10 Ways to sound more fluent in English

There are some common mistakes that people make when learning English.  If you can correct a few simple things  you can sound a lot more fluent. These are some of the tricks or pieces of advice our English teachers have come up with to make you sound more fluent as a speaker. Obviously there is no substitute for taking English Classes (especially with us….wink wink) but these are a few things to help you sound better when speaking in English.

1. When you want to say: all the day/all the year/all the month/all the school/all the company/etc. Change it to: the whole or the entire: the entire year/the whole month/the entire school/the whole company…

    If you can make this one small change your English will sound a lot better.

2. Learning to pronounce the English past simple regular verbs correctly. Remember if the word ends in T or D you add the syllable and if it ends in any other letter it is with a t sound. Walkt * Land-ED.

    Learn this simple rule in English! Your English will get 50% better if you learn this rule.

3. Learn the difference between make/have/do.  You can follow this general rule: Make is with our hands, do is with our brains, and have is when more than one person is involved.

4. Choose a filler word. This is a word that gives you space and time to think. In Spanish for example they sometimes say pues, in Argentina they say O sea or bueno, but they don’t become part of the sentence they just give you some time to think. In English you can use:

    Well
    Ummm
    Lets see
    huh

5. Remember that all your verbs need a subject. I am going to the gym tomorrow. NOT: am going to the gym tomorrow.

6. When you want to use: of when talking about possesions the boyfriend of my sister-NO  change it to my sister’s boyfriend. Be sure to pronounce the s at the end of the possesive.

7. Don’t use will so much. Really when we talk about the future will is generally the last way to talk about the future. First try going to, it sounds more natural.

8. Speak from the middle of your mouth and try keeping your tongue resting at the roof of your mouth. Many languages the tongue rests at the bottom of the mouth which makes different sounds more difficult.

9. Don’t speak too fast. Speeding up is not the answer to sounding fluent.

10. Don’t speak too slow. Don’t worry about making mistakes just speak at a comfortable pace. Remember that even native speakers make mistakes when they are speaking.

Learning and speaking a new language is first and mostly about communicating with other people. Generally people will be kind and think that your English is great, so don’t worry!