By reading English Grammer Books and reading English Newspapers .
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Many deserving candidateslose out on job opportunities because of their vernacular accent.
Can I 'neutralise' my accent?
Yes, you can. All you need to do is train yourself to speak English as comfortably and perfectly as you speak your mother tongue.
How do you train yourself? By inculcating certain practices in your daily lifestyle. Thesewill get you closer to sounding like a native English speaker and equip you with a global accent -- and you will speak not American or British English, but correct English.
This is the first step to learn any other accent, be itAmericanorBritish or Australian.
Lisa Mojsin,head trainer, director and founder of the Accurate English Training Company in Los Angeles, offers these tips to help 'neutralise' your accent or rather do away with the local twang, as you speak.
i. Observe the mouth movements of those who speak English well and try to imitate them.
When you are watching television, observe the mouth movements of the speakers. Repeat what they are saying, while imitating the intonation and rhythm of their speech.
ii. Until you learn the correct intonation and rhythm of English, slowyour speech down.
If you speak too quickly, and with the wrong intonation and rhythm, native speakers will have a hard time understanding you.
Don't worry about your listener getting impatient with your slow speech -- it is more important that everything you say be understood.iii.Listen to the 'music' of English.Do not use the 'music' of your native language when youspeak English. Each language has its own way of 'singing'.
iv. Use the dictionary.
Try and familiarise yourself with the phonetic symbols of your dictionary. Look up the correct pronunciation of words that are hard for you to say.
v. Make a list of frequently used words that you finddifficultto pronounce and ask someone who speaks the language wellto pronounce them for you.
Record these words, listen to them and practice saying them. Listen and read at the same time.
vi. Buy books on tape.
Record yourself reading some sections of the book. Compare the sound of your English with that of the person reading the book on thetape.
vii. Pronounce the ending of each word.
Pay special attention to 'S' and 'ED' endings. This will help you strengthen the mouth muscles that you use when you speak English.viii. Read aloud in English for 15-20minutes every day.Research has shownit takes about three months of daily practice to develop strong mouth muscles for speaking a new language.
ix. Record your own voice and listen for pronunciation mistakes.
Many people hate to hear the sound of their voice and avoidlistening to themselves speak. However, this is a very important exercise because doing it will help you become conscious of the mistakesyou are making.
x.Be patient.
You can change the way you speak but it won't happen overnight. People often expect instant results and give up too soon. You can change the way you sound if you are willing to put some effort into it.
Quick tips
Various versions of the English language exist. Begin by identifying thecategory you fall into and start by improving the clarity of your speech.
~ Focus on removing the mother tongue influence and the 'Indianisms' that creep into your English conversations.
~ Watchthe English news on television channels like Star World, CNN, BBCand English movies on Star Movies and HBO.
~ Listen to and sing English songs. We'd recommend Westlife, Robbie Williams, Abba, Skeeter Davis and Connie Francis among others.
Good luck !!
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Surround yourself in English. Put yourself in an all English speaking environment where you can learn passively. The best way to learn is through speaking.
Practise every day. Make yourself a study plan. Decide how much time a week you are going to spend studying and stick to it. Establish a routine.
Tell your family and friends about your study plan. Get them to push you to study and also don?t let them interrupt you.
Practise the 4 core skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. They all need to be worked on for you to improve.
Keep a notebook of new words you learn. Use them in sentences and try to say them at least 3 times when you speak.
Do a lesson at least once a day.
Memorisation of lists is one of the most common ways of learning vocabulary for a test. It?s only a good exercise for short term studying because you often do not retain the information that you have learned for a test.
Use your body clock. If you?re not a morning person, study in the afternoon.
You will find words easier to remember if you try to remember an example sentence using that word rather the word on its own.
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- read book that you like.
- practise talking in english by talking to yourself or if possible to others
- write things that you want to convey to others in English
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Surround yourself in English. Put yourself in an all English speaking environment where you can learn passively. The best way to learn is through speaking.
Practise every day. Make yourself a study plan. Decide how much time a week you are going to spend studying and stick to it. Establish a routine.
Tell your family and friends about your study plan. Get them to push you to study and also don?t let them interrupt you.
Practise the 4 core skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. They all need to be worked on for you to improve.
Keep a notebook of new words you learn. Use them in sentences and try to say them at least 3 times when you speak.
Do a lesson at least once a day.
Memorisation of lists is one of the most common ways of learning vocabulary for a test. It?s only a good exercise for short term studying because you often do not retain the information that you have learned for a test.
Use your body clock. If you?re not a morning person, study in the afternoon.
You will find words easier to remember if you try to remember an example sentence using that word rather the word on its own.
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- Don't be afraid to make mistakes. ...
- Surround yourself in English. ...
- Practise every day. ...
- Tell your family and friends about your study plan. ...
- Practise the 4 core skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. ...
- Keep a notebook of new words you learn. ...
- Do a lesson at least once a day.
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20 things you can do to improve your English
Have a read of the below list and we are sure you will find a lot of helpful tips to improve your English!
- Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Be confident. People can only correct your mistakes when they hear you make them.
- Surround yourself in English. Put yourself in an all English speaking environment where you can learn passively. The best way to learn is through speaking.
- Practise every day. Make yourself a study plan. Decide how much time a week you are going to spend studying and stick to it. Establish a routine.
- Tell your family and friends about your study plan. Get them to push you to study and also don’t let them interrupt you.
- Practise the 4 core skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. They all need to be worked on for you to improve.
- Keep a notebook of new words you learn. Use them in sentences and try to say them at least 3 times when you speak.
- Do a lesson at least once a day.
- The memorisation of lists is one of the most common ways of learning vocabulary for a test. It’s only a good exercise for short term studying because you often do not retain the information that you have learned for a test.
- Use your body clock. If you’re not a morning person, study in the afternoon.
- You will find words easier to remember if you try to remember an example sentence using that word rather the word on its own.
- Plan to take a test. You’ll find that you work harder when you need to study for something.
- Saying that it’s better not to study just to take a test. Think of the bigger picture. What can you do when you have a good command of English? How will the quality of your life improve?
- Give yourself a long term goal. Focus on working towards it.
- Give yourself short term goals too and reward yourself when you achieve each one.
- Create an atmosphere in which you want to learn, not because you have to. You’ll learn more when you’re learning because you want to.
- Know what works best for you. Think about what methods have been successful for you in the past and stick with them.
- Figure out how you learn. It can be by memorising, reading, speaking, summarising or other methods. Find out how you study best. It can be in a quiet place by yourself or with a group.
- Get help! If you don’t understand something you’ve got to ask someone. Ask your teacher, classmates or friends for help.
- Review and review and review! Make sure that you take the time to review things you have studied in the past.
- It’s not a good idea to study on your own for more than 30 minutes at a time. Take regular breaks, get some fresh air and stretch
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