English is hard for me ! How to improve it

Since English is not mother language.
I have difficulties to communicate with other free code camper.
I think discussing with other free code camper can improve my tech skill.
How to improve my english.

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Aside for studying the traditional way, you can improve your English speaking skills by reading books written in English (fiction, code, magazines, blogs or whatever), also, watching TV programs in English (without subtitles) help to better understand the english speakers and to train you ear, but what is most helpful is to actually speak with people who speak English or chat with them, so, if you are active on the free code camp chat, keep doing it, it is a good step to improve your skills and don’t worry about not understanding everything. The FCC comunity will have patience or at least they did with me, I’m not an English speaking ninja now, but I’m better than I was a year ago. Just keep learning and keep trining, bit by bit you will improve until you feel comfortable with the language.

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Do everything @laloptk say, very good advice.

I am struggling with two of my co-workers who speaks English as a second language. I wonder if you have suggestions on how I might communicate with them better?

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Try reading books from native speakers :slight_smile:

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Your city/town might have a Toastmasters club that enforces the use of English. Toastmasters is a place to practice public speaking. Google “Toastmasters” and see if there’s a club near you. :slight_smile:

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I actually work remotely wit a US based marketing agency, so, in my case I’m the guy who speaks English as a second lenguage in an english speaking company. My advice would be: be patient but do not patronize. Use the technical terms correctly and that way your coworkers will learn what terms are used in their professional area and again, be patient. Also, try to speak with them about other topics once in a while, I’ve lerned that the most you know the person you are speaking with, the better you understand what is saying, I mean you find patterns in his/her speach and you familiarize with how he/she manages language, which makes things easy even if you are not improving so much with your second language.

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There are some amazing free online tools for language learning available today. The most well known is probably Duolingo. I recently learned about another one called Memrise.

Hopefully you can find a course for Your Language :arrow_right: English.

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Personally my English skills developed a lot in my teenage years by watching series and playing video games I liked. An ultimate experience on top of these were international conferences I attended as researcher and speaker abroad plus I had the chance to spend an Erasmus exchange semester abroad, too. Especially living abroad boosted my vocabulary and confidence in speaking in English and other foreign languages as such. Obviously, some of these might not apply to your case, this is just my experience :slight_smile:

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Check out italki.com to find a language exchange partner. You can also pay a tutor or teacher on there if you want. You can also try mobile apps like lingualeo or wlingua. Duolingo will only get you so far but it is a good starting point; move on shortly after you get down the basics. Memrise is better later on when you just want to increase vocabulary. For reading practice, you can try lingQ or readlang.

The most important thing is to practice as often as you can. Listen to music or watch videos or full movies in English. Just make sure you enjoy what you are doing and you will learn faster.

Good luck!

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by watching a lot of movies with English translation
this worked for me and my English skills have been better now

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Multiple sources for learning languages say the best way to get better at a language is to practice it with native speakers. The best thing would probably be to find a buddy you can talk to, even if it’s online (like Google Hangouts or Skype), and chat.

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I come from France and I red a lot of stuff to be prepared to be fluent in english.
I respond on quora from time to time to improve the richness of my english vocabulary and it’s work.

But there are one thing I can’t do, it’s really speaking english. I face my destiny, I know I can’t learn easily how to speak english in my country. I did my suitcase and I went to Cambridge to improve my english.

I met so many people from around the world and guess what they didn’t english too ^^. So I learn speaking english from them.

The advice I can tell you, if possible travel, speak with english people.
Use this website to meet people on your area : http://www.conversationexchange.com/

Use duolingo to improve your grammar and basic vocabulary. The fact is, you can improve your vocabulary, but without english person you can’t improve easily “Politeness”. This is how I improved my english speaking.

But I had other tricks :

  • All my series was in english and english subtitle. When I was used for their speaking, I removed the subtitle.
  • All documentations (technical things), is on english
  • All my code is on english
  • I checked less french website but only the british one like the guardian, the independent, forbes, gismodo …

I remember someone telling me this : “Learning another foreign language means be part of you. Or you should prepare to destroy your personality”.

It’s like sport, you must be very patient and don’t give up in one week.

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Add fun to that process, it will help.

Play online text adventures, for example: http://www.web-adventures.org/
Important: do not use online translation tools, do not use copy&paste.
Instead, have near you simple dictionary, english -> your mother language. You can simple read it in random order like a book, even when you not playing text games that moment. All those words which you saw during playing games but didn’t knew - you will remember them and their translation very fast.

This approach will give you huge grammar in no time and with lot of fun. And small bonus - improvement in keyboard typing.

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I am learning English with Rosetta Stone application and it helped me a lot, and I read a lot of blogs, books etc. I use it every day for 30 min before beginning FCC challenges and 30 min after.

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Hi, i am from México. So i learn code and also english. You can learn in Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, Memrise… There are many places. The language is not a problem.

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+1 for Toastmasters.

Also, spend time not just learning the vocabulary and the grammar, but also pay attention to your accent, and the cadance and rhythms of the language. Watch English language TV shows and movies, or listen to podcasts or radio, and try to mimic the accents you hear. It will make you much more understandable, even if you don’t have all the words or rules yet.

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When it comes to FCC, don’t be afraid to ask someone to move into a private chat with you. The main rooms can be pretty busy and language barriers can make it much more frustrating and overwhelming. I often end up in private chats with non-native English speakers because they could see I was willing to help but they couldn’t understand my answers easily. Just be honest when phrasing is unclear to you.

When communicating across language barriers, I also tend to use code much more to do my explaining for me. That, after all, is a language we both know.

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How to improve X - practice with X everyday. Movies, talk, chat, books, press, podcasts, news, tv etc.

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The obvious would be to read books interesting to you. If you have the determination, memorise blocks of quality english paragraphs. Consider free english courses from memrise to help you learn. Hope that helps :slight_smile:

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Reading your question I feel your English is not that bad at all! English is not my mother tongue too. To improve I tried these and it has worked for me.

  1. Speak. Do not be afraid of committing mistakes. Know that its normal to commit mistakes.
  2. Read.
  3. Watch. I would suggest light comedy show like “Friends”. Its such a refresher.
    Hope it helps you.
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