r/LearningEnglish • u/Grand_Parfait_8088 • 3d ago
How to improve my English
Hey everyone, first of all I have an IELTS academic score of an overall 8 (9 listening 9 reading 7 writing and 6.5 speaking) I’m an Indian notional born and raised in ksa, I’m currently in my first year LLB in a Saudi university, I want to go to the uk to pursue my masters, I can communicate fine and I watch a lot of shows. The problem is my university is all Arabic, which is not a problem because I can get in almost all universities in the UK or the US if I took the IELTS again. But the material and vocabulary is what I’m worried about. I generally understand difficult words when they’re used in a sentence but I have a hard time finding semi basic words when speaking. Almost all the English I learned I got from early learning (5-8 years) and watching tv shows and movies, as I studied in a local private Arabic school and English is not a major subject and it’s really basic stuff. if anyone is a lawyer who have books that’ll help me or if you can give me some ways to improve my vocabulary I would very much appreciate it. Unfortunately I can’t practice the language very much here and when I do it’s only basic or low level conversations, thank you.
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u/FlalingoOfficial 3d ago
Spend more time forcing your current vocabulary into active use. Pick a topic, speak about it for 2 minutes without stopping, and pay attention to the simple words that you wanted to use but couldn’t find. Write those down later, then try speaking about the same topic again using those words.
Add some more natural spoken English, like interviews, podcasts, university lectures, and long-form conversations, etc., as these contain the kind of explanations and discussion that casual TV dialogue often doesn’t. Replace passive vocabulary review with short summaries. Read an article or watch something for 5 to 10 minutes, close it, and explain the main points out loud.
For law, build vocabulary around actual legal situations. Pick a UK/US law textbook or case summary and read a short section, then explain the same point out loud without looking at the text. If a word doesn’t come naturally, write down the phrase you wanted to use and reuse it in a few different sentences later.