is TOEFL® hard?

[Reemasharma]

hi everone i m new in this forum so this is my first post....i m bit nervous as this is my first try to give toefl....actually i dont have any friend who can give me some useful tips for getting good score or who can make me correct in english so if somebody here who can help me or giving me a good friendly envourment it will helpful to me....as i am not good in english.thanks

[Superman]

Hi reemasharma,
I think that toefl is not easy but if you work hard, you can get a high toefl score.
Besides, you are welcome to this forum. All of us are willing to help you if you want to improve your english.
I'm new here and I had the same feeling with you before. However, I think the most important thing is your effort.

[Torsten]

Hi Reemasharma,

Thanks a lot for asking your question. I think Superman has given you some very useful information and I'd like to add that you should try to surround yourself with English on a daily basis. For example, how much time do you spend listening to English every day?

Talk to you soon,
Torsten
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Reemasharma]

thanks for reply....you both are right .It has given me a lot of relax.Actually i am findling difficulty in speaking section...when you write than you have time to think but when you are speaking with somebody you dont have time to think because you have to give the answer in a sec.and my problem is as i my mother laungage is hindi so whenever time comes for me in speaking i always forget the words and verbs that time because i am feeling that if you want to speak good english than you have to think in english its not possible that you are thinking in hindi and thanafter you translate those lines in english .can anybody suggest me that how is this possible for me to think in english...i know its confusing thing but this is my problem anybody who exprienced this in their initional stage. i strongly belive that this problem comes everone"s life when they try to learn another laungage.

[Superman]

Hi reemasharma,
Frankly speaking, I also had the problem like you but it seems better now.
But I know that we can overcome it with more and more practice.
When I communicate with others in English, I naturally think about something in my mind but I don't realize whether it is in English or not. Eventually, I can speak English while I think about what I'm saying.
It's hard to say surely how to think in english when you want to speak english, just try to think naturally in english and don't forget to practise more.
I think there's no way better than practising.
Good luck!!!

[Torsten]

Hi Reemasharma and Superman,

You have raised and discussed an interesting question: How to think in English? Whenever you feel you don't know how to express a certain concept in English, you need to listen to a native speaker expressing that very idea. For example, you can post your question here on the forum asking how a native speaker would express a certain idea. In addition, you need to listen to English as much as possible. Spend at least 2 hours each day listening to English media. Or even better: Surround yourself with spoken English 24 hours a day.
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[EnglishRaven]

Very good advice and points.

One free and very accessible resource I can totally recommend is the Reuters Video News service:
http://www.reuters.com/news/video

As Torsten recommends, 2 hours of listening a day can make an enormous difference.

With that Reuters Video News there is a huge abundance of different articles (not just World News, things like Technology, Environment, Oddly Enough, Entertainment, Sports and Leisure, Business, etc), and the video aspect really helps to keep you interested and gives you great contextual clues to help you comprehend what you are listening to. Also, Reuters has a fantastic spread of native and non-native accents in their reports.

Watching that for a couple of hours a day will really help your listening, and you'll enjoy it! You can also make it slightly more study oriented by taking notes about the articles you are listening to, then record yourself giving summaries and presenting opinions about the ones you are most interested in. You're then giving yourself practice with iBT speaking tasks as well, and even getting practice with integrated tasks (the video articles have written summaries next to them, and links to fuller text-based articles as well).

I would go so far as to say you could use something like Reuters Video News to provide yourself with a complete language learning/immersion solution.

Good luck with your prep!

- Jason