English how to speak english fluently

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In this lesson, you can learn useful ways to help you speak English fluently. How long have you been studying English? Do you find sometimes that even though you study hard, you can’t speak English fluently? Do you learn lots of grammar and vocabulary, but you find it difficult to make fluent English sentences when you speak? In this lesson, we’re going to talk about fluency and what you can do to change this situation and improve your English fluency.

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1. What is Fluency?

Sometimes, when people talk about fluency, they just mean speaking a language well. For some people, speaking English fluently just means having a good general level of English.

However, fluency is more specific than that. Fluency means you can speak smoothly, without stopping or hesitating.

There are two sides to fluency. One side is physical: your mouth needs to produce and connect English sounds and words in a fast, smooth way.

The other side of fluency is mental: your brain needs to find the right words and build English sentences quickly and smoothly.

To speak English fluently, you need to work on both sides: physical and mental.

2. Rule Number One: Get Out There and Speak!

There are many things you can do to improve your English fluency.

However, if you want to become more fluent, there’s really one thing you have to do.

Get out there and speak English. Talk to people and have conversations regularly. Nothing else you can do is as important as this.

Reading English will improve your reading. Practicing listening will improve your listening.

But what about speaking? Nothing will help your speaking except speaking.

Speaking English is a practical skill. It’s not an academic subject; it’s not something you can learn from a book.

It’s more like doing a sport or playing a musical instrument: you need to practice regularly to make any progress.

How regularly? As often as you can!

There’s no maximum, but I’d recommend you need to spend at least 2-3 hours a week speaking English if you want to improve.

So, how can you do this?

Go to classes, talk to expats in your city, join groups or activities with English-speakers, find a conversation partner online, do a language exchange; there are many possibilities!

By the way, what you do doesn’t have to be language-focused. You can go to English classes to practice your speaking, but anything you do which is in English and which will make you speak English is just as good.

I’m going to take a guess here about what many of you are thinking right now: “But I don’t have people to talk to”; “But I’m shy”; “But it’s too difficult.”

Let’s talk about that quickly. After you finish this lesson, you will also want to watch another lesson from Oxford Online English: Feel Less Shy Speaking English.

3. Get Used to Pressure

Speaking a foreign language is hard. Situations which would be easy in your language can feel difficult in another language. Situations which would feel difficult in your language can feel almost impossible when you have to do them in a foreign language.

That’s how it is. It’s easy to imagine when you start learning another language that you will reach a point where everything is easy and comfortable.

Unless you live in a foreign country and live completely inside that culture, that won’t happen. Trust me—I’ve studied several languages at this point, and speak them quite well, but it never feels easy or comfortable.

Why are we talking about this? I’m trying to motivate you to go out and speak more, practice more. To do that, you have to accept that it will feel difficult, uncomfortable and intimidating a lot of the time.

That’s how it is—don’t let it stop you! You can still practice, you can still communicate, and you can still improve.

I’ll give you an example of this from my own experience. I hate making phone calls in another language. I don’t know why, but I find it particularly intimidating. I guess because I can’t use context or facial expressions or anything like that to help me communicate.

I lived in Russia and I studied Russian. I hated making phone calls in Russian. Then I lived in China and I studied Chinese. I hated making phone calls in Chinese. Now I’m studying Greek. Guess what? I hate making phone calls in Greek.

It still feels just as difficult and just as intimidating. I haven’t learned any tricks to make it easier. All I’ve done is that I accept that this is how it feels. That’s it. I still do it, because I have to sometimes.

I just accept that I’m going to feel nervous or uncomfortable, and I have to speak and communicate anyway.

This will be the same for you sometimes. It might be phone calls; it might be something else.

The key point? You have to accept and learn to deal with that pressure. Don’t think: it feels scary, so I won’t do it. It won’t feel less scary in the future. The only way to make it easier is to go out and do it.

Okay, so you know the most important point about fluency, but is there anything else you can do to practice to learn how to speak English fluently? Yes, there is!

4. Speed Reading

Find a text in English. It can be something from a textbook, from a newspaper, from a blog, or anywhere.

The text should be fairly easy for you. Don’t pick something with a lot of new words or something which is way above your current English level.

Sit down with a timer. Read the text aloud. Time yourself.

Now, read it again. Try to beat your previous time!

Keep going like this. See how fast you can read the text.

