Talk like a native speaker – “gonna”, “haveta”, “wanna”

How to Write Like a Professional

As part of your job (or your personal life), you’ll sometimes have to write more than a simple email.

Chances are, you put off doing the writing for as long as possible. Writing can be incredibly hard, especially if it’s something you feel that you’re not very good at. You might have no idea where to begin.

Here’s how to make it a whole lot easier – by following what the professionals do.

Step #1: Understand Your Purpose
What’s the point of your writing?

Let’s say you’re working on a leaflet for a community organization. Are you trying to:

• Raise awareness of a particular issue?
• Encourage residents to come to a meeting?
• Persuade people to sign a petition?

...or something else entirely?

If you’re not clear what the purpose of your writing is, then find someone who can help explain it. Don’t accept “well, we figured we should have a leaflet” or “our company website needs a blog”. Get a clear sense of what the goal is.

Even on simple, personal tasks, it’s worth writing down a few words summarizing the purpose.

• I’m writing this email to ask for a reference.
• I’m writing this letter because I need a faulty product replaced.

Step #2: Know Your Audience
Who is going to read this piece of writing?

The way in which you write needs to be tailored to your readers. For instance, if you were writing a software guide for use within your IT company, you probably won’t need to spell things out too much for your colleagues. If you’re writing a guide for your company’s clients, though, you’ll need to make sure that you avoid technical jargon.

Your audience might be:

• Highly educated ... or barely literate
• Very young ... or very old
• Receptive to your message ... or hostile towards it
• Experts in this area ... or complete beginners

The needs of your audience will influence every aspect of your writing: the length, style, content and even the presentation.

Once you’re confident about your purpose and audience, you can move on to the actual writing...

Step #3: Create an Outline
Talk to any professional writer and they’ll almost certainly tell you that they plan out what they’re going to write before they get started – especially on larger or more complex projects.

An outline helps you to organize your thoughts before you begin. It makes the writing process much easier by giving you a framework.

If you’re struggling with your outline, try using these words as prompts:

• What?
• Who?
• Where?
• When?
• Why?
• How?

(You won’t necessarily need all of them for every outline.)

Outlines are useful even for short pieces. Let’s say you’ve been asked to write a short article for a community newsletter to encourage residents to use the recycling facilities. Your outline might look like this:

• Explain where residents can recycle
• Remind them why recycling matters, giving some specific statistics
• Tell them who they can contact for further details

Step #4: Start Writing
For many people, this is the really tough bit! You might feel like your mind goes blank when you sit down to write, and you may struggle for hours to manage just a few sentences.

It doesn’t need to be that tough. Remember that writing is just a form of communication – like speaking. And remember that you can always go back and change what you write later; you’ll have the chance to redraft.

Imagine that you’re speaking to someone in your intended audience – perhaps one of your customers. How would you express yourself? What words would you use?

Some people find it helpful to use speech-recognition software. Others like to write as though they’re emailing a specific person.

If you’re still struggling to get going, try giving yourself a time limit. See how much you can write in just 30 minutes. Often, getting started is the hardest part (and yes, professional writers find it tough too)!

Step #5: Edit Your First Draft
No-one’s writing comes out perfect first time. Your draft will need some editing.

When you edit, don’t just check for spelling mistakes. Read through your finished piece and ask yourself:

• Is there anything missing?
• Have I included anything superfluous?
• Do all my sentences flow clearly? (You might want to try reading the piece aloud.)
• Have I used any words that aren’t appropriate for my audience? (e.g. too formal, too informal, too technical)

Watch out for typos – especially ones that spell-check won’t pick up, like missing words or homonyms (words that sound the same but that are spelled differently).

If you can, ask someone else to read your piece too. They might be able to spot areas of confusion that you’ve missed, or mistakes that you didn’t spot.

And that’s it! You should have a finished, polished piece of writing - with, hopefully, a minimum of stress.

