How to avoid making mistakes in English

Learners make mistakes and reinforce them because they produce sentences

1) too carelessly or

2) too early.

You will avoid mistakes if you follow a couple of rules:

Rules of error-free speaking and writing

1. Use simple language. Some beginners try to build very complicated sentences with things like the present perfect tense or conditionals. They make horrible mistakes. Don't do this! If you've just started to speak or write in English, you should say what you can say (simple sentences that you have seen many times) — not what you want to say (complicated sentences). You may feel you're talking like a child or that you are not expressing your thoughts, but don't worry about it. Right now, your task is not to express your thoughts freely; your task is to learn the language.

2. Be slow and careful. In the beginning, you should write very slowly. If you need 2 hours to write an e-mail message with 10 correct sentences, that's okay. That's how long it should take if you're just starting to write.

   Why should it take so long? Because you should read your sentences many times, looking for mistakes. You should correct your own sentences frequently. You should check if your sentences are correct by using a dictionary and the Web. And you should look for example sentences to imitate.

   When you're speaking, it's okay to build a sentence for some time in your head before you open your mouth.

3. If you're not sure how to say something, don't say it. If you can't say something correctly, it's almost always better not to say it. You don't want to teach yourself the wrong way to say it. You can try to look for the correct sentence in a dictionary or on the Web (see next point), but when speaking, usually you don't have time for that. So it's a good idea to say something else — something that you know is correct. It can even be something on a different subject.
4. When writing, always look things up. Whenever you're not sure how to use a word, look it up in a good dictionary to find example sentences with it. When you've written something, and you are not sure if it's correct, search for it on the Web with Google. If many pages contain your phrase, then it is probably correct. Dictionaries and Google should be your everyday tools, and you should use them even many times in one sentence (especially if you've just begun writing in English). See this forum topic for more information on using Google when writing.

5. Know where you can screw up. Sometimes learners don't even realize how different English is from their native language. When speaking, they translate word for word from their native language, and they think their sentences are okay.

   When reading or listening in English, pay close attention to things like word order, articles, prepositions, and tenses. Compare sentences in English with equivalent sentences in your native language. Notice the differences in words and in word order. This will make you more careful when speaking in the foreign language, because you will realize which parts of your sentences can be wrong and should be double-checked.

"Will I ever be fluent if I speak so slowly and carefully?"

Don't worry about fluency. Fluency is easy to achieve by simply talking. If you practice speaking, you will be able to speak faster and faster. In high school, Tom achieved pretty good fluency in a month by talking to his English teacher (a native speaker) about two hours a week. That's only 8 hours of talking.

In our opinion, it is much better to be slow and correct than be fluent and make a lot of mistakes. Why? Because if you are slow and correct, you can easily improve your speed and become fluent and correct. But if you are fluent and make a lot of mistakes, it is not so easy to remove your mistakes and become fluent and correct.

Tom's experience with error-free writing

I recently started learning German. I wanted to start writing e-mails in German as soon as possible, but I didn't want to make mistakes and teach myself bad habits. I wrote my first e-mails in German after reading just one short (40-page) book for learners written in simple German, a few e-mail messages from a German friend, and after using my very small SuperMemo collection for a few months. And my e-mails in German had almost no mistakes.

How was that possible — writing correct sentences after getting so little input? First, my e-mails contained very simple sentences. But the most important thing was my research: I looked for example sentences on the Web and in dictionaries.

For example, I knew that the German word for use was benutzen, but I didn't know how to use it in a sentence like "Which program do you use to copy CDs?". Often, I had an idea how something might be done in German, but I wasn't sure if my idea was correct. In such situations, I looked for the answer on the Web or in my dictionaries.

I spent a lot of time on each sentence. It took me more than an hour to write my first message, which contained only a few German sentences.

The writing process was long and it took much effort, but it was fun. The experience was very motivating and it made me even more interested in German. Perhaps one of the reasons why it was so enjoyable was that I knew I was building correct sentences.

Don't speak or write too early

If you follow the above rules and still make a lot of mistakes when speaking (= more than 1 mistake every 3 sentences), you should probably switch to writing for a while. Consider the following guidelines:

1. First write, then speak. Writing is easier than speaking because: 1) you don't need to have good pronunciation (but you need good spelling), 2) you can write very slowly and nobody will mind, 3) you can use dictionaries, the Web, etc. So, it's a good idea to practice writing first until you can build correct sentences quickly enough for speaking.
2. Don't speak until you've learned to pronounce English sounds. You need to be able to pronounce all the English vowels and consonants in a clear way before you speak. If you don't, you will get used to bad pronunciation.
3. Don't say a word if you don't know how to pronounce it. In other words, you need to know the pronunciation of all the words that you use. If you don't, you will be making pronunciation mistakes and teaching yourself bad habits.