Remember that part of fluency is physical. Your mouth needs to produce English sounds and English words fast and smoothly.

Speed reading like this is a good way to practice that side of fluency.

This way of practicing is really useful because you can do it almost anywhere and you can also do as much or as little as you have time for. You can do five minutes practice or fifteen minutes, or half an hour. It’s all helpful!

Let’s see another good technique like this:

5. Using Songs

Find a song in English. Choose something you like.

Find the lyrics online. If you don’t know where to look, just put the song title and the word ‘lyrics’ into Google. You’ll find them.

Play the song. Read the lyrics. Sing!

Like with speed reading, this is a good technique to practice the physical side of fluency. When you sing a song, you have to go at the speed of the song.

Start with slower songs, then choose faster ones. Try to choose something that’s possible but challenging, so you can sing the song, but it’s difficult to go fast enough.

Again, this will really help with your physical fluency. It’s also easy to do; you can do one song a day, and I promise you that you will feel a difference quite quickly. I used this technique a lot when I was learning Chinese, and it really helped.

Speed reading and singing songs are good for physical fluency, but what about the mental side of fluency?

Let’s see what you can do to improve that.

6. Learn Language in Chunks

Here’s a question: how do you learn vocabulary?

When I see students learning vocabulary, often people write down the English word, the translation in their own language, and then they try to memorise it.

Okay, but what does that have to do with fluency?

Think about it: if you learn language like this, you’re making your brain do things in a very unnatural and complicated way.

First of all, you’re learning each word individually. But, when you speak a language, you don’t need individual words, you need phrases and sentences.

Secondly, if you do this, you’re learning English through your own language. You’re not learning to speak English, you’re trying to learn to translate your language into English in your head.

So, does this sound familiar? You have a sentence in your head in your own language. You move through the sentence, translating each word into English.

If you don’t know the translation of a word, you get stuck, you feel bad about your English, and you stop speaking.

You need to break this habit if you want to speak English fluently. First of all, this way of thinking and speaking is always slow. It will always be slow, because you’re trying to do too many things at once.

You’re trying to think and remember things in two languages—it’s too difficult for anybody.

So what can you do?

We said before that you need phrases and sentences when you speak. So, learn language in phrases and sentences.

For example, imagine that someone asks you:

Look at three answers:

Now, make your own sentences:

Try to make two or three sentences for each one, so that you use different endings.

Now think: if someone asks you this question:

If you remember language in big pieces, you only have to remember two things:

That makes it easy to respond to questions like this fluently.

On the other hand, if you make a sentence in your language in your head, and then translate each word into English, it’s much more complicated. You don’t just have to remember two things; you have to remember many things.

So, try to learn vocabulary in this way. Take a sentence like:

Keep the basic sentence form, but change part of it:

Now, make 2-3 different sentences:

Now, practice and remember the sentences and phrases. This is a much more natural way to learn vocabulary.

If you learn vocabulary like this, it will be much easier to respond fluently, because you won’t need to think in your own language and translate. You’ll remember the whole phrases and sentences that you need.

It’s also helpful to use a vocabulary notebook to keep track of your new words and phrases as you continue learning.

Hopefully you found this lesson useful. Good luck on your journey in learning how to speak English fluently.

How to speak English fluently

Communicate confidently with these 7 top tips

I want to learn

Learning how to speak fluent, confident and natural English is an achievable goal. Every English learner is different, but there are a number of easy ways to improve in a reasonably short period of time.

Learning English, but in a hurry? Try a lesson on Busuu today – it’s fun, free and effective.

7 tips on speaking English fluently and confidently

1. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes

Your goal is to deliver a message, not speak perfect English, with the right grammar and vocabulary. Even native English speakers make mistakes!

2. Practise, practise, practise

Practice makes perfect. Constantly look for opportunities to test out your spoken English. Busuu’s online English classes, for instance, are interactive, 45-minute group lessons, guided by a professional teacher. They are a great way to practise speaking English and learn faster in a fun, safe environment.

3. Listen

The more you hear, the easier it will be for you to speak better English. You’ll start speaking more fluently and confidently in English conversations, learning how to give your opinions in English with new expressions and idioms.

4. Celebrate success

Every time you talk to someone in English is an achievement. Every single interaction you have, no matter how small, will help you improve your skills over time. Be proud of your progress.

