Eugene Kim

1 In order to improve your grammar in speaking, you need to listen very carefully how (English) people say a sentence. Try to make sentences that are like the ones that they said.

2 Listen to audio files, that you can easily find on the internet. Play them sentence by sentence. The files should be easy for you to understand. After a sentence, press “pause” and you repeat the sentence (you literally say the sentence after the speaker). Take note of how the sentence is constructed.

3 If English people ask you a question, try to discover in their question how you should answer it. Often, you should use the same verb tense as they are using. For example, if they ask, “How are you?” you also use “to be,” so you say “I am fine.” If they ask: “Are you going to the mall this afternoon?” you can answer: “Yes, I am.” Or: “No, I’m going to visit my grandma.” If they ask: “Will you be taking the math exam on Thursday?” you can answer: “Yes, I will.” Or: “No, I will be studying for my statistics test.”

4 Never be ashamed of your English. If you don’t talk, you don’t practise, and then you can be sure that you’ll never get perfect English. Most English speakers will appreciate it so much that you speak English with them that they will be patient with your mistakes. If you’re lucky, they will even correct them. After all, if they tried to speak your language, they’d make mistakes too!