Ask HN: How to speak English like native speaker?
2 comments
As an example, for myslef:
- I'm not satisfied with my accent, my english accent is just ok, and sometimes it really goes into french accent without control.
- I miss a lot of specific vocabulary in some areas as politics, human science, medecine
- I'm not able to judge my grammar rightness because I've no idea what the rules are. I would have listen more carefully at school if only I had known...
But I can understand most movies without subtitles exept the american ones in wich everyone speaks at 200mph, so i do not make any efforts in improving.
Anyway, I do not care about speaking as a native. Language is here to understand other people and explains your own views. In most situations I can do that. I've no urge on improving myslef
But I can understand most movies without subtitles exept the american ones in wich everyone speaks at 200mph, so i do not make any efforts in improving.
Anyway, I do not care about speaking as a native. Language is here to understand other people and explains your own views. In most situations I can do that. I've no urge on improving myslef
I would have listen more carefully at school if only I had known...
Meh... I doubt most native speakers of English learned the actual grammar of English, as used in practice, from listening in school. You learn English (or any language) from experience, more than anything. I couldn't recite many or any of the "rules" of English as taught in 11th grade English class, but I speak English fluently because it's my native language.
I'm not an expert, but everything I've heard suggests that - in the end - the best way to learn a new language is immersion. Or the closest approximation to immersion you can get, without moving to another country or whatever.
When I was working on learning Spanish at one time (an effort that I, sadly, more or less abandoned) the things that seemed to help me most were:
1. Having a Spanish speaking friend who was a native Spanish speaker to talk to
2. Trying (and failing, but gradually getting better) to converse with the wait staff at Mexican restaurants in Spanish.
3. A couple of nights a week, watching an hour or two of Spanish language sit-coms or whatever I could find on Telemundo or Univision.
4. Listening to my Spanish course while I was driving around, commuting to work and so forth.
I never got around to trying, but I suspect it would also have helped if I'd found some good Spanish language podcasts, or news channels, to listen to during other idle times.
Meh... I doubt most native speakers of English learned the actual grammar of English, as used in practice, from listening in school. You learn English (or any language) from experience, more than anything. I couldn't recite many or any of the "rules" of English as taught in 11th grade English class, but I speak English fluently because it's my native language.
I'm not an expert, but everything I've heard suggests that - in the end - the best way to learn a new language is immersion. Or the closest approximation to immersion you can get, without moving to another country or whatever.
When I was working on learning Spanish at one time (an effort that I, sadly, more or less abandoned) the things that seemed to help me most were:
1. Having a Spanish speaking friend who was a native Spanish speaker to talk to
2. Trying (and failing, but gradually getting better) to converse with the wait staff at Mexican restaurants in Spanish.
3. A couple of nights a week, watching an hour or two of Spanish language sit-coms or whatever I could find on Telemundo or Univision.
4. Listening to my Spanish course while I was driving around, commuting to work and so forth.
I never got around to trying, but I suspect it would also have helped if I'd found some good Spanish language podcasts, or news channels, to listen to during other idle times.
Yeah, that's mostly what i've done to learn english. watch movies, read news, speak english whenever I can.
I suppose my english is good. I know it is compared to the poor french standards, but I cannot judge compared to real english speakers.
Do not worry, I am not obsessed with grammar. It would just give me some tools to judge objectively about my level. I had like 4 hours a week of english for 10 years, that's 1400 hours I think. I just lost those hours for nothing
Do not worry, I am not obsessed with grammar. It would just give me some tools to judge objectively about my level. I had like 4 hours a week of english for 10 years, that's 1400 hours I think. I just lost those hours for nothing
I guess it is very difficult. But definitely achievable. English is an easy language to learn. You can master reading, listening and comprehension. But the tricky part is the speaking as a native speaker.
You need to listen to a lot of native speakers to adapt their accent. But then again which accent do you want to adapt? British? American? Australian?
Further, those accents break down into a lot of sub-accents based on the geographical location of the country. But with enough practice you can reach a level where native speakers would not hear the subtle differences in your pronunciation and you'll be speaking just like any native speaker in that area.
You need to listen to a lot of native speakers to adapt their accent. But then again which accent do you want to adapt? British? American? Australian?
Further, those accents break down into a lot of sub-accents based on the geographical location of the country. But with enough practice you can reach a level where native speakers would not hear the subtle differences in your pronunciation and you'll be speaking just like any native speaker in that area.
I think it's impossible to really speak as a native speaker. You'll always have to improve in some ways that you cannot see before reaching a close-to-bilingual level.
You can just improve. The only questions are: what's your current level ? what are the points you're not satified with ? what's your goal by speaking "like a native speaker" ?