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So much to learn, so little time
5 years agoHere’s the dilemma: you have a job and you are good at it, but now you are required to speak English at work. Your English is not good enough and you don’t have a whole lot of time to spare.
Here’s the solution to your dilemma: focus on exactly what you need. How? These tips may help:
- Study things you will be sure to need and use. By equipping yourself with the basic tools you will to be able to communicate from the start.
- Using your tools from day one: use every word or sentence. Speak, write, communicate! You will do it rudimentarily at first, sure, but being able to communicate in another language can be exhilarating. This feeling will turn into motivation, the energy your learning engine needs to keep going.
- Work on your listening comprehension skills: start by listening to words and sentences learn the way they sound in natural speech. You need to pick up the pronunciation and the intonation if you want to be able to understand what is being said. And you need to practice saying those words and sentences out loud, mimicking both the pronunciation and intonation.
These are some examples of words and sentences you need to memorize and learn to understand in spoken English, in order to ask basic questions when you are in an English speaking country:
“I don’t understand. Do you speak Spanish/Italian/French/etc.?”
“What does that mean? Can you please explain?”
“I need to find a hospital/supermarket/hotel/etc. Can you please help me?”
“How does this work?”
“Where can I find a pharmacy?”
“Is there a metro station nearby?”
“How can I get to the airport?”
Who do you need to be able to communicate with, most urgently? Let’s work on that and get you speaking from day one.
