The most important point you need to keep in mind before speaking in English is you have to start ‘THINKING IN ENGLISH’. Maybe it sounds ridiculous but that’s really the basic thing to be done.

For e.g. Suppose assume you think in your mother tongue before speaking, you will have to translate it to English every time before you actually speak it out. This consumes time and thus it affects your fluency (may be your confidence too due to the pause between the words/sentences). And it leaves not so good impression on the listener.

Thank you, Sumanth Ramesh and Quora.

 

Fun part when translating from mother tongue to English is, you actually end up speaking your mother tongue in English not ‘Actually Speaking English’ . Let me give you a simple example, in my mother tongue Kannada while raining we say ‘Male bartha ide…’ , if this translated to English keeping my mother tongue Kannada in mind (I mean by thinking in Kannada and translating it to English) it ends up to ‘The rain is coming…’ which is a total disaster. So what it the actual thing for it in English, which is ‘ It’s raining’. (I have seen a lot of people do it, thus quoted it – sorry if it sounds absurd).

Thank you, Sumanth Ramesh and Quora.

Another important thing to keep in mind is, to speak in any language you don’t need the vocabulary of an expert in it. Just learn the minimum vocabulary (necessary for normal conversations) to start with. But you need a better grammar understanding for which you can start with a basic grammar book available. Here again don’t try to learn everything at once, always start with the minimum.

Let me assist you with few activities that might help you in bettering the speaking capability rather than just asking you to join a coaching or do an intensive study of English Grammar/Vocabulary books,

 1)  Watch a English news channel, if not for the news at least for the language. The catch here is, you have to watch only one channel (pick any channel of your preference). Keep a time and watch the news at that particular time everyday. The reason for this is if you follow more speakers at a time, you will get confused with the pronunciation and the accent (as it differs form one to another). Follow one and imbibe that, as always you can change your accent once you are comfortable with the language.

 2)  Read an English newspaper of your choice for around 10–15 minutes daily. Best part of a newspaper is its editorial. You will learn a lot from improving vocabulary to its usage & contexts and even the art of sentence formation.

 3)  Make it a point you speak in front of a mirror for at least 5 minutes daily. This boosts your confidence enormously (trust me) and also you will end up speaking in English for at least few minutes daily. By seeing yourself in the mirror you will get to improve the body language as well.

   4)  Start making normal day to day conversations in English with may be your friends/colleagues. One golden rule you have to follow here is that you must speak only in English while in the working area/classroom, as there is always a cafeteria to speak your heart out (in your mother tongue) with friends/colleagues.

 5)  Last but not the least, you have to develop love towards the language English. How do you do that?. Start reading the literature, may it be any novel, comics, technology stuff or anything that interests you. You can also start watching movies, television shows, anime’s that keeps your interest in the language.

As you imbibe all these into your routine, you will definitely get better day by day. Once you get a hold, you will start to understand the grammar in a much better way and your vocabulary starts improving automatically.

  CONFIDENCE IS THE KEY…..

All the best !!!

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Reference: Sumanth Ramesh, “How can I improve my spoken English?”, originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Fix your English Grammar