1. Learn to put word stress.
Word stress is the main key to understanding and communicating in English. Word stress is very important. Try to learn word stress. This is one of the best ways to understand English, especially if you speak English quickly.
What is verbal stress?
Take, for example, three words: photograph, photographer, and photographic. Do they sound the same in speech? No! They sound different because one of the syllables, in each word, “hits” harder:
This applies to all words with 2 or more syllables: TEACHer (teacher), JaPAN (Japan), CHINa (China), aBOVE (over), converSATION (dialogue, conversation), INteresting (interesting), imPORtant (important), deMAND (require), etCETera (and so on).
Syllables that are not stressed are called Weak, or Minor, or Quiet. Native speakers try to hear stressed syllables, not weak syllables. As you use word stress in your speech, your pronunciation and understanding of the language will continually improve automatically.
If you have an English teacher, ask them to help you understand stress. Try to hear the stress in words every time you listen to English speech – on the radio or, for example, in movies. First you have to hear and define it, and then, you can use it in speech.
2. Phrasal stress
Phrasal stress is another key to understanding and communicating in English. According to the phrasal stress, some words in the sentence are “Percussive” (loud), and others are “Weak” (quiet). Take a look at the following sentence:
We want to go.
We want to go.
Do we pronounce each word with the same stress or equally loudly? No! We make the meaningful words the main ones, and not the meaningful ones the secondary ones. What words are meaningful in this sentence? Correct: WANT and GO.
We WANT to GO.
We want to go.
We WANT to GO to WORK.
We want to go to work.
We DON’t WANT to GO to WORK.
We don’t want to go to work.
We DON’t WANT to GO to WORK at NIGHT.
We don’t want to go to work at night.
It is impossible to tell everything about phrasal stress in this article. The main thing is that you know that it exists and are trying to learn how to put it. Phrasal stress is very important.
3. Listen! Listen! Listen!
Students sometimes say, “I don’t listen to the BBC news on the radio because they talk too fast and I can’t figure it out.” Very sorry! When they speak too quickly, when nothing is clear, that’s when you need to listen !!!
How can you improve your skills without listening and practice?
When you were a baby, did you understand your own language? When you were 3 weeks old, or 2 months old, or 1 year old, did you understand everything? Of course not! But you learned to understand by listening. Think about it. You have learned to understand your native language by listening 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. After that, you learned to speak. Then, you learned to read. And then, you learned to write. But first, you listened!
4. Don’t listen!
I just said: “Listen! Listen! Listen!” And now I say: “Don’t listen”! What does it mean?
Do you know the difference between the verbs “Listen” and “Hear”? Hearing is an active action, and hearing is a passive one. There are times when you listen too hard. Sometimes it is enough just to hear without listening. Let the radio be on, let the cassette play. Don’t listen, just listen. Your subconscious mind will listen to you, and you will still learn. Trying to listen carefully and understand everything, you can get stuck on one word, and only needlessly get upset. Do not worry! Just listen! Trust me, you will still learn. The main thing is to turn on the radio, cassette or TV. Let him play. And you – you don’t do anything. Your brain will hear, your subconscious will listen, and you will learn!
5. Increase your vocabulary by 5 words a day.
Improving your vocabulary is easy! How many days are there in a year? Usually 365 (on the ground).
If you only learn 5 new words per day, you will learn 5 x 365 = 1,825 new words per year. One thousand eight hundred twenty-five new words. This is a lot. And we don’t count other words that you learn by reading, speaking, etc. Buy a notebook and write down five words a day, every day. Memorize them! You will soon have a great vocabulary.
6. 30 minutes a day is better than 3.5 hours a week.
Surely it is better to study English for 30 minutes a day than 5 hours, once a week! Exercise constantly. Exercise often. Little by little, but often better than a lot, but sometimes.
Plus, it’s easier. You can easily find 30 minutes a day. How? You can get up half an hour earlier, or make your lunch break shorter. Pick a specific time and stick to it!
7. Repeat! Repeat! Repeat!
By repeating, you will improve your knowledge by 100%.
What does “repeat” mean? It means “Look again”. This must be done systematically. After learning something, write it down. Then watch it 3 more times:
In one day,
a week later,
a month later.
Test yourself each time you repeat. We learned it, repeated it, checked it out. We repeated, checked ourselves. We repeated and checked.