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Ask HN: How to improve communication (listening, verbal and writing)

9 pointsby maheshsalmost 6 years ago
How to improve communication (listening, verbal and writing) when English is not your first language. I live where most of the population are not English speaking. Any actionable advice which I can practice daily which you or your near ones did and helped them.<p>Few thing I considered like joining Toastmasters but nearest club is too far to my place.

5 comments

tucazalmost 6 years ago
Disclaimer: I’m not passing judgement.<p>Whenever I hear someone with a problem and a good solution, like Toastmaster here, but with an “excuse” it points me to question the will to actually solve the problem.<p>If it’s too far you don’t need to go every week or every day, but how about once a month? That would help a lot even if it’s just once a month.<p>Another suggestion is to have Grammarly installed because it does catch a bunch of errors. However, be aware that you are sending everything you write to their servers.<p>The last advice is the most obvious one.<p>Write a lot and look for errors. Rinse and repeat. Practice makes it perfect.
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krageonalmost 6 years ago
Learn it the way children all over the world learn their English: Watch cartoons, play games and talk shit on the internet. The key to learning a language and learning it well is to not be impatient, because mastery takes time.
whitenoise23almost 6 years ago
If you are looking for English advice for your job. I strongly recommend to follow courses in coursera platform or EdX.
butteredpopcornalmost 6 years ago
Some things you could do from anywhere with internet:<p>- take Skype lessons<p>- listen to English-language podcasts<p>- read Strunk &amp; White
hluskaalmost 6 years ago
English is my first language so I have no experience trying to learn it as a second language. For what it is worth, it is a very difficult language and if this ask HN is indicative of your writing, you’re doing quite well.<p>I’m trying to learn French now. The thing that has helped me the most is talking to people who are French-English bilingual and kind enough to tell me that my accent makes me sound a little soft in the head. You may not have access to people like that. I’ve also gained quite a bit from watching parts of the first 8 seasons of The Simpsons in French. I’m of an age where I know the first 8 seasons like the back of my hand, so I can listen to the language and hear how they construct sentences without getting bogged down trying to understand.<p>If I wanted to improve my writing, I would find a good editor to destroy my writing. Would it be beneficial if I edited this post for you and showed how I would write it?<p>If I didn’t have access to a good editor, I would start reading as many English books as possible. My French isn’t strong enough to start reading actual French books so I haven’t gone down that path yet with my own learning. You might gain from that path.<p>Finally, do you work in tech? If so, comment here and get involved in some debates. If you do that though, remember that in English there are a lot of ways to craft one sentence. For example, let’s take a look at your last sentence.<p>“Few thing I considered like joining Toastmasters but nearest club is too far to my place.”<p>If I deconstruct that sentence, I get:<p>“Few” - Few means more than one.<p>“thing I considered like joining Toastmasters” - thing is singular<p>“but nearest club is too far to my place.” - this part is fine, though you’re missing a word.<p>When I add all of that together, I get a meaning like:<p>“I considered joining Toastmasters but the nearest club is too far from my home.”<p>In this case, “too far to my place is grammatically correct, but I have an aversion towards forming sentences like that. However, you could also write this and few people will question it:<p>“I considered joining Toastmasters but the nearest club is too far to my home.”<p>I don’t think that sounds as good, but that’s my own taste and my own voice.<p>Or, depending on who I’m writing to, I might balk at using ‘considered’. If I wanted to be a little folkier and conversational, I’d say:<p>“I have thought about joining Toastmasters but the nearest club is too far from my home.”<p>That is a small difference but we could also edit it completely differently. If I felt verbose, I might say:<p>“I have considered a few ways to improve my English. For example, I thought about joining Toastmasters but the nearest club is too far from my place.”<p>I took your last sentence and expressed it in several ways and I could keep going for hours. I know which one I prefer, but there are many options. If you’re looking for a good way to drill, I would practice there. Start writing a sentence in different ways. How does the feeling change? What feels more pleasant to read? What is more pleasant to speak out loud?
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