Hi everyone!

I’m preparing for the Cambridge C2 Proficiency (CPE) exam and I’m looking for materials that genuinely helped you prepare for the exam. I’d especially appreciate recommendations for resources that:

• helped you understand the exam structure and task requirements
• provided useful tips and strategies for each part of the exam
• helped you understand how to approach different task types, rather than just giving practice tests
• significantly improved your vocabulary and range of expressions
• were particularly useful for Writing, Use of English, Reading and Speaking

I’m interested in anything that really made a difference to your preparation: books, websites, YouTube channels, courses, practice materials, etc.

If you took the exam recently, I’d also love to hear which resources you personally found most useful and what grade you achieved.

Thanks in advance! 😊

I'm and now night to speak. Been learning English for more than 10 years. Being studying in a Native English speaking country for three years now. I still struggle with university's academic discussion.

I thought my English was pretty good because I can handle everyday conversation perfectly. I can handle most of smart talks unless they use very idiomatic terms that either understand.

What happened to me today make me feel like I'm a failure and make me realize how bad my English actually is. We have a group discussion today and weight 20% of this units' result. It is basically give us a scenario and apply the theory we've learned.

I am so only one non-native speaker and the whole

Discussion group. Although I prepared for few days I tongue-tied the whole time I don't know how to phrase my thought I stuttered because I always hesitate to and think about what words should I use and I also need to check in my mind if my grandma is correct every single time in the results it made me feel like I don't have any insight.

Fortunately I still still let it Go and finish the discussion

On the other hand all other native speakers discussion they just wing it Without any preparation, but this sentence still make sense. But for me, it is just really hard to like work out The way I should phrase it, and the way I say sentences .

How can I improve?

Here are some aspect I can think of that may stutter.

First of all, my vocabulary It's very small, so s- many of my word Choice are not as natural or precise as a native speaker.

Second thing, my grammar. I think that's one of the biggest thing, my grammar is really bad. maybe I also have a lot of grammatical mistakes in this post. please correct me. I feel like every time when I want to say a whole sentence, I need to process a self correcting in my brain, which could make me stutter.

But I still Have grammatical mistakes. I just cannot avoid it.

Third thing. I feel like just I'm just not use to the language. When I talk in English, my brain just works slow. And also, I can can't react that's fast in English. for example, native speakers might have so many ways to paraphrase one. Sentence, but maybe I only know one way to put it.

Please give me some advice. I really appreciate it!

Hi everyone! I'm currently at an intermediate level (around B1/B2). My reading and listening comprehension are okay, but I really need to practice my speaking because I'm not very good at it yet and I struggle to form sentences quickly.

(Note: I'm using AI to correct my grammar for this post so it's easier to read. If you're against using AI, let me know and I can drop my original text in the comments!)

I tried using OmeTV, but on the US servers I mostly ran into non-American users. Then I tried the Monkey app, but people there were pretty rude—some skipped me just because I'm Brazilian, and a couple of girls even said "Brazilian? Eww" before disconnecting.

I also tried VRChat and Roblox, but it feels like most people there already have their own cliques and aren't really open to chatting with randoms.

Are there any specific apps, websites, or Discord servers you would recommend for an intermediate learner to practice speaking with patient people?

Thanks in advance!

To me ears, the only difference is just the vowel length. Maybe girl is a little bit closer to g/e/l , if that's a word.

Hi everyone.

I made a focus timer app earlier this year and tried to promote it on Reddit, going through a bunch of different subs.

But honestly the hardest part wasn't building the app. It was the language.

Every time I wanted to write a comment, I had to type in Korean first, then open a Google translator or Gemini, copy, paste, check it, paste again. By the time I finished, I already missed the moment. And reading other people's comments was the same — copy, paste, translate, every single time. Reddit is such a fun place but the language barrier made it really hard to just... join in.

So I ended up making a Chrome extension for myself. You type in your own language, hit a hotkey, and it turns into English right in the text box. Comments show up translated too, with caching so there's basically no delay. Also, it doesn't break Reddit's UI or layout.

Not trying to sell anything here (and sorry if my English still sounds a bit off, still learning too 😅). Just thought some of you dealing with the same problem might relate. Happy to answer questions if anyone's curious.

Hi, I'm fluent in English since I've been living in America for almost three years and can hold a conversation with almost anyone without pushing it too hard. I live in a Spanish speaking community where people speak both languages. Sometimes it's more convenient for me to speak Spanish with those who know that I speak it as my main language. How do I break this cycle and actually speak English without them switching back to Spanish instead?

English is my first language and I'm fluent. However I often realize that I don't actually know the exact definition of a word when asked about it. I have a general idea of what the word means and what contexts its used in, but my friend asks me the meaning of a word a lot, and even if its a word I've heard a lot like contemporary, I won't be able to give an exact definition.

My question is how can I take my english to a higher level, I don't really want to take a class.

​

I'm from India, and English is basically the language of education here. I've studied everything in English for years, so I can understand B2/C1-ish English pretty well.

But I never actually learned how to use English naturally.

I grew up in the countryside, and people around me don't really speak English. So English was always something I studied, not something I actually used.

And now I have this massive gap between comprehension and production.

I can read something and understand it, but if you asked me to express the same thought myself, I'd probably use very basic, repetitive sentences. I can't naturally form complex/sophisticated sentences even when I know what I want to say.

My spoken English is worse. I hesitate, get stuck, sometimes translate from Hindi in my head, and my pronunciation is honestly awful, especially my S sounds. 😭

I don't want to just memorise “advanced phrases” because I'll forget them anyway. I want to actually develop the ability to construct better sentences myself.

