Learning a second language is no easy task, and therefore, it isn’t easy to motivate oneself to do this. However, there are lots of personal, social, and academic advantages to speaking a foreign language. While English remains the global language of business and science, one may find that English is not always their first language, forcing one to devise ways to overcome that barrier.
Learn to speak English fluently
When it comes to learn english in singapore as a second language, one recommends one not to start with the technical stuff. One will learn how to conjugate verbs and what a gerund is eventually, but if one tries to force themselves to read technical books written in English from the beginning, it will slow one down.
The best and easy way to learn english in singapore is always to watch movies in that language, preferably with subtitles. If one is having trouble understanding what is going on in a movie, it will also be difficult when one reads more formal material later. So relax and try not to worry too much about understanding everything. One is learning new vocabulary, after all. If it gets too hard, then maybe try reading the subtitles out loud or listening to some recordings of native speakers reciting the text aloud.
One thinks this goes against many people’s intuitions about learning the language. It’s counter-intuitive to learn how words work together by seeing how they appear in sentences and hearing them spoken aloud. But it works! The only caveat is that don’t be afraid to use other resources, dictionaries, grammar guides, etc., to help one understand something better.
How to improve their pronunciation
Pronunciation is a matter of practice, not intelligence. Some languages indeed make it easier than others to pronounce their words the way they’re written. French and Italian, for example, make it relatively easy to distinguish between the similar-looking letters b and d, even though those two letters are pronounced identically in English. But part of what makes pronunciation hard is how we speak when we’re trying to speak a language we don’t know well.
So if one has kids who are studying a foreign language in school, or if one themselves is trying to improve their accent, here’s something that might help: listen to native speakers as much as possible. The more one can hear what the differences should be, and the better one will be able to imitate them. And please don’t be shy about asking people for feedback. That’s what they’re there for.
