Which one to buy?

[Fred2008]

Hello,

I am new here. My first language is French and I know a little bit about english. I need your help to improve my english. My problem is:
I can read simple books in English (I don't understand every word but can get the whole idea). I can also read functionnal and technical documents (I am working as Software Quality Assurance specialist). I often write reports in English (with some mistakes . The problem is meetings. I can't understand a large portion of what my colleagues are saying in English. I can't clearly say and support my ideas in English. I am often obliged to switch in French. That's so difficult for me and my colleagues. I get ashamed for that.

I want to buy some CDs or softwares to improve my speaking skills. I read a lot on Internet about Rosetta Stones and Pimsleur methods. In my situation, which one do you think is better for me?

Thanks in advance for your help,

Fred

[billk636]

I don't know which CDs there are available in France, but if I were you I would just watch lots of English movies and by that you will learn to understand English much better.

[Fred2008]

Thanks Billk636

Any other idea from anyone?

[Fan of Arabian horses]

Hi Fred2008,

I´m in a similar situation like you. The difference is: my native language is German and I´m a mechanical technician.

Well, I´d say, you could improve two ways:
1st - have a certain look on posts of native speakers on this site (just to improve your usage of the English)
2nd - you might join an adult evening class ( preferably with an English native speaker as moderator ) to improve your speaking and listening skills

I´m sure your colleagues soon will be flabbergasted about your English.

Regards
Michael

[prezbucky]

Welcome, Fred.

Where in France do you live?

Or are you elsewhere?

(just striking up a conversation)

[Jamie (K)]

Fred, I teach a lot of non-English speakers who have trouble in meetings, and I know that Pimsleur programs are too elementary to help you, and Rosetta Stone may be also. From the way you describe your level, I could say that a Pimsleur program could help you if your main problem is with getting the words you already know out of your mouth. Pimsleur presents very elementary lessons, but it helps with verbal fluency a lot.

Most of the time when people have problems in meetings, it's because they don't know ordinary colloquial English, not because they don't know the English of their professions. So you have to jam a lot of regular, everyday English into your brain, and this will become useful in your professional language. This includes everything from business etiquette to sports slang to language from cartoon shows.

If you don't have iTunes on your computer, install it. In the iTunes store there are a lot of ESL podcasts that are absolutely free and help you with vocabulary and other aspects of language. There is an unbelievable amount of material, and if you listen to it, certain words and collocations will get into your head. And don't just listen to the ESL ones! They have free podcasts that discuss almost every subject. I find that listening to shows like this in a foreign language three times each helps fix a lot of the language into my mind. Often you won't realize how much until you've been doing this for several months.

I would also recommend you get a good, straightforward book on idioms. A really good one is "Idiomatic American English" by Barbara K. Gaines. The idioms in the book are not merely American, but most of them are international, and you really can't understand English without knowing them. One Chinese engineer I taught from this book said her boss was quite impressed when the idioms started creeping into her speech at meetings.

You should also be watching a lot of British and American movies, preferably with the subtitles on. There are plenty of TV shows on the web, or even just clips from them, and those have the advantage that you can play parts of them over and over again. At mozilla.org, you can download a TV viewing program called Joost. It's only in beta right now, and there's not that much material yet, but you can get a lot of practice with natural English from that.

Also try going to http://voanews.com/specialenglish/ This website has articles on various news and cultural topics, and the reports are spoken in clear, easy-to-understand English. You can both read the article and listen to it, and the audio is in MP3 form, so you can download it and put it into your music player.

Just bathe in the language. That's all that's really going to help you, and you won't feel the results immediately.

[Jan]

I had same problem in the past. What was my solution?It has been just one audio book which I had listened to many many times.

Effective comunicational skills I divided in two parts understanding and speaking, to understand English native speakers you need to listen to them , just so much as it is possible for you.

To reduce afford and get sooner to some concrete results I would recommend to concentrate on one book which for some resons is very very interesting or important for you, you would have to translate all the text very pricesly (take you time it would pay back) , try to find out a lot about every word which is marked as most common and new for you, and keep listening and listening every day.

It is very useful if you could start and finish same book in one day.( repeating reading from time to time and everyday listening)

This would mean that a book should be about three or four hours long in record. For the practical reasons your choosen book should be recorded in the unabridged version. I guess if you notice first signs of improvment you would enjoy all the learning much more and as well would try to proof yourself in conversation.

The first book helps a lot to start and to maintain your comprehensive skills for longer, later with time I am sure you would find another one worth to work on, and you could expand the language further and further.

The main factor for me was to keep interst on any text which I have choosen. More you are personnaly involved than easier and faster you learn. I don't use English a lot in writting at least it is not so much new stuff expected from me, but communication on radio, toolbox talks or general meetings are my common day practice.

I would recommend to concentrate on one text because to share targets and spread you time and force on many sources may lead to prolonged learning and would bring for you some disappointing So long as you would not speak a lot and would be unable to draw attention of a meeting to your saying , it may be for your colleages strange a bit to stop and wait for your opinion, but with time they would also convince themselfs that it is worth to repeat subject or clarify themselfes because to understand each other you need both sides to be involved.

Personnaly I don't like the situation when some native speakers would play Sheakspear on professional meetings. My sugestion to people natives complaining about English skills were always to go back to Huston or Aberdeen and enjoy yourself.

Jan

[English RPG GM]

[Jamie (K)]

If you can't get people to role play with you, the next best thing is to spend a lot of time speaking English to an animal or an object. This sounds crazy, but I know people who have become fluent in a language by speaking it to their dogs. If you don't have a dog, use a volleyball, an imaginary friend or a dead relative.

If you have the opportunity, spend some time talking to or playing with small native-speaking children as their mother or father looks on. These children will teach you a lot of vocabulary and subtleties of the language, and often the parent will translate whatever appears to be difficult for you. I originally became fluent in my best foreign language just because I rented an apartment in a family home and was expected to be at the breakfast table every morning. A few months ago I played with two tiny girls from Honduras, and I learned an enormous amount of Spanish in just 15 minutes, and the language they taught me keeps coming up in my life.

[Fred2008]

Hello,
I was absent that's why I didn't answer your replies.
Thank you all for your suggestions. They are very interesting advices I will consider.
In the meantime, I downloaded the Pimsleur ESL course. I think it will help since one of my
problems is to get the words out of my mouth. I will let you know my progress in few weeks.

Thanks again
Fred

[sapi]

Hi Fred,

If you go to the main ESL book publisher websites you can download sample pages and see whether you like the style of the book.
For full book downloads of varying scan standards you can download thousands of ESL and non-ESL e-books at http://www.englishtips.org click on the British flag and register. After that search for the book and click on download now. If you look in the comments you can find mirror download sites, rapidshare has a particularly difficult verification code process so other sites are easier to download from.

Good luck and let me know if I can be of any more help.

[Ralf]

Hi Fred,

How are your preparations coming along? And what material did you choose to prepare for the test?

Take care,

Ralf
_________________
Test of English as a Foreign Language
TOEFL Preparation & TOEFL Vocabulary
Learn more about: Ralf Breheny