Many people come to realize that the English language is not something you get to attain perfection in within a year or two. Becoming perfect and fluent in your English requires you to undergo constant knowledge upgrades on the language. Especially if you are a foreigner to the language, you need to use the language as often as you can and at the same time ensure that you do not repeat the same mistakes you get corrected of. Below are tips on how you can get to expand your grip on your spoken English.

Get a Dictionary and Notepad

The first tip we offer you is to get hold of your own dictionary and a notepad. These two items are quite essential as they are the very tools you would use to build up your vocabulary base. Are you wondering how important they are to you? The shortest answer to your question is to look at it this way. The dictionary would enable you to know the meanings to any words which would appear new to you. It can also be used to know how to apply these words in sentences the right way. These new words, their definitions and how they are to be applied in English would then be written down in a notepad or jotter. The reason for this is that we sometimes tend to forget things we see just once but by you making constant visits to your notepad on daily or weekly basis, forgetting the words it contains would not be so easy.

Read Wide

In other to expand your vocabulary by coming across words or phrases you haven’t seen before, you need to read wide. Things like magazines, online articles, and newspapers are very good for this purpose. With these items, you should be able to constantly come across words which weren’t part of your knowledge base. Ensure you read an English magazine at least once a week. It is important you get to obtain magazines with topics that are of interest to you so as to avoid dropping the magazine half way.

Another tip is to read books. Books are one of the best ways in which information is passed on and passing on this information a great deal of language is used. In other words, a book may be the best place for you to start from if you really want to better your spoken English. Try thinking about the genre of books you love reading and get these books in English.

While reading, you can always circle any new words you come across and search for their meanings in a dictionary. It is also advisable to jot down these new vocabulary into a note pad specifically assigned to that purpose. At your leisure time, take a look at all the wordings you have entered into your notepad. This will help you not to forget these words as you may need them sometime in the future.

Never mix up your native language with your spoken English

Another VERY IMPORTANT tip is not to dilute your native language with your spoken English. Many people have the problem of self migrating words from their own native languages into English while they speak. Although doing this may be satisfactory to a listener who understands your local language, it could be very embarrassing for someone who doesn’t. Care should be taken while speaking so as not to get carried away which is a leading cause to most language diluting incidents.

Make Friends with fluent English speakers

Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are. This aphorism is the point of our next tip. In as much as you can relate to whomever you want, it is important that while at the learning stages of a language you do not get influenced in the wrong way. Your friend may make a mistake while speaking and before you know it you have picked it up. These things happen so it is quite necessary for you to understand the fact that you need to interact with fluent English speakers. Getting to speak frequently with people with excellent fluency in English would give you an idea on how well or bad your own English is. You can also use them to make corrections to your own English. Take for example you are used to saying ‘Are you ok?’ which in correct terms should be ‘how are you?’

Make use of the internet

The internet has the potential to be a very great resource if you know what you are looking for and how to go about it. By reading online articles, your knowledge would gradually expand as you become more frequent. You can also make use of the content on different sites available on the internet. These sites write their information in English so it should be helpful to you. You should also think about joining forums and discussion groups. Here, you would get to interact with people who have sound understanding and fluency in the English language.

In summary, the lessons this article tries to teach cannot be learnt by someone who isn’t willing to learn. Willingness to learn and take to corrections should be the first thing on your mind for you to make any notable improvements in the way you speak English.