner. 

So you must pick multi use words, get really good at it, then get on to more advanced levels by picking more complicated stuff as you progress. Don't try to do both the things together. A very easy way to build vocabulary and this is something that I'm trying to do for Spanish language as of now. 

So I'm trying to memorize most frequently used fifteen hundred words in Spanish. So I use technology for it. So I speak these words out. I record it, I listen to it on my phone. So that is how I'm trying to build my vocabulary in Spanish because I'm weak in Spanish. If you are weak in English, then your first step should be to build your vocabulary. 

Now, once you've built your vocabulary, you will run into problem number two, which is that, hey, I make too many mistakes. That will, of course, happen because you're moving from vocabulary stage to sentence construction stage and here you're likely to make a lot of mistakes because you are not familiar with the grammar rules and sentence structure. 

Now your school will tell you that, hey, go and mug up Wren and Martin. That's one of the best grammar books out there. And it is correct that it's a very good grammar book. But if you try to memorize Wren and Martin again, it will take years and you will get bogged down. 

So not a very efficient strategy in terms of learning things fast. So here what you need to remember is that in order to move towards spoken English, you don't need to have perfect grammar. It's completely OK to make mistakes when you're speaking and starting out. And if you are a non-native speaker, it's completely, completely OK to make mistakes. 

You don't need to become the next Shashi Tharoor, it's completely OK to make mistakes. So what do you do? You simply pick up a grammar book where the concepts are explained in a very easy to understand manner and pick up hundred simple grammar rules that make up the English language. 

So these would be things like what is subject-verb agreement? What is a preposition? What is adverb or adjective? So you need to pick up this basic level of details by going through a simple book.

So the important point from this section is that it is natural and OK to make mistakes when you're transitioning from that vocabulary building stage to sentence construction stage, it is perfectly fine. 

Number two, you don't need to be perfect in terms of your grammar when you're speaking things, it's completely OK to make a few mistakes. Third and finally, to improve quickly, just go and study 100, 150 grammar rules. That's it. That's it. That's all the grammar that you need to know in English to starts speaking in English. 

And this can be built fairly quickly. So once you build your vocabulary and you understand about sentence construction, you move on to the intermediate level. Now, here is where people get mostly stuck. So pay attention to this section. Here your problem would be that, hey, I know English, but I'm very hesitant to speak in English. 

So this is called as exposure or confidence building stage. What you need to do is that you need to create interesting learning exercises for you. For example, there is a technique that I call picture visualization. 

So, for example, once my basic vocabulary is built and I know a little bit of sentence construction, I will start analyzing some pictures. So here is a picture for you to take a look at and I will start commenting on it. 

So I see that, hey, this is a funny picture of Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa is one of the most celebrated paintings in the world. It is kept in the Louvre museum. And I will do a forty five second speaking exercise on this. 

So I will say that Mona Lisa is one of the world's most famous paintings.It is kept in the Louvre Museum in France. It is painted by one of the most celebrated painters in the world. Now, this picture depicts a very funny side of Mona Lisa. 

So she is looking at a fly and trying to kill her. So probably we associate Mona Lisa with the seriousness and the beauty that it depicts. But this picture is very funny and very interesting to me. So this is the type of impromptu speaking exercises that I would do and I would encourage you to do, this will help you build confidence. 

Similarly, you can pick up 10 picture exercises that you can start doing and start blurting things out. So this will help you consolidate your vocabulary that you would have initially built and align that with the sentence structuring that you would have built subsequently. 

Similarly, you can start watching English movies with subtitles or listening to English commentary or speaking in front of a mirror. So all these exposure exercises will help you consolidate all your learning that you have undertaken in step one and two. 

Now comes the final stage, and this is what differentiates intermediate users and advanced users. You might have met very intelligent people. They would say that I know all the grammar rules, I have a very good vocabulary, but I do not feel confident enough. So the best way to overcome this weakness is that you should go and speak with people in English. 

If you go and speak with native English speakers, nothing like it. That will give you a lot of confidence. It will give you a lot of insights in terms of how English conversations take place. This is what amplified my skill when I went to INSEAD, where I met people from over seventy five nationalities. 

I understood the intricacies of speaking with people from different nationalities, how they structur their conversation.

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