Perfect English Pronunciation or Understandable English?

What is the first goal that a second language learner of English should aspire to? Is it being able to speak exactly like a native speaker of English or being understood in English?

It takes years of practice to sound like a native speaker and you would need to immerse yourself in the language. The easiest way to do this is to live in an English speaking country, live with an English speaking family and “hang out” with English speaking friends. What is more achievable is to be able to speak English well enough to be easily understood by any English speaker whether they come from the USA, England, Australia, or New Zealand. The key to communication is being able to express yourself so that you are understood and being able to listen to a range of accents and understand what is being said.

That’s why it is important for you to speak to a range of different native English speakers from different English speaking countries, from different backgrounds, ages, and interests. Once you are used to a certain teacher and their native spoken English, try your skills with another teacher.

Having a variety of English speakers to converse with will greatly assist your English and this is the most natural way to learn. You will, with consistent practice, begin to speak more naturally and make yourself understood. This is a far easier goal to reach when you are learning English than spending hours trying to pronounce words and sounds exactly like a native speaker. However, you will probably find that your pronunciation will naturally increase anyway especially if you practice regularly with English speakers.

So, how much does Avatar borrow from Maori history? | TangataWhenua.com

So a few weeks ago, the newest blog from Digital Maori: Hori 3.0 was created by our CEO, Potaua Biasiny-Tule of TangataWhenua.com. In it Potaua mentioned the interesting parallels between Maori and the Na’vi, the people from the block-buster 3D movie Avatar by James Cameron (director of Titanic).At the heart of the similarities were the [...]

2010 is the year to accelerate your spoken English

Don’t put off tomorrow what you can do right now. If you really want to accelerate your English then you need to consider:

1. Speaking every day by yourself, with friends or with anyone who will practice with you
2. Speaking with native speakers on a range of topics as often as possible
3. Watching and listening to English movies and videos
4. Learning English at a language school or through a good language software programme
5. Reading and writing in English on a range of topics that interest you
6. Singing in English to songs where you know the lyrics
7. Having fun while you are learning and not being afraid to make mistakes

You really get to understand a language by using it as much as possible in a range of different situations!

Peter Jackson Talks Hobbit Casting | The Hobbit Movie

News and gossip from The Hobbit movies. Keep up to date with what’s happening during the making of The Hobbit movies.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Samespeak

All the best for a wonderful Christmas and inspirational New Year! Thank you so much for your support over 2009 and we look forward to speaking and practicing live English with you in 2010.

Fijians have beautiful English

I just spent 5 gorgeous days in Fiji on holiday. Fijians have beautiful spoken English, very eloquent, natural and polite – a legacy I believe of the British influence that still exists today in their education system. However, unlike some other countries that have been influenced by Western colonialism, Fijians have also retained their own language, culture and traditions and are true bi-linguals. Fijians are a good reminder to the rest of us that two languages can be learned to equal levels of communicative proficiency without sacrificing one for the other or having problems with pronunciation given that the two languages are quite disparate. Fijian is Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) and English is Germanic!

Holographic teachers?

The next step from real-time communication online has got to be materialising in someone’s lounge and being able to teach, talk and walk as though you were really there with the student. So as long as your virtual holographic teacher can’t see you in your pyjamas, lounging around on the sofa eating chips while you are taking a class, then it’s all good!

Inspired by young adults in our high schools

It’s senior high school prize-giving week and it’s incredibly inspiring to see so many young adults looking forward to their futures with such optimism and choosing a wide range of career options that are all equally valued by the school staff.

While Dux is still a prestigious award, the schools I have seen also ensure that sporting, cultural and work based achievements are equally highlighted through awards and monetary scholarships. One of the Head students said in her speech to the graduates – “you are the source of your own success in your journey, no one can stop you from reaching your dreams but yourself, so you are the person who creates your own story”. You could feel a ripple of emotion rip through the crowd – it was quite moving as despite the challenges she had faced, she managed to overcome them all and achieve all she had set out to do.

This message is a lifelong one…what story are you wanting to create?

‘INVICTUS’ TRAILER in HD Mandela and Rugby

The trailer looks good in terms of capturing the spirit of a nation that rose from apartheid to a united force supporting their national rugby team to victory. What a way to bring people together!

http://appleplectic.blogspo…Two words: OSCAR BOUND.”From director Clint Eastwood, ‘Invictus’ tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) joined forces with the capta…

</spa

All Blacks Win Rugby in Tokyo

Good on the All Blacks for winning against Australia in Japan. The game definitely brought back memories of Japan and the fabulous 6 years I spent there. In Japan, rice fields are common but grassed fields are not – in fact most playing fields are made of clay. It’s not a good idea to be tackling players on that kind of surface as some of my NZ playing rugby mates found out! A friend of mine from New Zealand was playing for Mazda (Hiroshima) in Japan so we went along to watch and that was when I saw my first grass field – imported from New Zealand! It made me homesick and I gleefully rolled around in it at the end of the game. Honestly, we don’t know how lucky we are in NZ.

The second memory was teaching conversational English to the Japanese Rugby captain (Hirao-San) through a Language School I worked for. He wanted to learn how to speak naturally in social situations like after the game functions and what things you could say to fellow English speaking rugby players and their supporters. We had fun role playing different situations from talking about a game to making friends as the English he had learned was not really appropriate and in some cases considered offensive. For example I told him that you couldn’t just go up to a woman and ask her how old she was without expecting some kind of adverse reaction!

Rugby English is a whole language of it’s own as it’s quite informal and loaded with words and idioms that make no literal sense! Commentators, supporters and players have their own familiar sayings – “Give it heaps”, “waste em”, “full credit”, “scrum”, “tackle”, “line-out”, “try!”. The best way to learn this type of language is to go to English speaking matches and listen to people talking or watch English speaking sports games on TV or computer. You will pick up common sayings that you can shout out with the rest of the crowd and also learn words and sayings that are particular to the sport. As for socialising with English speaking fans…that’s a different language all on it’s own!

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 29 other followers