These first four tips help provide the best way to start speaking English with ease. The following three steps will help take your English speaking skills to the next level.

Further improve your English speaking skills with our final 3 tips

5. Think in English

Go from speaking good English to great English by thinking in the language. You’ll find it difficult at first, but after some time you’ll learn how to switch between speaking English and your first language.

6. Talk to yourself

It will look funny, but by talking to yourself in English in front of the mirror for each day, you’ll learn to pronounce every letter in the English alphabet, plus when and how to use different expressions. You’ll also learn where you make most of the mistakes.

7. Tongue twisters

Tongue twisters help improve your diction teach you how to speak quickly. Practise with tricky sayings like this: “The thirty-three thieves thought that they thrilled the throne throughout Thursday».

How to Speak English Fluently?

Recommendation and Tips for How to Speak English Fluently Question

Today we will examine “How to speak English fluently?” matter. There are lots of way to speak English however speaking fluently is one of the hardest subjects in a language learning journey. In order to speak English fluently you have to complete many of hard duties. These may look like hard but actually just the matter of time.

As you know there is an important word about hard things: “There is no perfection, it is only about time.”. So, learning and speaking a language is not a short and easy travel. But within 3 years, you can speak a language fluently, if you complete some needed steps of course. Do you wonder the detail? Here we start:

How to Speak English Fluently? Important Tips and Review

1- First of all, you have to get private English lessons to speak English fluently. If you do not know English well or want to improve your available skills, taking private lesson always a good beginning. There are always good ways for you to improve it but the best teacher is always private lesson teacher for a new language.

2- After you get your private lessson, you can now do practice with people who can speak on same level with you. You can find these people even on the Facebook groups. All you need to do is owning a Facebook account. Thousands of people awaits you in social media groups.

3- Where will you talk to your new foreigner friends? You can speak with them on Skype or Whatsapp with video chat feature. Thus your speaking, writing, reading and listening levels will be tested and improved. Using your language with these applications is very easy and beneficial.

4- You are speaking with your foreigners friends but still need somethings? Then turn back to your private English teacher and take more lessons. You should also read somethings in this process. Daily papers, magazines and news will help you to improve your level.

5- Now we have came to the speaking level. In order to improve and make glorious your English, you always have to speak. You should always do practice.

How can I speak English Fluently? Advices to Speak English

6- Sometimes doing practice even may not help you. Then, you will give English lessons to lower level English students, or to your friends. Thus you can catch your missings for grammar. But also, while you give English lesson, your speaking will be improved. Trying to give a lesson will help your brain to speak English fluently.

7- You can make videos for Youtube or you can prepare some projects for English. These projects should include speaking practice, this is important.

8- Writing English articles will also help your English speaking level. Writing practice is always one of the most important teachers for English. If you haven’t budget for private lessson, writing articles and books may help you to make perfect your English speaking level.

9- Watching original languaged movies will also be a great teacher for you. With this entertaining way, you can improve your English accent and listening level. Hearing English words from native speakers is very important.

10- Do you still have problems with speaking English and could not reach a good level? Then last step will definitely fix this issue: go to England, Canada or Usa. Language is learned in its country. By going to these countries you can make progress on your English learnin journey. We can give guarantee that you will learn a fluently English.

Today we have tried to give some important tips for how to speak English fluently subject. For more education articles for English language, keep us following!

How to Speak English Fluently | 12 Advanced Methods

How to Speak English Fluently

However, we will help you by providing some methods so that you can speak English fluently. Let us analyze ‘ how to speak English fluently :

12 Advanced Methods to Speak English Fluently

If you are capable of following the below methods, you can also speak English fluently without any hesitation. However, let’s see the advanced techniques to speak English fluently:

Stay Confident

It would help if you had enough confidence in yourself when you try to speak English. Unfortunately, many people lose their faith when they try to speak English, so they can not reach their destination. Confidence is one of the essential parts of speaking in English.

Try to Memorize Vocabulary More and More

Without memorizing enough vocabulary, you cannot produce any sentence in English. And if you fail to make sentences, you can not speak properly. That’s why it is a fundamental part of improving your speaking skills. It would help if you thought deeply that vocabulary is essential in your everyday life.

Try to focus on that matter. It will undoubtedly help you to improve your proficiency in speaking English. So don’t waste your time. Start memorizing vocabulary more and more.

