English Practice

Nursery rhymes are easy to come by nowadays: internet, eBooks, Audio Books, CD’s, DVD’s, books, mom and dad. Nursery rhymes are what are played to children from the time they are born till the time they decide that enough is enough. Then again, there are the television shows like Barney, Dora, Sesame Street and others which play the nursery rhymes or even innovate some activities around them.

Nursery rhymes are a great way to learn how to speak the English language better because they are short enough to memorize after one or two repetitions and the words rhyme and make it easier to pronounce as they sound almost, but not quite, the same.

Someone once asked why nursery rhymes were so successful among children. The answer is because the words have a rhythm to them, almost like music, and they are nice to repeat because they have a cadence when spoken. Children like to hear the rhythm and to experience the cadence and so the words and the rhymes stick to the learning sections of the brain and eventually transfer from short term memory to the long term memory. Have you noticed that even if you are already old and gray, when you see a child or a toddler, immediately the rhymes come back and you just find yourself repeating the words which you learned when you were young?

This is the success of nursery rhymes. Not only do they teach the words, they teach the right pronunciation and they are not easy to forget. Sometimes they keep coming back into the mind like a record stuck on a certain section and it does not cease until you consciously say enough.

Repetition is the key to any learning, and if you want to improve your skills, then go for nursery rhymes. You’d be surprised that it will work for you very well. Remember, if the rhymes were good enough to be taught to children who grow up in an English language environment, don’t you think that these are also good enough for you who is an adult and are just learning the language?

Learning how to speak English today is made easier with the innovation of interactive audio CD’s that could be bought in stores where CD’s and DVD’s are sold, or they could be downloaded directly from the internet if they are the types which are free, or they could be bought online and delivered to your homes directly. Most of the more reliable audio CD’s for learning to speak English can be found in Amazon or similar eshops which distribute these types of items.

The question that is more commonly asked is whether or not these CD’s are effective or if they really do teach the listener how to speak English. The answer is really dependent on the type of CD that you buy, the level of understanding that you as the learner are at, and your dedication to the lessons. If you are the type of learner who cannot learn well simply by listening, then this can be difficult. However, there are ways to get around this.

If you like learning by reading, then buy books which can teach you to speak English. But, take note that most of the learning CD’s for English or any other language usually come as a package: a book, an eBook, an interactive listening CD and a test booklet.

One of the better known and successful learning CD’s in the market today is the Rosetta Stone. This has received the most number of approvals and the most number of customers who are satisfied with the product. What is more, the system that is used in the learning is very simple to follow and learners find themselves learning how to speak a language not only fluently but understanding the subtle nuances that make any language different from the other.

Now, there are a lot of other programs that can teach a learner how to speak English, and if Rosetta Stone is too pricey for you, go ahead and look for software which can be downloaded for free. If you don’t want to spend, just choose from among the hundreds. But choose the ones which have the best ratings for free software or programs and scan with a virus scanner before downloading. Eventually when you find that you can now comfortably use the Rosetta or other similar products, then you can buy it online.

One of the questions that any learner of the English language asks is how they can practice their skills. Now, that is an easy enough question, something which should not even pose any problem.

If you are not alone in the learning, make it a point to talk to each other in English. This way, not only will you help each other out in terms of practice, but in learning as well. Your companion or classmates may have words under their sleeves which you have never heard or met before, so ask them how to use it, where they heard it and take down notes. The exchange of learning makes the learning fun; this is literally the interaction that you are looking for when it comes to learning. But remember; don’t speak to each other in any other language except English.

If you are a learner who is alone in the learning, then practice on your friends around you. This way, they can also learn from you and eventually both of you would be speaking the language quite well. Once you find a companion, the learning is no longer lonely. Remember, if you are lonely, the learning is slower and you get frustrated.

But then again, frustration makes the mind think of ways and solutions around the difficulties that it is facing. If you are absolutely determined to learn the language, then go to the internet. There are chat rooms that are public and anyone can just join in and enjoy the exchange of ideas.

Practice your language skills by talking to people who speak the language. You will find that a lot of people will join simply because they want to contribute to the fun in teaching you their language. This is also a fun way of finding new friends.

One person I know who learned to speak the English language from a young age was successful in making herself fluent. How? She was so determined even as a young child to speak the language fluently, so she simply refused to speak to her family and friends except in English and she refused to watch anything except if the language was in English. She was determined and she succeeded. Now, she does not sound like a learner at all, after more than thirty years speaking the language, she can be mistaken as an American, she is that good.

“Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers……..”

“She picked sea shells on the sea shore…..”

“Bubble bobble, bubble bobble, bubble bobble”

Above are just some of the tongue twisters that kids love to say and say and say over and over again. The purpose is to speak the English language to perfection. The subtle changes in the spellings make the words mean different, look different, and definitely pronounced different.

Tongue twisters are fun to say and sometimes the tongue gets so twisted that the mind skips and then you laugh and then you try again and again.

The point of tongue twisters is to practice the mind and the tongue to make them coordinated, and to make it stretch just like a muscle, but a mental kind of muscle.

Some may say that it is all just a stupid type of learning; these comments come from those who do not understand the English language and those who are not willing to speak it well.

Tongue twisters are a good way to perfect the pronunciations of words, just like nursery rhymes that children have to listen to for several years. The nursery rhymes actually make the mind and the tongue stretch them to the limit, literally stretching the muscles of the tongue.

These tongue twisters were invented by some enterprising scholars and parents whose kids could not make distinctions between one word and the next because of one single letter that either changed position in the word or was changed into another.

There are even speech teachers who demand that their students get into the act of reciting the tongue twisters for an hour long speech class. They say that the end result is always the same: hard tongues soften and soft tongues harden, depending on the words.

Try to go and look for tongue twisters in books, even online, and take these down or simply print them. If you are interested in refining your tongue’s fine motor skills (so to speak), get to the habit of learning and reciting tongue twisters. Eventually, not only will your mind be able to immediately grasp differences in the subtle changes of spellings, but your tongue will follow the dictates of your brain and what will come out is a perfectly pronounced word without having to waste precious seconds to form the word right.