Fastest way to learn to speak fluent English

It is said quite often that you should practice talking in English or you will not learn. However, this has a “very bad” effect if you do not have sufficient input of English.

If you do not have sufficient input, the sentences you form will be wrong. If these sentences formed are wrong, and no one corrects you, you will start to think that what you have said is correct. Because of this, your mind will be filled with wrong English sentences. Everything you say, all the sentences you form will be incorrect.

So, if you want to practice talking in English, you “must” make sure that the people around you will be in a position to correct you as soon as you make the mistake. If you want to practice speaking in English, you have to speak English correctly. If you speak incorrectly you “must know” that you have spoken incorrectly.

Unfortunately, most English learners do not have native English speakers around them who will always correct them when they go wrong. In this case, it is wise to first get enough input of the language before you “utter even the first word.”

What is input?

Input is basically any correct English that you may hear or read. If you listen to an English radio station, that is input. If you read a book, then that is input. If you hear to fluent English speakers talking then that is input. If a fluent English speaker is talking to you in English then that is input. Reading this article is input!

Why is input necessary?

All languages are learnt mainly by input. It is the fastest and the best way of learning a language!

When you were a baby you naturally learnt your mother tongue because of all the input of the language from you parents and surroundings. The human brain learns by imitation. When you hear a sentence it gets stored in your brain. When you want to say the same thing or some thing that is similar, you imitate the sentence that is stored in your brain.

Consider the sentence: Ram runs much faster than Sham.

Assume that this sentence is given as input. Later when you want to say a similar thing, your brain pulls this sentence out of your memory and comes up with:

Hari runs much faster than Sham.

OR

Sameer runs much slower than Ajit. etc.

Basically, learning is done by imitation! Input is what is fed into the brain so that there is something available for imitation. The more the input, more sentences are available for the brain to imitate.

So the fastest way of learning how to speak the language fluently would be to get as much as possible input of the language. The more input of the language you get the more correct sentences you will be able to form when you try to speak the language.

You must try to get “as much as possible” input of correct English. The more input you get the more sentences you will be able to form correctly. The more sentences you can form correctly the more your confidence of speaking English will increase and the more you will learn!

There is English input available everywhere. Here are a few tips and suggestions for you to find input of English around you and improve your English speech:

Rent or buy an English movie DVD

Rent or buy an English movie DVD. Put the English subtitles on. Follow the movie.

This has many advantages:

• You will be able to compare the written words to the correct pronunciations.
• You will get a feel of how real English sentences are formed when speaking.
• You will be learning English but it will not be frustrating and boring because you will be watching a movie.

Please note: When you watch the movie be sure to keep your dictionary handy. Whenever you come across a new word, pause the movie and look it up in the dictionary. If you don’t do this, the whole experience will be quite pointless.

Read about any subject that interests you

There are a lot of English magazines available on a lot of different topics.

No matter what subject interests you, there must be some magazine that talks about it. There are English magazines about Business, Brides, Guns and Ammo, House Keeping, Stock Market, Sports, Computers, Electronics, Linux, Graphic Designing, Cooking etc.

Find the magazine that interests you and read it cover to cover. Be sure to look out for new words and new phrases and look them up in the dictionary as you go.

If you cannot find a magazine of your choice, look for information you are interested in on the Internet. There is information available on every topic under the sun on the Internet.

Read Internet forums of subject matter that interests you

Got to Internet forums of the subject matter that interests you. Generally most of the forums are in English language and are a great source of English input.

For those of you who are not familiar with Internet forums, these are places where people interested in a particular subject can get together and share their views and opinions about a particular subject. You can also ask specific questions to other people and they will help you out if they can. On the Internet, there are forums available about each and every subject.

Forums are a great source of information. Also in forums real people talk about real problems. Most of the information typed in forums is written in an informal way. Because of this the forums make a good source for English input. Reading forums exposes you to a lot of phrases of daily use.

You could find forums on any subject matter that interests you at: Google Groups

You could also go to "Google" and search for the forum of the subject matter you are interested in by typing in something like “C programming forum” or “Cooking forum” etc.

When reading forums also make sure you find out the meaning of every new word or phrase you come across or the whole exercise will be useless.

Read English fiction novels

Read English fiction of your choice. This is our India. Books are not costly here. You get cheap book in every nook and corner. If you want to pick up an interesting cheap English novel, go to the closest "raddi walla" (You know, the guy you sell your old daily news papers to...) They will generally also have old novels, book and magazines. These wont be good quality. They will all be second hand. But that’s okay, they will be nice and cheap. Pick up some thing that interests you. Take it home and read it. Be sure to look up all the new words you come across in the book.

Listen to the radio and TV

Our "All India Radio" has some good programs that are designed to teach English to the listener.

Besides this, there are also many different radio stations available now-a-days in the big cities. Some of these radio stations are in English. Listen to them to get a feel of the language.

Besides the radio, you could also listen to the "News In English". It’s available on a wide variety of channels. The news is a good place to get input of the English language because it is spoken in a very clear, easy to understand way.

Chat with fluent English speakers

Chat with fluent English speakers real or online. Make friends with interesting English speakers. Become pen-pals with a fluent English speaker.

While talking to them look at their lip movement for tips on how to pronounce words correctly.

If you would like to chat with me (a fluent English speaker), practice English or ask me some thing English related, feel free to contact me at khoj.badami@gmail.com I would be more than happy to help a fellow Indian.

Most effective tip: "Think in English"

One of the most common mistakes that English learners make is, they think in their mother tongue. When they want to say something in English, they think in their mother tongue, translate it to English and then say it in English. The result is a very flawed English sentence. Never do this!

If you want to speak in English fluently you will have to learn to "think" in English. When you are constructing sentences in your mind before saying them, think in English and form them in English in your mind.

Get your self some English learning software!

To help you with your English, you could get your self a English learning kit OR English learning software! We recommend that you buy either "Cafe English" OR "Learn to Speak -English"

This link will take you to ebay.in where you can purchase this software and have it delivered to your home. If you are new to ebay, do not worry, you can just sign up from here free and buy whatever you are interested in right now! It's quite easy!

Once you are signed up, search for "Cafe English" OR "Learn to speak - English". You could then choose one of the results and buy the kit!

We recommend that you buy the kit from Ebay.in since it is quite safe & secure and you will get a good deal. If you are not comfortable with Credit Card payments, there are always other options like DD, money order etc. that you can go in for.

BEST OF LUCK!

Jai Hind.