If you’re a writer (whether professionally or not), what tips would you add?
LTM 

100 Ways to Learn English

Here are 100 things (in no particular order) you can do to improve your English:

 

1. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Be confident. People can only correct your mistakes when they hear you make them.
2. Surround yourself in English. Put yourself in an all English speaking environment where you can learn passively. The best way to learn is through speaking.
3. Practise every day. Make yourself a study plan. Decide how much time a week you are going to spend studying and stick to it. Establish a routine.
4. Tell your family and friends about your study plan. Get them to push you to study and also don’t let them interrupt you.
5. Practise the 4 core skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. They all need to be worked on for you to improve.
6. Keep a notebook of new words you learn. Use them in sentences and try to say them at least 3 times when you speak.
7. Visit EC’s free learn English website at least once a day and complete a lesson.
8. Memorisation of lists is one of the most common ways of learning vocabulary for a test. It's only a good exercise for short term studying because you often do not retain the information that you have learned for a test.
9. Use your body clock. If you’re not a morning person, study in the afternoon.
10. You will find words easier to remember if you try to remember an example sentence using that word rather the word on its own.
11. Plan to take a test. You’ll find that you work harder when you need to study for something.
12. Saying that, it’s better not to study just to take a test. Think of the bigger picture. What can you do when you have a good command of English? How will the quality of your life improve?
13. Give yourself a long term goal. Focus on working towards it.
14. Give yourself short term goals too and reward yourself when you achieve each one.
15. Create an atmosphere in which you want to learn, not because you have to. You’ll learn more when you’re learning because you want to.
16. Know what works best for you. Think about what methods have been successful for you in the past and stick with them.
17. Figure out how you learn. It can be by memorising, reading, speaking, summarising or other methods. Find out how you study best. It can be in a quiet place by yourself or with a group.
18. Get help! If you don’t understand something you’ve got to ask someone. Ask your teacher, classmates or friends for help.
19. Review! Review! Review! Make sure that you take the time to review things you have studied in the past.
20. It’s not a good idea to study on your own for more than 30 minutes at a time. Take regular breaks, get some fresh air and stretch your legs.
21. Don’t be in such a hurry to move up a level. Concentrate on the level you are at now.
22. Watch DVDs rather than TV. It’s better to use something that you can watch over again to catch information you might have missed the first time.
23. Watching TV only gives you the chance to hear something correctly first time. This is better for high level students. It can be great practice for speaking to native English speakers so you don’t have to ask them to repeat themselves!
24. Read graded readers. These books are especially written for your level. Read a whole novel. You can do it! You’ll feel great afterwards.
25. Children’s books have easier words and are a good alternative to graded readers.
26. Newspapers are a good place to find passive constructs. Read through an article and see if you can find the passive sentences.
27. Read for the general meaning first. Don’t worry about understanding every word, then go back and look up new words.
28. For a word you don’t understand in a sentence, look at the other words around it. They will give you a hint. Try to guess the meaning from the context.
29. Learn root words. They’ll help you guess the meaning of words. For example: scrib = write, min = small
30. When you learn a new word, think of all its other forms: Beautiful (adjective), beauty (noun), beautifully (adverb).
31. Learn prefixes (dis-, un-, re-) and suffixes (-ly, -ment, -ful), these will help you to figure out the meaning of words and build your vocabulary.
32. English, unlike Japanese or French, uses word stress. For new words, count the syllables and find where the stress is. Only one stress per word and always on a vowel. Two syllable verbs have a stress on the second syllable (beGIN). 2 syllable nouns (TEAcher) and adjectives (HAPpy) stress the first.
33. Use English whenever you can. It’s as simple as that!
34. Don’t translate into English from your own language. Think in English to improve your fluency. Talk to yourself…but not on the bus otherwise people will think you have gone crazy!
35. You can’t learn English from a book. Like driving a car, you can only learn through doing it.
36. The most natural way to learn grammar is through talking.
37. Keep an English diary or journal. Start by writing a few sentences a day and then get into the habit of writing more.
38. Why not start an online blog and share your writings with the world?
39. To become a better writer brainstorm as many ideas and thoughts onto paper without worrying about grammar or spelling. Then think about the structure. After that, write your piece using good grammar and spelling. Finally, read it through or give it to someone else to check for mistakes.
