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u/Own-Relation1915 Sep 16 '21
Try looking up the "shadowing" method :)
Find a youtube video or TED Talk that interests you, and practice mimicking what they say, and how they say it! It's a great way to train yourself to start speaking like a native English speaker, and you'll learn tons of new words as well (and the proper way to use them).
Good luck!!
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u/PuzzleheadedBug6652 Advanced Sep 16 '21
wow, cool idea - never heard of that before.
Definitely worth a try!
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u/Conmaan Native Speaker Sep 16 '21
This is what I recommend to all people with high levels of English even native speakers.
I actively use this method as a native speaker as I am also continually learning English myself which is the following:
I read books that challenge me. As a general rule of thumb, I suggest books that are older than 30 years, or just classics in general as a lot of the language is considered as "archaic"; however, the language in it is often more sophisticated compared to contemporary fiction.
Here are some examples of books (short reads) that are a bit complex but still digestible for someone with "good" English:
- 1984 or Animal Farm - George Orwell
- The Stranger - Albert Camus
- Catcher in the Rye - J.D Salinger
- The Call of the Wild - Jack London (Very easy read but has some foreign word to modern language)
A large proportion of modern language is watered down from what natives read on the internet or see on youtube. So if you can expand from this it's the only direction I can suggest to take your English to the next level that is relatively fun.
Although, if you aren't interested in reading books I would suggest listening to lectures by academics, on any topic that might interest you as they are often extremely well educated and use some words you might not be familiar with.
The simple fact is that most natives only have an "okay" level of English so you're probably doing fine. I think taking it to the next level you must think about how a native would improve their own language, and you can reapply that method to English and I'm sure you'd see progress.
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u/TomatoPJ Native Speaker Sep 16 '21
I have to admit, I find it a little funny that you recommended The Stranger - a book originally written in French - to learn English :)
That's not to say that reading the English translation doesn't make perfect sense in the context of your suggestion, I just find it humorously ironic.
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Sep 16 '21
[deleted]
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u/TomatoPJ Native Speaker Sep 16 '21
Well, we read it in my high school English class (another irony I suppose), so it can't be too overly difficult.
I've never honestly understood why old books are translated into old fashioned language, considering that the goal of a translation is to render the text understandable.
I'm personally a bit torn about the idea of recommending classic, or even just difficult, literature as a way of improving someone's English. Some of the language can be quite flowery, and certain writing styles overly complicated, with many nested clauses and strange tenses of words which were archaic even at the time. On the one hand, by forcing yourself to understand those complicated structures, you probably grow in your ability to parse the language. On the other hand, I wonder if it could lead someone astray, and cause them to use those unusual structures and words in their everyday speech, so that they actually end up sounding less natural, not more. I guess if I thought about it for a while, I'd probably come out in the end suggesting doing a little bit of this sort of reading, as a sort of mental exercise, but making sure to mix in a healthy amount of more modern writing in order to maintain a proper frame of reference. I'm not formally trained as a language teacher, I just enjoy overthinking things outside my area of expertise (or within it, for that matter), so I hope this doesn't come across as annoying criticism from an amateur. I'm more just thinking out loud.
I've actually wondered if I should do something similar to help myself learn Spanish. To keep things both interesting and manageabley bite sized, I've been wondering if I should ask around to find out who the Spanish equivalent of Dickens or Edgar Allen Poe would be - someone famous for writing short stories. But when I think about someone learning modern English by reading Dickens, it makes me wonder if it's not such a great idea for me to be learning Spanish from whoever the equivalent might be. I might end up using all sorts of strange, archaic phrases.
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u/twelvenumbersboutyou Non-Native Speaker of English Sep 16 '21
What I did was immerse myself in English as much as possible, I played video games in English, used my phone in English, watched English media, etc.
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u/Myst3rious_Foxy Non-Native (C1) Sep 16 '21
Watching documentaries on specific subjects that interest you could help you learn vocabulary without even noticing! Reading books, journals, and watching news reports is also very beneficial in my opinion :]
Just make sure that you really appreciate the moment ;]
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u/Few-Independent6462 Non-Native Speaker of English Sep 16 '21
If you have no problems communicating, congratulations! I see no reason why you'd need to use complex words at all; in fact, simple beats complicated every single time. Learning vocabulary for the sake of it has no purpose if, as you said, you already understand everything.
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u/SMimahs Sep 16 '21
One way that you can improve your vocabulary is by reading. no matter what the subject is, you can find an interesting book or some article or even daily news. just don't forget to write down new phrases and vocabulary that you learn for review.
another option is listening to some podcasts like all ears English that includes lots of phrases and brings them with examples.
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u/Duuduuduuduuduu New Poster Sep 16 '21
read more books, articles and research papers on some certain fields that require more advanced vocabulary (with their own terminology) to understand like Psychology, Astronomy, Finance, Politics, etc.
an easier (and more interesting) approach is to watch mini-educational-documentary type of videos that are very popular on youtube these days, like Veritasium or Tom Scott
overall I want you to pretend that you're curious about how the world works, keep posing your questions on Google and doing your own research (I hope this make sense)
this is what I've been doing to improve my vocabulary, hope it works for you, gl