If you make more than 1 mistake every 3 sentences when writing in the slow and careful way described above, you should probably stop writing for some time and concentrate on reading and listening.

Remember that you should first get lots of English sentences into your head, then build your own sentences. Your main activity should be reading and listening to English — and the reason is that you need good examples to follow before you can build your own sentences. The more sentences your brain absorbs, the more you can express in English. If you don't see/hear enough correct, natural English sentences, you will not know how to say things in English. So you will be inventing your own language. And you will be making mistakes.

What happens in English classes

The recommended order in the Antimoon learning method is: Pronunciation - Input (reading and listening) - Writing - Speaking. Unfortunately, something completely different happens in English classes. Almost no courses teach you pronunciation at the beginning. Few teachers give you enough "input". Instead, they force you to speak and write — asking you questions, telling you to do grammar exercises or writing assignments. In a way, they force you to make mistakes and create bad habits.

New reading about Learning English

How practice can damage your English

If you ask "How can I learn to speak English better?", many people will tell you "Practice, practice, practice". "Speak and write in English whenever you can" — they will say. All English classes are full of activities which involve speaking and writing. You produce sentences when you do an exercise in your textbook, when your teacher makes you speak in class, or when you have to write a composition. All these activities are supposed to help you with your English.

We agree that practice can be very useful. It's even necessary to learn English well. So what's the problem? The problem is that for many learners, "speaking" or "writing" means "making a lot of mistakes". Some people make a mistake in every sentence!

If you don't make many mistakes, then you can speak or write in English and it can only help. But if you make many mistakes, then every time you write or speak, you reinforce your mistakes. As you write or speak, you repeat your mistakes constantly and your incorrect habits become stronger.

Imagine this situation: You are writing an e-mail message in English. Your English is not perfect and you want to write the message quickly. You write (incorrectly): "I want speak English."

When you write a sentence, you also read it. So the incorrect sentence goes into your head. The next time you write a message, you will be more likely to write "I want finish" or "I want be happy". Why? Because "I want speak English" is fresh in your head — you've just used it! And when you write "I want " the second time, you've got a "bad habit", or a reinforced mistake.

Now do you see our point? You write — you make mistakes — those mistakes become your habit, they become your way of writing in English. So, the more you write, the worse your English becomes.

Stop making mistakes!

We have said that you need practice to learn English. We have also said that when you practice, you reinforce your mistakes.

Michal suggests a simple solution to this paradox: Never make mistakes! Here is what he says:

It is close to the truth that I have never written an incorrect English sentence.

I knew many grammatical structures and I used only those that I knew. My sentences were similar to sentences which I knew to be correct. I followed good examples, so all my sentences were good.

In the beginning, I could write only very simple sentences, but all the simple sentences were correct. Then as I advanced, I added more and more complicated structures, and again all my sentences were correct.

Because of this approach, I was never reinforcing bad habits. I never had any bad habits! From the beginning, I copied only correct sentences. With every sentence that I wrote, I reinforced my good habits.

You can speak and write with almost no mistakes, too.

You may be thinking...

"But practice makes perfect!"

If you make many mistakes, speaking and writing is not the way to eliminate them! On the contrary, it reinforces them, as we have shown earlier in this article.

You have to realize that speaking does not improve your grammar or your vocabulary. It's really very simple. Can you learn a new word from yourself? If you don't know how to say "Good bye" in English, can you invent it by yourself? No, you can't. You can only learn it by reading or listening to English.

Or take a language you don't know (e.g. Latin). Now try to learn Latin by speaking it right now. Come on, speak Latin! Don't be shy. Practice makes perfect! — Obviously, you can't. Why? Because you need to see some example Latin sentences first. We hope we have shown that the main way to learn a language is to read and listen to sentences in that language.

So what should you do if you can't help but make mistakes in your English sentences? If you make mistakes, that means you don't know how to say things in English. You need to learn how to say them. You won't learn that by speaking or writing. You must read and listen to correct English sentences.

You can speak and write later — when you can already build correct English sentences and want to improve your fluency (your speed).

"I'll get better by practicing, because my teacher corrects my mistakes!"

Perhaps you can benefit from corrections if you get a few corrections per week. But when there are many mistakes, you become unable to concentrate on them. If a teacher returns your composition with 20 corrected mistakes, how many of these corrections can you keep in your mind?

Besides, your teacher is not always there. What if you're writing an e-mail message on your own or talking to someone else? Other people usually ignore your mistakes, and even your teacher does not point out all of them.

The conclusion would be that fighting your mistakes is not easy, so it's better to avoid making mistakes altogether.