40. Keep an eye on your punctuation as it can totally change what you’re trying to say. Check out the difference in meaning between these two sentences: “A woman without her man is nothing” and “A woman: without her, man is nothing”.
41. Sing your heart out! Show the world your beautiful voice! Learn English songs and sing along with them to improve fluency and intonation… anyone for Karaoke?
42. Get a penfriend or use chat-rooms, forums and community sites. If you can’t speak to someone in English, this is the next best thing.
43. Shadow English CDs. Listen to a few sentences then repeat what you heard. Focus on the rhythm and intonation.
44. Have English radio on in your house. Even if you are not actively listening to it, you will still be training your ears.
45. Mirror CDs. Read out loud along with a CD. Again, this is great for intonation, pronunciation and rhythm.
46. Dictation. Listen to a CD or friend and write down what you hear.
47. Nobody likes to hear their own voice, but be brave and try it! Record your voice and listen to your pronunciation and intonation. It will help you to identify your problem areas.
48. Ask your helpful teacher if you can record his lesson. This is a great way to review. You can also listen to your teachers speaking speed and intonation.
49. Use an English/English dictionary as it will help you to keep thinking in English and not translating.
50. If an English/English dictionary seems scary, there are learner’s dictionaries for English students of your level.
51. Don’t become too reliant on your dictionary. Your dictionary should be an aid, not your main teacher. Try to guess the meaning of words rather than going straight for your dictionary.
52. Don’t give up! Stay positive! Sometimes you will feel that you aren’t learning quickly enough. Everyone feels like this, don’t worry about it. You’ll get there in the end.
53. Enjoy it! We learn more when we are having fun!
54. If you get nervous when speaking, take two deep breaths before you say something. You’ll speak better when you feel relaxed.
55. Keep yourself motivated by looking back at the textbooks and CDs you used in the past. You’ll be surprised at how easy they seem to you now! Congratulations, your level is improving!
56. You are never too young or too old to start learning English. Don’t make excuses not to learn. What are you waiting for?
57. Procrastination can stop you from being successful. To stop procrastinating, it's important you understand if your procrastinating is to avoid studying, or if it is your bad habit.
58. If you haven’t gotten the results you wanted yet, it’s not because you’re bad at languages, it’s because you haven’t found your own special way of learning yet.
59. Use resources which match your level. Don’t use texts/listening exercises which are too difficult or too easy. Use materials which challenge you but don’t frustrate you.
60. Don’t worry about making your accent perfect. It’s an important part of your cultural identity to keep your accent. Native English speakers enjoy hearing English spoken with an accent.
61. There are many types of English: British, American, South African and so on. None of these are wrong or not as important. English is English.
62. Instead, be aware of the differences in American and British English and use your words accordingly. For example: Elevator (US) / Lift (British).
63. Carry cue cards with you. These are small cards which you can write new words on. You can pull them out and look at them whenever you a free minute.
64. Use post-it notes and stick them around your home. You can use them to label things. Stick one on your pet dog!
65. You can’t ignore phrasal verbs (two words verbs), there are hundreds of them in English and they’re widely used. The more you focus on their meaning, the more you’ll be able to guess the meaning of new ones. You’ll start to recognise their patterns.
66. Use your intuition. Go with your gut feeling, you’ll be surprised how often your first guess is the right guess. Like we said before, be confident.
67. Gather your thoughts. Take a second to think about what you’re going to say. You know the grammar, but maybe you don’t use it correctly when you speak.
68. Meet new people. Make the effort to mix with English speakers in your town. You could join a club or go to bars where foreigners hang out. Buy one a drink, they love that!
69. Be the person to start conversations in English. Try to keep the conversations moving and use listening words (‘really?’ / ‘go on…’/ ‘what happened then?’) Don’t wait for others to speak to you. Get in there!
70. Debate. Discuss topics in a group. Each person should choose a viewpoint (even if you don’t agree with it) and debate it within the group. Make sure you get your point across. Learn to listen actively. Active listening will help in the classroom and it will help you get more out of, and contribute more to, group study sessions. Focus on the person who is talking. Don’t fidget or become distracted by other people or events. Concentrate on the speaker with your ears and eyes. Follow the movements the speaker makes in an effort to hear more. It may help to repeat what you hear others say in an effort to understand their thoughts.
71. It’s not enough to only learn English words. You can teach a parrot English words but that doesn’t mean it can speak English! You still need to have an understanding of grammar.
