it’s time for improving my english level, i think. I can listening, reading, but i cannot writing. I have no idea about that
In china, everybody knows that we learn the english all the time, kindergarten, elementary, high school,and university. It looks like we should do it best, as you see, it’s not what you look like.
Sometimes, I doubt it. Do I have the ability to learn english? The more question, the more confused. My friend told me that english is just a skill of survival in the world. Don’t be frustrated. I know what she said, but I think I need to figure it out.
I know this sounds unhelpful, but… I suggest you consider doing more of those activities: reading, listening, writing, and speaking. You can decide what percentage of your time you do for each activity.
For learning Spanish, I like doing about 70% reading, 25% listening, and 5% combined for speaking and writing. I know this is unbalanced and if I want to round out my skills later I know I will be able to. And then it will be easier because I will already be very familiar with the language. You can choose whichever percentages you prefer.
Doing any of those activities improves your overall English. I suggest that you choose what percentage of each you do based on the following:
(1) How much you enjoy doing each
(2) What resources you have available
(3) Whether you have to learn for a test/job or not
Sorry, there is no easy answer. If you don’t like writing, you can focus more of your time on the other activities and do very little writing. This is okay! You will progress with English no matter which ones you focus on. Doing lots of reading, speaking, and listening now will make the writing easier later on. You will then learn writing faster than if you had forced yourself to do only writing at the beginning. Whatever percentages you choose for each activity, you will be improving your English.
Everyone that has learned a native language and has access to the internet can learn English.
Hi Sharon,
Regardless of what some people here will tell you, to get good at writing and conversation, you need to write and converse a lot.
This site:
is a place where you can write an essay and have it corrected by a native speaker for free.
You are still making a lot of grammar mistakes, so I suggest you practice conversation also. You can exchange language on skype for free if you have a partner. You can meet language partners at sites like this: http://www.language-exchanges.org/
If you are referring to me as one of those people, I think you are seriously mistaken. To get good at X you have to X. No kidding. There is more to it than this. If you want to get good at X, but don’t enjoy X, then you can do related thing Y. And then you can do X later and get good at X. No one says you can get good at speaking without speaking.
You shouldn’t let the fact that you don’t like speaking keep you from speaking. But just out of curiosity - why don’t you like speaking? Is it possible that it’s because you aren’t very good at it yet? And if you’re not good at it, is it because you don’t do it?
You will find that people have different views on what works best in language learning. Often what works best is what you personally like doing the best. You have to enjoy your learning in order to improve, and you have to put in enough time to get really good. So it is really up to you.
I doubt if anyone here will tell you that you can get good at writing and speaking without actually writing and speaking a lot. However, in order to be able to speak and write well you need to be comfortable with the language. You need a lot of words. You need to get used to the language. This means a lot of listening and reading. Do you read novels in English for pleasure? Are you comfortable reading long articles and books in English? You need to develop the ability to do that in order to become good at writing and speaking.
You can practice reading and listening anytime and anywhere. It is easy to do and you need to do a lot of it. It is more difficult to arrange the chance to speak. You should use language exchange sites, or sign up for discussions here at LingQ, but you need not spend hours doing this. The more you improve your knowledge of the language through listening and reading, the better you will speak. Language exchange sites can help, but if that is all you do, you will not improve very much in my view.
To improve your writing, you need to write. The act of writing is much more important than whether or not your writing is corrected by someone. If you do a lot of reading, and writing, you will eventually correct most of your mistakes naturally by yourself. The greatest advantage of having your writing corrected, whether here at LingQ or at Lang8, is that you are more motivated to write if you know someone is going to correct you.
If you use our tutors at LingQ for speaking and writing you will get back a report with comments and explanations. Give it a try. But mostly do a lot of reading and listening, and LingQing. Focus on subjects that are of interest to you. Good luck.