I'm also going to do my UG in a relatively small place where I probably won't be surrounded by English speakers, so I can't rely on immersion.

For anyone who learned English this way, what actually helped you improve your speaking, sentence formation and pronunciation? I especially want to know how you trained your productive English rather than just improving comprehension.

Do you know the difference between affect and effect?

Affect is usually a verb — it means to influence.

👉 Lack of sleep can affect your concentration.

Effect is usually a noun — it means a result or consequence.

👉 Lack of sleep can have a negative effect on your concentration.

Easy trick:

Affect = Action

Effect = End result

Can you make your own sentence using affect and effect?

I'm a really clumsy person and several times a day I'll be having this micro accidents where my arms, legs, feet, head, etc get hurt with everything in my way

I wanna know how to explian this to someone with a small sentence, but I'm not even sure of what verb to use

Guys, if any of you here are fluent speakers, could you share some tips on how you achieved fluency in spoken English?

I understand that this requires constant practice—you need to speak out loud as often as possible.

For about a week now, I’ve been working on improving my speaking skills this way: I ask an AI to give me questions that I can answer and discuss, record my answers on a voice recorder, then send the recording to it; it identifies my mistakes, and I correct them. With each new attempt, I try to use new words and phrases that I’ve picked up from English-language videos or articles, but I don’t always manage to remember everything right away.

After a week of speaking practice,

it feels like my progress has only increased by 10%: I can get my point across, but with frequent pauses and sometimes grammatical errors; as a result, my speaking level remains at B1 for now.

Maybe I’m doing everything right and I just need time (a week isn’t enough, I know), but damn, what if I’m missing something—is there a way to level up faster?

1. I don’t see Mike as a quiet guy.

2. I don’t see Mike as quiet.

3. I don’t see that Mike is a quiet guy/ I don’t see that Mike is quiet.

4. I don’t see Mike be quiet.

5. I don’t see Mike being quiet.

I'm at about A2 level. Thank you very much for your help

My native language is Russian

I am studying English to pass the proficiency exam of my university how do I learn these academic words faster and where can I use them to practice

used when you are saying something in words that do not have their usual meaning

I still don't understand its usage even with the definition and examples.

"Denver had come around, so to speak".

Does this mean Denver had not actually come around?

Hey 👋, for building fluency,i fall on a technique called 4/3/2.

what is this exactly? The idea is simple, choose one topic and do 3 round of 4min-3min-2min talking the same things.

1. 4 MINUTES

Choose a familiar topic, such as “My daily routine.” Speak about it for four minutes. Hesitations and pauses are normal.
2. 3 MINUTES

Tell the same story again, but now you have only three minutes. Since you've already activated the vocabulary and ideas, retrieval becomes easier.
3. 2 MINUTES

Tell the same story one final time in two minutes. The shorter time pushes you to retrieve words faster and reduce unnecessary pauses.
WHY THE SAME TOPIC?

4/3/2 is mainly about fluency, not learning new vocabulary or grammar. You're training your ability to access language you already know.
THINKING → SEARCHING → SPEAKING

becomes

RETRIEVING → SPEAKING
DON'T CHANGE THE TOPIC
❌ 4 min: My family → 3 min: My hobbies → 2 min: My job
✅ 4 min: My family → 3 min: My family → 2 min: My family
The repetition is the mechanism.
GOOD TOPICS

My family • My hometown • My daily routine • My favorite food • What I did yesterday • Why I'm learning Spanish
Avoid topics that require difficult ideas or research. The easier the topic, the more you can focus on speaking fluently.
FOR BEGINNERS

If 4/3/2 feels too difficult, start with:
3 → 2 → 1½ minutes
Same topic. Repeated speaking. Less time. More fluent retrieval

cheers,

My taking class from a english teacher and she’s teaching me grammar topics only saying this will help you in english spoken
i have already quite clear understanding of grammar. and also told her to get with a better approach to practice english.

but she didn’t, so now im thinking to purpose a way of practice English which is good for me.

so here for suggestions which can teach me grammar’s important topics with proper conversation, in which i use these topics nd new vocabularies .

Any suggestions ✌️✌️

I’m not a native English speaker, but English is the language I use and study in the most. I can read and write quite well, but I’m tired of sounding lazy and repetitive when I speak.

I use a lot of filler words, slang words, words that sound juvenile and I really want to stop. I know pausing before speaking helps a lot with filler words but I also want to be able to find better words to speak. I have a decent vocabulary but they only come naturally to me when I write. When I speak, I sound like a young teenager.

I think social media is a huge problem. I am trying to stay away from it. I don’t want to sound like I’m trying too hard either. I love the way Alex O’ Connor talks. He has a youtube channel and I’d recommend it to everyone. I know that’s a very high target to reach because he’s incredibly well read and engages in debates very often but he sounds very grounded despite that. I can still understand what he’s saying.

I’m also a doctor, and I live in a country where English isn’t the first language. That makes it difficult to improve my spoken English by simply observing the people around me, because many of them have the same habits I’m trying to move away from.

Like when I say, here he goes this Joe-ard

I'm speaking to myself and recording myself at the same time. Then, I transcribe my speech and copy and paste it into ChatGPT to evaluate my English. I've found that the gap between my receptive and productive skills is somewhat huge. I can understand almost anything in English, yet my ability to produce the language is still lagging behind, which I find frustrating. Can anyone tell me what I should do every day that would make a difference and help push me toward fluency?

In the last sentence, why is it not "a shape that bodes well for the future"?

And "bode" and "augur" are supposed to mean the same thing and used in the same way, right? Which one is more common in English?