72. Verb tenses are used by English speakers to talk about the timing of actions. You might not have the same expressions in your own language. It’s important that you know these tenses and when to use them.
73. English has many irregular verbs. You should drill yourself on them.
74. Keep it up! If you take a break from speaking English, you will find that your level decreases and all your hard work has been wasted.
75. Don’t be put off by a bad test score. Sometimes students have the ability to pass an English test, but can’t communicate well with English speakers. If you can speak freely in English, you should be proud of yourself.
76. Remember that as long as you have tried your hardest, you have succeeded!
77. Learn English with a friend. You’ll have someone you can practice with and you can motivate each other to study.
78. Remember, the way we write English is not the same as how it’s pronounced. For example ‘Ough’ has over 6 pronunciations. Familiarise yourself the Phonetic Alphabet. It will help you correctly pronounce words in the dictionary.
79. Get used to the ‘schwa’ sound [ə] - an unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound. ‘Schwa’ is the most common vowel sound in English. For example, the 'a' in about and the 'u' in supply.
80. Keep in mind that it takes longer to improve when our level is high. Usually the fastest progress is made when we are beginners. Don’t think that you’re suddenly not learning anymore, it’s just a less noticeable progress.
81. Make sure that your English matches the occasion. It’s OK to use slang with friends but not in a business meeting. Decide in which situation it’s appropriate to use the words and phrases you have learned.
82. Textbook English is often different from the way we casually speak. To learn casual ‘slang’ watch movies.
83. Idioms can be difficult to memorise, but they are great fun to use and they’ll make your English more colourful.
84. When talking we usually link words together so that two words can sound like one. Simply put, we link words ending with a consonant sound to words beginning with a vowel sound (consonant > vowel). We link words ending with a vowel sound to words beginning with a vowel sound (vowel > vowel). Practice these to improve your listening and pronunciation.
85. Make use of the internet. It’s full of resources to help you learn: BBC Learning English ; learnenglish.ecenglish.com
86. Think about your strong and weak points. Write down which areas you want to improve on and work on improving them. Of course, don’t ignore your strong points. Congratulate yourself on how well you’ve done!
87. Unlearn your mistakes. You probably make the same grammar mistakes over and over again. Use English tests results as a study tool. Go over your mistakes and choose one or two that you want to focus on. Use your favourite grammar book to check rules.
88. Use the correct article (a/an, the). Be aware that there is more to this rule than a/an= non specific, the=specific. For example: A university (not an university because it begins with a consonant sound). An hour (not a hour because the ‘h’ is often silent).
89. For fluency, try image training. Before you go to that restaurant think through what the waiter is likely to say to you. Think of what phrases you are going to use.
90. Much communication comes through body language and gesture. These can be different between cultures and countries. For example, the two-fingered "V" for victory symbol is fine palms-out. If you make it with you palm facing toward you, you'll offend a British person. It means…well, you ask a British person and find out for yourself!
91. The easiest one - Sleep! You’ll learn more after a good night’s sleep. You’ll be able to concentrate more.
92. Take an English course in an English speaking country.
93. If you studying abroad, mix with people from other countries not only people from your own country. It’s not a good idea for you to live in a shared house with people from your own country. Enjoy a more cultural experience by spending time with other nationalities.
94. Have you thought about getting a job or doing an internship abroad?
95. Get yourself a qualified teacher. Who wants to learn wrong things?
96. Nobody can learn all of the English language. No need to worry about trying. A useful shortcut to learning is that in English we have lots of words that have the same pronunciation, but a different spelling and meaning. For example, ‘come here’ has the same pronunciation as, ‘I can hear the birds’. You might find it easier to build vocabulary by knowing the different meanings.
97. Once you have a basic level of English explore the different ways you can say the same thing. This makes your English more interesting to the listener and it shouldn’t be too difficult for you because you already know the basics. For example, how many ways can we say, ‘Goodbye' in English?
98. When you are on your English course, be prepared for your class. Do your homework as soon as possible and hand it in on time. Review your notes and your last lesson a few minutes before the class. Doing this will refresh your memory and you'll be warmed up for lesson.
99. Don't get distracted in class. Focus on the lesson, don't stare out of the window. Don't be late, arrive a few minutes before the start of the lesson. Don't sit next to people who won't speak to you in English. Switch off your phone. Be organised, remember to take your textbook, notebook and pen.
100. Find a comfortable, peaceful place for quiet study. You need somewhere where you can focus 100%. 

