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How to learn English - Easy Tips

Learning English language is an important requirement of modern world. It has become a medium of communication and expression across the globe. Today almost all books, news, websites, sign-boards, job-interviews, conferences, notices, invoices and manuals use English language to express its contents.  If you are a student, you require learning English to understand your books and write your exams. If you are a job-seeker, you require learning English for expressing potential in the job-interview. If you are a professional, you require learning English for performing your professional services. If you are a common person, you require learning English for routine activities and interactions such as understanding the invoices, notices, statements, sign-boards and for interacting in setups where medium of communication is English.

It is very easy to learn Standard English but if you work for it in proper lines. Following these guidelines saves your time and keeps you on right tract for learning English. English language has thousands of grammar rules and thousands of words (vocabulary). But you never need to learn all of them. Even the known writers and speakers of English have very limited vocabulary and basic knowledge of grammar. But they impress the world with their written and spoken English because of their ideas and creativity which are shaped by their experiences.

This article will help you become a good writer and speaker of English language. It will provide you with a road-map highlighting the step-wise basics for learning English. This article is the learners of all levels.

Starting with acquiring necessary vocabulary

The first step for learning a language is to acquire its vocabulary. It does not mean that you should learn all the words of English language but you should learn all the commonly used words. These are the words which are frequently used in spoken and written English. Most of the words English are repeated again and again in routine usage. These include the nouns and verbs. Start learning all those commonly used words with their meanings. Make a list of words from your own language and learn its meanings in English dictionary. Similarly, while reading English lessons or stories, you can collect English words from these lessons or stories and learn their meanings in your own language. Doing so, in a very few days you will have acquired a lot of useful words. You must start with easy words and move on to difficult words as you learn more and more.

Once you learn the basic words or if you have already acquired the basic words, start learning words of higher levels. Each word has synonyms which can be used as alternative words to make your English expression more appealing. Most of the verbs make phrasal verbs to be used for giving a different meaning or making more sense in your expression. You must focus on learning idiomatic usage in your expression.

Correct structure of Sentence

A sentence combines words to make a complete thought. This combination follows certain rules in order to be called a sentence having correct grammatical structure. Grammar is the science of a language that guides you about correct structure of a sentence. The basics of English grammar are as follows:

Parts of Speech: It categorises words as noun, verb, adjective, adjective, conjunction and preposition. Learning this categorization of words is very important to learn the correct usage of each word according to its nature. Each word has a meaning and is differently used in a sentence according to the rules for each part of speech. For instance, if a word is only a noun by nature, it cannot be used as a verb. Similarly, the correct usage of prepositions and conjunction is important for correct structure of a sentence.

English Tenses: English tense is the foremost requirement of learning English. With learning tenses, it is impossible to learn English. Tenses are sets of rules for using verbs (main verb and auxiliaries) in a sentence to express the time or state of an action. Every sentence uses verb (main verb or auxiliary or both) to express some action or state of something with regards to time of its occurrence, e.g. present, past and future. Apart from usage of correct form of verb to according to time of the action, tenses also help in understanding usage verbs according to the noun or pronoun of a sentence.

Active and Passive Voices: There are two ways for expressing an action. 1. Active Voice, 2. Passive Voice. Both the ways have their rules for making a sentence. Active voice represents the plain sentences composed according to the rules of English tenses, e.g. He writes a letter. This sentence can also be expressed in passive voice as ‘A letter is written by him’. It can be seen in this sentence that in its passive voice the places of noun and object are interchanged and the third form of the verb is used.

Learning rules for conversion of Active Voice into Passive Voice is also important for learning English language because some of the sentences are to be expressed in Passive Voice due to nature its content or other reason. For instance, in a sentence where the subject of a sentence is not to be mentioned, e.g. Cloth is sold in yards.

Direct and Indirect Speech: Knowledge of ‘direct and indirect speech’ comes into play where you have to convey a message of one person to another person. For instance, your teacher in school says you, “I want to meet your parents”. When you come to home and convey this message to your parents, you use either a direct speech or indirect speech as given below:

Direct Speech:                   My teacher said, “I want to meet your parents”.
Indirect Speech:               My teacher said that he wanted to meet my parents.

You can see the difference in the both sentence given above. Both sentences have same meaning but the formation of sentence is different according to the form of speech.

Tips for good writing skills in English Language

  1. You should learn all the basics of English language as mentioned above.
  2. You should have a good vocabulary to be able to use a variety of beautiful words.
  3. Use short sentences. Avoid writing long sentences if you are not good at grammatical technicalities of long sentence such as punctuation, use of conjunctions, clause and phrase rules; and so on. Short sentence has less chance of grammatical error.
  4. Learn the basics of punctuation e.g. usage of comma, period, semi-colon, exclamation mark and so on.
  5. Avoid redundancy. Avoid using unnecessary words.
  6. Avoid repetition of words and ideas.
  7. Your ideas should have coherence and integrity.
  8. Idiomatic usage makes your writings look more appealing.
  9. Follow the format rules for writing a specific description e.g. letter, essay, application, notification. All of them have their proper grammatical structure.
  10. Avoid informal style of writing.
  11. Apart from having good vocabulary and grammar knowledge, you must also focus on enhancing you creativity to generate impressive ideas.
  12. Write an essay on daily or weekly basis and get it checked by an English teacher. It will point out the mistakes in your written English and you will improve by covering them.

Tips for good speaking skills in English Language

  1. You should learn the basic of English language as well as tips for writing skills given above. Because these help in forming correct structure of sentence for written as well as spoken English.
  2. Listen to English documentaries. You learn pronunciation of words from audio documentaries as well as usage of words in correct way.
  3. Express yourself in English language in front of other people whenever possible. For instance, you may request your friends that you want to express about a topic in English language and you want them to listen to you. It helps in enhancing your fluency in English language.
  4. Engage in conversations in English language with your friends. You may ask a classmate to converse with you in English language. This dialogue will help you develop your communication skills in English language.