Hi
I was not able to speak in
English till my first year of college; it was really embarrassing when I used to speak wrong sentences and people made fun out of that.
Few
incidents helped me a lot to understand that
why I’m not able to learn even though it’s just
a language. I tried lot of things to improve it, but none of them was that successful.
I
used to watch English news channels, read lot of grammar, even made a note book
where I used to mention each and everything about grammar from the basics,
still my English was not at all improving.
I felt like something is lacking, but what I didn’t understand, till the time
one incident took place.
It was during my school
competition, I was preparing for volleyball, I always used to think how come
these people jump that high; as I never participated in high jump. I thought of
giving it a try, so next day during practice time I went there, I tried even though it was almost 3ft only
I started running from a distance and by the time I reach at the rope, I stopped. This continued for 2-3 days I was not able to
make even an attempt, forget about jumping. Suddenly the time came, when the incident took place I was walking around
with my friend in the ground during lunch time I asked him, “how come you make
an attempt to jump so high, how’s that possible?” He replied, “It’s easy, just
practice, focus and believe in yourself”. I thought okay that’s it, I’ll do it
then I took a long breath started running from the mid of the ground and
without even giving it a thought I made an attempt and jumped across the rope
without even touching my foot. My friend was shocked and amazed to see this, he
said, “Do you know what height it was”? I said, “No, why?”, then I saw it was
5ft long.
I was really in dilemma how did
that happened. In the night I realized that actually I have the strength and
potential to jump high, but it was because of that fear which was stopping me
from inside. The
reason why I narrated my incident is because after then, I applied the same
theory in every aspect in my life and guess what? It works. J
To learn English all you need to
do is speak with yourself in front of the mirror and without even joining a
class I’m sure you can create wonders. Let me explain you what I did.
1. Choose a mentor whom to
follow? I opted for Jim Carrey; he was the teacher who helped me from the
beginning till the end, not even learning,
but to speak with a good accent and fluency.
- You might be thinking how that
is possible? I downloaded his more than 20 movies and I started watching them
day by day within a few months the number of
movies I saw increased to at least 40-45 times. Bruce almighty, Liar Liar, Yes Man,
Dumb and Dumber, the Trueman show, Fun with Dick and Jane.
I became so fond of it that after
a while I actually forgot that I was watching it to improve my English.
Initially things were tougher, I was not able to understand that what they were talking about so I downloaded the
transcript to get a clear insight of each dialogue, if not, then we have an
option in VLC player to have the transcript played with the movie. Time after
time I started speaking with him, I used to mute the voice and read out the
transcript with the movie, believe me it helped me a
lot. After then when you are practiced reading out, increase the volume and speak loud with that
actor/actress. You’ll observe the change in your accent within 10-15 days. You
will come up with some more confidence,
but make it loud. Don’t hesitate.
2. To keep the spark within and
to learn this language I started watching videos on TedX/YouTube, if you don’t
know it is a page where the entire motivational
speakers inspire others by their real life stories. Do try, it is amazing.
Every speaker had some different way of speaking and accent that made my
learning more exciting. Day after day my accent and pronunciation started
improving.
-
I was in my 12th
standard and had joined a class of multimedia Flash and Animation in CMC. This
course lasted for about 60 days for me. However, the duration was of 30-40 days
only. We were having strength of 12 people over there and a single teacher Mr.
Brijyesh. That time I was not much familiar to computer can say was not a
freak; since, I was not having any PC at
my home, so I was not able to use or practice
anything much, but yes I was fond of animation and flash. I chose one friend
out of them named Anubhav.
He was like fond of biking and roaming around, but
because of my enthusiasm he thought that there
must be something so he tried it. The fee of that course was deducted from my
Father’s salary so we were not worried, as it was managed by the Hindalco
corp., it took me 10 days to understand that how to use that Flash and all the
functions as the class was of 45mins only, and I was not having any personal pc to practice at home, so often I used to
forget. The day when I started catching things my interest suddenly increased
and then the duration of class was of 60-70mins. :) The staff was
not happy since that PC was completely blocked by me.
On 13th day I
went to home started thinking that how can I be more productive during classes
as lot of time is spent in thinking that what to draw, imagination took time.
So I started making some rough drawings at home and how or what to animate. I
told my Sir not to disturb me while I’m working as I was distracted by unwanted
talks in the class, girls used to do lot
of pranks on me, but I never paid any attention to them, I believed in one thing at
a time. :)
The days passed, and within 3 days I come up with an amazing animation I named it “The snake under the table”,
that freaked out Sir, he asked, “How come you made this and how that layers happened”, and that question shocked me
and I understood that even the Sir don’t know much functions of this software.
However, after that within next 7-10 days; I made some 10-12 flashes with sound
in background; it was so much fun that while commuting from that coaching class
to home I used to go whistling enjoying or dancing on my way. Then I moved to
Movie maker did lot of creations in that and my imagination was at peak level.
Soon I became the best student of that academy and likeable to all the staff
over there. They allowed me stay and practice for 15-20days more and that too free of cost.
3 things I learned from this
incident:
1. If there is a will there is a
way, but you have to push yourself to see what is there on the other side of
the wall. By sitting and regretting won’t help. Similarly for English even if
you don’t have that much facility or in fact money to join coaching make an
efforts don’t complain that I don’t have this or that otherwise I would have
learned. There are lot many ways to explore if A is not working try Plan B, but
keep on rolling.