A mistake Doesn’t Matter

Do you frustrate yourself whenever you make a mistake speaking in English? If you do so, then please stop it. Many people become scared about the accuracy of grammar. But it is not too necessary to improve your speaking skills. If you make a mistake subconsciously, try to fix it later and avoid the same error.

Try to Produce New Sentences More and More

When you speak your mother tongue, you subconsciously produce many sentences. You should follow the same method as far as speaking skills are concerned. Try to make more new sentences regularly.

If you can produce new sentences, you can improve your fluency in English undoubtedly. So don’t waste your time. Follow this method and try to generate new sentences.

Find the Best Newspaper and Magazine

A leading English newspaper can help you to improve your fluency faster. It would help if you made a routine for reading the newspaper regularly. You will get many new ideas from newspapers and magazines if you continuously focus on them.

Make a Conversation with Someone

It can be a good solution for you to speak English fluently, and find someone who has enough fluency in English and starts a conversation with him. Afterward, choose a topic, whatever you want, and begin your conversation. Try to follow this routine unless you reach your goal to speak in English.

Develop your Reading, Writing and Listening Skills

Furthermore, it would help if you started free-hand writing. To improve your listening skills, you may listen to different English speakers and music.

Ask Questions and Find a Solution

It is one of the basic tricks to improve your speaking proficiency. Try to detect your lacking and point out some questions. After getting all the questions then try to find an easy solution. I think it will be a good idea to improve your fluency in English.

Keep Calm and Cool

It would help if you kept yourself calm and relaxed when you prepared yourself for speaking in English. Don’t be afraid even if you can’t talk properly. Keep in mind that you will be able to talk in English. So make sure you believe in yourself.

Don’t Be Afraid of Grammar

Many people make the mistake of concentrating more on grammar rules and structures rather than fluency. For this reason, they can’t speak fluently.

It is, in fact, true that even many native speakers also make mistakes in grammar. So try to focus on fluency rather than accuracy. And this is how you will be able to speak English fluently.

Remove Your Frustration

It is imperative when you want to develop your proficiency in speaking. Frustration can destroy your confidence in yourself. So remove your frustration as soon as possible.

Otherwise, you will be unable to speak English fluently. Don’t give up your consistency, and try to stay normal and remove all your disappointment in yourself.

Stay Positive

The last and final method is positivity. It can play a significant role in improving speaking and fundamental English skills. It would help if you never gave up your hopefulness. Stay positive and follow your routine regularly.

Conclusion

No one can attain all the skills overnight. We need to spend some time following proper guidelines, and it is also applied to yourself. If you want to be a fluent speaker of English, you must follow the above methods. So don’t waste your time, and start following these methods now.

I hope you have got the answer to the question. If you can follow the above methods, you can speak English fluently without hesitation.

Have a look at these useful links:

How to Speak English Fluently

Would you love to speak English fluently, like a native? Do you want to feel confident and relaxed when speaking? Do you want to sound as smart in English as you do in Dutch, or French or Spanish? Do you want to communicate fluently at work and in social situations? Then this post is for you. Read the whole list and then find the tips that suit you best and begin your journey to English fluency. Let’s start with some definitions, just to be sure that we are all “on the same page.” (= thinking about the same thing.)

What is fluency?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, fluency is the ability to speak or write a language easily, well, and quickly. We could say that fluency means flow. But in common usage, fluency means speaking at an advanced or near native level (C2 on the CEFR scale). And that is the way we will think about it in this article.

How can you learn to speak English fluently?

First, and most importantly – don’t worry about doing everything on this list. And don’t worry about being perfect. Even natives make mistakes! Just pick the English fluency tips that suit you best and get started. Stay relaxed, but disciplined. Let’s get fluent!

1. Build your English vocabulary.

English fluency begins with words and phrases. Vocabulary is the heart and soul of any language. Without these building blocks, you have nothing.

• Build vocabulary with more words. Knowing and being able to produce words is essential.
• Build vocabulary with more idioms. Understanding idioms is required for intermediate to advanced level listening. Even if you do not use idioms (productive speech), you must understand them (receptive speech).