EC

Learn with comedy: Watch Monty Python!

Monty Python: nutty, zany, crazy!

It was 40 years ago today that the first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus appeared on the BBC. The show ran for four seasons, cranking out 45 episodes and unleashing their zany, crazy sense of humor on the world. The group's influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles' influence on music.


Here's one of their most famous sketches: Ministry of Silly Walks

 You can watch it, read it, learn it, perform it if you like. You can find the script of the sketch here.
Fun Ways to Learn English

16 Websites to Super Charge Your English Vocabulary

• Visuwords
  Visuwords is an awesome visual tool to find new words and improve your vocabulary. When you look up a word in this tool, it shows a neat graph which connects that word to various other words based on different relationships between them. You can hover over each word to get its definition and also zoom-in and zoom-out using your mouse wheel. It's certainly an excellent dictionary plus thesaurus.


• Dictionary.com
  Dictionary.com is probably the most common and most comprehensive of all the dictionary tools available. Apart from giving the word meanings and pronunciation, it also provides various tools (like the dictionary.com toolbar), RSS feeds to improve vocabulary and word explorer podcasts.
  
  Thesaurus.com
• Thesaurus.com is a part of dictionary.com and gives an elaborate description of words, the part of speech they belong to and various synonyms and antonyms of that word.
  
  Definr
• Definr, as it says, is an incredibly fast dictionary. It starts suggesting the nearest possible word as you start typing a particular word. Most of the time you get the required word after typing 3 or 4 letters and then you can just click on the word to look up its meaning. Definr also provides some nice tools which make this service more useful.


• Merriam-Webster Online
  Merriam-Webster Online is a huge online resource for learning and improving your English. It provides dictionary and thesaurus which includes spanish-english and medical dictionaries. You can easily look up words and listen to their pronunciation. Further it provides other resources like crosswords and word games. It also has a visual dictionary which combines words with images.


• MetaGlossary
  MetaGlossary.com approaches the task of finding meanings of words in a different way. It aggregates various links on the web which provide an explanation to the term and shows the results. Hence it does the job of pulling definitions of the word from the entire web.


• Thsrs
  Thsrs helps you to get shorter synonyms of long words. Although it's not dead accurate but still can be useful at times. It also provides a browser plug-in to easily look up shorter synonyms of words with a right click.


• Wordsmith
  Wordsmith is a nice resource for new words, especially its ' A Word A Day ' newsletter, which is immensely popular and delivers new words everyday to your email inbox.


• BBC Learning English
  BBC Learning English is another comprehensive resource of not only English grammar and vocabulary but on various aspects of this useful language. It includes stories, pictures, quizzes and various communication tools to improve your English vocabulary.


• ESL Quizzes
  ESL Quizzes is a part of englishclub.com, a website which is a prominent destination for those who want to learn the language from scratch. Its vocabulary quiz section has some nice quizzes to help you learn new words and phrases.
  
  Ninjawords
• Ninjawords, like Definr, claims to be a very fast dictionary. Although it doesn't show words as you type like Definr but is certainly very fast in displaying the meanings and synonyms once you hit enter. It also has a random tab which can be used to play around and learn new words.


• About.com's Quizzes
  About.com's English Quizzes is a good place to find various quizzes related to grammar and vocabulary. It also provides listening quizzes for real time listening practice.


• Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus
  Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus is a free-to-try visual tool which shows related words in an interactive map and helps you to easily find their meanings and listen to their pronunciation.


• AskOxford
  AskOxford is the online version of the famous dictionary by the Oxford University press. It's comprehensive without a doubt and includes various other vocabulary resources and a quotations dictionary.


• Urban Dictionary
  Urban Dictionary stands out from the herd. It's a dictionary of slang words. So use this dictionary and don't miss out on slang words either. :)
  
  
• Alpha DictionaryAlpha Dictionary doesn't directly show you the meaning of a word. Instead it searches all the available online dictionaries (most of them) and displays the results in the form of links to the meaning of that word in those dictionaries. So choose your favorite dictionary (if at all you have one) and click on the corresponding link to view its meaning.Each of the aforementioned websites tries to accomplish the same task in a different manner and hence helps you to further refine your vocabulary and get a stronger grip on the world's most cherished language.

Do you use any other websites to improve your English language skills ? Let's hear about them in the comments.

Lessons from Einstein

1. Follow Your Curiosity “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.”

2. Perseverance is Priceless “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

3. Focus on the Present “Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.”

4. The Imagination is Powerful “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions. Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

5. Make Mistakes “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”

6. Live in the Moment “I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.”

7. Create Value “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”

8. Don’t be repetitive “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

9. Knowledge Comes From Experience “Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience.”

10. Learn the Rules and Then Play Better “You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”

Dumb Little Man