2. Not practice, but regular
practice makes a person perfect, why? Because, if you ask me now, I’m the same
student with lack of imagination for making flashes and don’t even remember a
single function that how I made all those animations. So, believe me keep a
constant and regular effort on daily basis; don’t bring any breaks else the
same condition will be of yours for speaking or
writing English.
3. Never lose your strength if
you are lacking in something don’t worry, if
you can imagine it then you can do it as well. There is only a single point of difference between successful people and an unsuccessful
one that successful people try, if failed,
and
then again try, but the unsuccessful one only think about the circumstances
and then leave it. As said, “If I fail more than you do, I win.” No matter what the situation is you have to learn
English and that’s final. “Fake it till you make it”.
Coming back to grammar now, I’m still working on it, but yes have improved a lot in
comparison to last year. Since, I’m into HR, so I have to write at least 50-70 mails on daily basis to client or the job seeker. I
have made my own notebook and have prepared all the materials on that. I’ll
tell you what happens; we actually look for
some particular thing in grammar when it is being asked or we get stuck in
something, but we should do make a list of all the things which is actually
useful in writing like, Verb, phrasel verb,
tenses (all the tense don’t leave even a single one), active and passive,
reported speech. Whenever you have any problem refer to below mentioned sites
and then not only understanding it, but always keep that copy near you and
write it down because I’m sure you will be stuck in the same issue again, it
happens. Maintain a good copy with managed writing topics and good hand
writing, it helps and makes you feel read it again and again else if you mess
up, you won’t feel like to have a look at it again.
Do make these things a regular habit, like you brush daily; things become habit
when we keep on doing the same thing for a period of time on regular intervals,
I’m asking you to make it a habit because you won’t feel it as a burden or work, instead you’ll enjoy learning English when it becomes
your habit; otherwise you might get boredom and won’t be feeling the same spark
the next day.
1. Daily learn a new word, write down its meaning and few examples and keep on
looking for more examples until you learn it your way no matter that example is
good or bad J don’t look for complex meanings that will mess you up.
2. Now this is really important:
Learn new phrase and idioms daily; you’ll enjoy that and using them while
speaking will make your English more interesting and unique from others believe
me very few do it till now.
3. Try to involve maximum into
English conversations let it be Facebook, twitter, Linkedin, Yahoo, or any
other English speaking sites. Comment it if you feel it whether that is a blog,
a group of people chatting or on some other political, religious, etc topics.
This will build up your confidence, don’t worry if people point out that, it is wrong, tell them you are learning and be positive.
You will realize it latter on that how many
people helped you in your journey to
improve it by giving small tips, these things you can never learn on website
what native speaker can explain you, as that connects directly with yourself.
Links:
Idiom: http://www.idiomsite.com/ | http://www.learnenglish.de/idiompage.html
| http://www.learn-english-today.com/idioms/idioms_proverbs.html
Grammar: http://www.grammar-monster.com/
| http://www.talkenglish.com/Grammar/Grammar.aspx
| http://www.dailywritingtips.com/category/grammar/
| http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com/
Best Website to help you out
with each and everything related to English speaking:
Important thing: Mix your
interest with your learning English you can get benefited and learn at the same
time and yes, this is possibleJ. I’m into hiring so watched
almost more than 300+ videos of hiring and recruiting from people who are
expert in this, and finally I can say
I have more knowledge in hiring and other HR policies than a MBA, even till now
I have trained many MBA’s for HR training even though I'm from Engg.
background.
By doing so, it improved my
English speaking and thought process as well; learned different and important aspects
of HR, and many ways how to give speech, presentation and speak in front of
people. Even I have performed many seminars and presentations and all because
of these videos, I watched.
Finally to conclude:
1. Speak, Speak, Speak
Be confident and speak as often as possible to as many people as you possibly can! Do not be shy to make mistakes! The more you practice the better and more confident you will become in your pronunciation and vocabulary.
Be confident and speak as often as possible to as many people as you possibly can! Do not be shy to make mistakes! The more you practice the better and more confident you will become in your pronunciation and vocabulary.
2. Listen
Listen to news bulletins and songs in English to listen to the pronunciation of words. You can also learn new words and expressions this way. The more you listen, the more you learn! Try to practice English songs, Eminem, linkin park, switchfoot and many are there, have the lyrics in front of you and sing with them you will understand the words more quickly and easily.
Listen to news bulletins and songs in English to listen to the pronunciation of words. You can also learn new words and expressions this way. The more you listen, the more you learn! Try to practice English songs, Eminem, linkin park, switchfoot and many are there, have the lyrics in front of you and sing with them you will understand the words more quickly and easily.
3. Read Out Loud
Read the newspaper or a magazine out to you; even play a movie and start speaking with them. Hearing yourself read will help you spot your mistakes better. Record your voice and listen how it sounds, then make it better.
Read the newspaper or a magazine out to you; even play a movie and start speaking with them. Hearing yourself read will help you spot your mistakes better. Record your voice and listen how it sounds, then make it better.
-
Get over any fear of making mistakes.
You will make mistakes and that’s
natural.
-
Be patient with
yourself. Learning any language can be frustrating, but frustration won't help
you, so let it go.
-
Grasp every
opportunity that gives you the chance to speak with people in English.
Few videos, hope you enjoy
learning English, never make it a stress for you. The more you enjoy the better
you become.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOcPUAvom4
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DOnezMs1hU
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aH2Ppjpcho
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNmf-G81Irs
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu81NDXNaNM
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29tJAgc54RA
Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish. Never
Give up.
