How to improve my English writing and listening ability?

here's the thing my friend. as i read your post i can see that you have a good foundation on the english language. and because of this, improving both your written and oral skills will not be as hard as you think. Why not try to a have an english conversation everyday and also try to learn new vocabulary each day. this are the most basic. remember that basics are the most important foundation of everything.

Hey swinbox, I speak English and It seems to me by reading your post that you can speak english fluently. I am American and you speak better english than me hahahah. I can perfectly understand you which means you are doing great. If you feel that you need to get better than let me help revise your post and you can see what needs fixing. I will completely re write what you posted. I am Chinese. English is not my first language, but I really want to resolve my English communication. I must improve my English as soon as possible because of the examination request every undergraduate needs to pass. If I don't pass I will lose my degree certificate. My English ability is very bad, so I am consulting with everybody. Could you give me some advice? Thanks! There is what your sentence should look like, try replacing some words, such as lost, with lose changing it from past tense to present tense. And learn where to place periods and commas and other punctuations and pauses. You are very very close if not already very excellent at English. I heard the english language is actually the hardest to learn out of all languages but i wouldn't know because it is natural to me.

i'm chinese too. maybe you can repeat after movie or tv program in english.and find someone who is a native speaker to communicate with. i think your english is good. good luck for your exam.

try www.freerice.com it gives you definitions of english words & you guess which one it is. each right answer donates rice to hungry people in poor countries [you pay nothing!] its helps you & you can help others for free! enjoy!

My important advice for you is not to stress yourself out. I am aware that you have a time limit of some sort but learning another language doesn't happen overnight. I also have English as a second language and I worked my skills (oral and written) throughout my schooling. since you don;t have that luxury, I suggest that you expose yourself to any material that you can grab. But don't be over-zealous because you'll end up somewhat confused. Take time to sink in that knowledge and analyze it yourself to make it more practical and applicable to you.

Hi swinbox! You are already on the right track my friend. I would suggest you interact more online, like join forums or chat rooms (well wholesome chat rooms), make friends with people from abroad who speak English fluently and little by little you'll build up your English and hone your communication skills. When I was in gradeschool, we were forced to speak in English in our English class or you'll be told off. We all did try but eventually since we have our own native tongue it didn't build up much of our English communication skills at all. When I entered college, I started going online to chat and make friends with other people abroad. Then only I get to hone my communication skills and learned more about the slang words they use or similar words with different meanings in different countries. I wish you well in your studies. I hope you'll get to pass and earn your certificate or degree. :) Good luck!

hi swimbox I am always so impressed when I was in college and met asiatic people who were learning English as they progressed so much faster than other ethnic groups. maybe because they put in more hard work or just had a lot of pride in learning a new language.Find someone who is a native English speaker and ask them to have daily conversations with you helping you to not only learn English but our idioms as they are so good to help you understand English people and some if their popular phrases.

You need to practice more by reading English books and watching English movies. This will help you improve your skills...practice makes you perfect

Wow, you have to pass an exam in English to get your degree? Wow, I think you are doing very well with your English. You order your words nicely and one problem I've noticed a lot of people with English as a second language is that there is a problem with flow because they put words backwards or what have you. I think that if you were to take that exam today, you would do nicely. But it's always good to practice. So if you know anyone that speaks English you can talk to them and have conversations with them so you can practice that part. And of course this is a wonderful website to practice your writing of English. Look at it this way. I've grown up in the United States all my life. I pretty much only speak English and I even have problems understanding the English language.

I am an online English teacher and I have been teaching English to Koreans online for more than a year now. I always tell them that one of the ways to improve their skills is to listen to English tv programs, read English books and magazines. If you wanna be good at it, you can always make use of the help of a tutor.

Hi swinbox, In my opinion,improving your English is quite tough especially if you are new at it.Based on other responders,you can do a lot of things like watching English programs on TV.Besides,you may also listen to English songs and see how the lyrics worked out.Just remember,you are speaking since you said that you wanted to resolve your English communications problems.You are not writing,which means you can translate a lot from your mother language.However,it is still a language and translating would not help you much because you must understand what the language really means.One more thing,this may sound crazy but when I wanted to improve my English before,I tried reading the dictionary and it works!I used to own an Oxford English dictionary with the learning CD provided,and I learn how to pronounce and communicate with the exact pronunciation. However,nowadays,there are a lot of online dictionaries that provide word pronunciation. For example,dictionary.reference.com .Apart from all the ways that I've suggested,I think the best way to speak other languages than yours is to speak with a person who is very fluent in that language.I did that before by making some online friends from UK or USA.And it works!

I am in the same condition as you. You are from china and I am from India.Me neither have th 1st language English but I still try my best to learn this international language but I am not good at it.I always make mistake either I am writing or communicating in English......The only way to learn fluent English is to communicate more and more in English....and about spelling mistake nobody is perfect.........

I suggest you to join those English proficiency classes. In the English proficiency class which my friend attended in the America, you are asking to memorize about 50 vocabularies daily. When you know most of the vocabularies, then only you can start converse and write in English. Good luck to you buddy.

I suggest you watch a whole lot of American or British films. It's all about the foundation though but we can always get used to something new. I suggest you watch Disney shows. The English used in Disney shows and movies are very clear and are very easy to understand.

Practice, practice, and practice will make anything perfect. Read everyday, speak English everyday, and come to Mylot everyday and do as many discussions you can make. I notice a few grammatical slips in your short post but you can work on this very easily. You can get an English tutor online. I know friends who give this sort of service. If you want, send me a message.

why not try spoken english courses, or books? u should also listen to people communicating in english on tv or movies and try learning from them. like one of my friends, who topped in our entire region in the gigh school leaving examination, said in an interview,"i listen to english songs to improve my english speaking and communicating abilities". that's one interesting method too - listening to western music, enjoying the music as well as learning. in fact, ew can learn from every little thing that comes our way. i know it'll be much harder in a country like China where very little english is spoken than in a country like India where english is one of the main languages as well as medium of instruction in educational institutions. still u can learn from various sources if u are determined, even from the unlikeliest of soueces.

why not try spoken english courses, or books, to improve your communication in english? you should also listen to people speaking on tv or movies and try learning from them. or like one of my friends, who topped in our entire region in the high school leaving examination, said in an interview,"i listen to english songs to improve my english speaking and communicating abilities". that's one good method too - listening to western music, enjoying the music as well as learning. in fact, we can learn from every little thing that comes our way. i know it'll be much harder in a country like China where very little english is spoken than in a country like India where english is one of the main languages as well as the medium of instruction in educational institutions. still u can learn from various sources if u are determined, even from the unlikliest of sources.

i advice to you that try to read some english books to develop your skills on english language. and just try to practice everyday. and of course because of mylot i'll also practice my english grammar.

The easiest way is to watch more English TV programs and try to guess what they are saying without looking at the subtitle. Also, listen to English news and read more english newspapers. Listening and speaking out is the most important part. Find some friends which are good in english and have yourselves converse in english instead of Mandarin etc would be a good start. Anyway, do make sure someone in the group is good in english :D All the best and good luck!

I guess the only thing that would make your English better is to always speak in English and also very important is to have verbal conversations in English. You must speak with people who speaks English fluently, because you will eventually learn from them. Just keep on talking English, watch lot of English movies or videos, sing in English and practice your pronunciation(which is also very important for others to be able to understand you). Read English books. Do that for months and you will surely be a great speaker. :)