2. Refine and correct your pronunciation.

• Learn intonation. It carries lots of meaning.
• Learn linking, omissions and phrasing so you can decode and produce English.
• Fix pronunciation errors that interfere with understandability, especially sound substitutions.
• Accept the fact that English spelling is very often disconnected from English pronunciation. Trust your teacher to train your sound.
• Get a good schwa sound as in the words bus, cup and love. The schwa is the most common sound in English! And while you are thinking about sounds, add a good TH so you can properly say common words like think, thought and through.

3. Practice speaking in a fluent manner.

• Reduce hesitations and filler words.
• Read aloud and, just like an actor, rehearse the same text again and again till you can speak it fluently and accurately.
• Pace yourself. Be aware of how stress – and lack of stress – impacts speech speed.
• Listen to yourself / record yourself.

4. Learn diplomatic language.

• Be polite and learn the “social graces” of English.
• Learn to use modal verbs and other softening phrases so that you are clear but polite.
• Be aware of cultural differences as it relates to social and business communication.

5. Become a great listener in order to speak English fluently.

• Be a great listener and show that you are listening with eye contact, facial expressions, appropriate body language, and accurate verbal responses. You will “win friends and influence people” (Dale Carnegie) when you show others the respect of listening to them.
• Do not use listening time to plan your remarks. You cannot respond well if you did not listen well, and people will notice, and they will not like it! Of course, listening well does not mean agreeing. In fact, if you plan to disagree, you need to have the other person’s comments in mind.

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6. Have the right attitude about achieving fluency.

• Language fashions change! Accept the fact that language changes, and rules, styles and preferences you learned at school or uni may no longer be valid.
• Be a lifelong learner. Accept and embrace the lifelong language journey.
• Ask for help.
• Remind yourself that no one is perfect. Be kind to yourself.
• Stay calm and mindful. Research shows that anxiety blocks vocabulary recall! :o(
• Fake it till you make it! Keep talking despite mistakes. That’s OK. You’re learning!
• Celebrate your accomplishments. Respect and embrace your progress. Be as kind to yourself as you would be to a friend.

7. Speak English fluently in your head! Think, don’t translate.

• Think in English. Train your brain and build your English infrastructure. Teach your “inner voice” to speak English and the “outer voice” will follow.

8. Be social, but a little selfish.

• Hangout with the right people. That means fluent people. People who speak English badly will not help you!
• If possible, minimize contact with people who speak English badly. Maximize contact with native speakers and advanced ESL speakers.
• Learn how to give and take a compliment.

9. Enjoy some English entertainment. Get a “2 for 1″ value.

• Entertain yourself with movies, series and podcasts. English subtitles are best. Videoland, Ziggo Film 1, Amazon Prime, Pathe Thuis and YouTube deliver a plethora of films and series. Check out Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Pocket Casts and Apple for podcasts. With podcasts – and documentary films – you can learn about something that is important to you while improving your English. What could be better than that?

10. Get “appy” with it.

• Record yourself. Dictate. Read aloud and listen to yourself. Use your smartphone’s free native app or Otter.ai. Otter has a free membership.

• Learn by doing. You wouldn’t learn to dance by reading about it, would you? Language is no different. As Nike says, “Just do it!”
• Build your muscles: Speak, speak, speak!
• Write in English. Write anything from a business report to a cooking recipe. Writing forces you to externalize and produce language and helps you see your errors.
• Find your audience. Be sure to practice as much as possible with native speakers who you feel safe and comfortable with. Then build up to “tougher crowds.” Avoid practicing with people who over-correct you. This will frustrate and discourage you, shattering your confidence and taking the joy out of speaking English. Protect yourself!

12. Be persuasive.

• Learn how to “sell” in English, even if you are not in sales. English speakers like to be persuaded. If you are not enthusiastic, why should we be?

13. Read aloud.

• Read books, articles, blogs, magazines and newspapers aloud.
• Read poetry aloud.

14. Finally, if you want to speak English fluently, you need a good teacher.

• Do not “go it alone” – find a great English trainer and keep working with them. Their feedback, guidance, support and influence is critical for your success. Most people who do it alone will fail. We all need support and guidance to achieve important life goals.

• Do not ask your partner, colleague or best friend to teach you! Some native speakers are terrible teachers! And learning from your spouse (= husband or wife) can be very stressful. So please do not ask your best friend or partner to teach you. Leave that to the professionals. Practice with supportive friends and colleagues, but learn from a professional.

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Brenda de Jong Pauley, Kerry Finlayson, and The English Center Team
January, 2022

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