"But if I'm afraid to make a mistake, I will never open my mouth!"

First, try to be more careful by using the rules of error-free speaking. If you still make a lot of mistakes (= more than 1 mistake every 3 sentences), or if you find that the rules are killing your motivation, you probably shouldn't open your mouth just now. Instead, try to get more input by reading and listening in English.

"But you can't learn anything without mistakes!"

True, but believe us — you can learn English with almost no mistakes. How? You can fill your brain with correct sentences and imitate them. You can simply follow good examples.

If you write or say sentences that are similar to correct English sentences (from a book, a dictionary, or heard from a native speaker), then it is very hard to make a mistake!

"Can I ever make a mistake on purpose?"

Yes. Sometimes you can say or write something which you think is wrong. You can do it if you want to learn how to say something in English. For example, if you are talking to a native speaker, you can do this:

1. Say "I'm not sure how to say this in English, but ..." and then say your sentence (which is probably wrong).
2. The other person can tell you how to say it in English correctly.
3. Learn the correct way to say the sentence.

Notice that this technique is only safe if:

• you know that you are saying something which may be wrong
• you are sure that the other person will correct you if you make a mistake
• you use it only occasionally

Mistakes and pronunciation

We've explained how speaking and writing with mistakes can damage your grammar and vocabulary. But the same can happen to your pronunciation.

Suppose you are talking to someone in English. You don't know how to pronounce a word, so you say it in your own way. Then, you become used to this incorrect pronunciation. You pronounce the word incorrectly again and again. You've gotten yourself a bad pronunciation habit.

In our opinion, pronunciation should be the first thing that you learn about English. If you do anything else, it will usually involve speaking. (Notice that even if you're reading a book, you're often pronouncing the sentences aloud or in your head.) That means you will be speaking with bad pronunciation and you will be teaching yourself bad habits.

So if you really want to avoid mistakes, you must study English pronunciation before you do anything else, and especially before you open your mouth. When you open your mouth, you should know how to pronounce everything you are saying.

websites

I found some useful websites for learning English.

1: http://www.rong-chang.com/
It is a good website to learn English. The most feature is that you can learn how to pronounce Americana's names.

A List of Selected First Names (Baby Names)
A List of Selected Last Names (Surnames)
Fifty States of the United States
State Capitals

Presidents of the United States

Names of Countries
Capitals of Countries

Fruits and Vegetables

Benefit: Learn some pronuciation of names.


http://www.rong-chang.com/qa2/index.html
100 short stories with exercises.

2: http://www.englishbaby.com/
Stories with exercises

http://www.rong-chang.com/englishbaby.htm
A new English lesson with exercises each day, provided by English, Baby!

3: http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/
Earth's Most Right-up-to-date ESL Lessons. News in ESL version

4: http://www.esl-lab.com/
Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab with different levels

5: http://www.eslgold.com/speaking/phrases.html
Commonly used expressions in conversations provided by ESLgold.

6: http://talkenglish.com/
More than 500 lessons with over 5000 audio files. Contains many business English, such as office basis, late or no show, computer related, email, etc.

7: http://www.elllo.org/
Listening activities come with transcripts, quizze

8: http://www.rong-chang.com/book/
An online conversation book with ten lessons including Meeting Friends, Apartment Hunting, and Shopping in USA. Very limited english resources.

9: http://www.englishmed.com/

http://www.rong-chang.com/sites/englishmeddialogue.htm
Animated dialogues for doctors, nurses, and pharmacists.

10: http://www.npr.org/
Chinese news in english

11: http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml
Watch TV news in an interesting way.

12: http://www.history.com/

Video and audio of famous speeches in history.

13: http://wiredforbooks.org/

Streaming hundreds of hours of spoken audio in English - classics, poems, short stories, lectures, and author interviews.

14: http://iteslj.org/questions/

For the ESL/EFL Classroom - A project of the Internet TESL Journal.

15: http://www.eslpod.com/website/index.php

The podcasts are all recorded at a speed you can understand—clearly and comprehensibly.

16: http://www.businessenglishpod.com/

Learn Business English at your convenience with free MP3 Business English Podcasts.

The business English podcast for professionals on the move.

17: http://www.eslbusinessnews.com/

A weekly podcast of international business news read in slow, clear English. Listen to the podcast and follow along in the accompanying script.

18: http://thelinguist.blogs.com/how_to_learn_english_and/podcasts/index.html

Steve Kaufmann, author of the Linguist and founder of www.thelinguist.com , shares his experiences in learning to speak 9 languages and on language learning in general.

19: http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Listening/Podcasts/

ESL listening podcasts. It is a sub-page of the internet TESL jounal’s.

20: http://www.china232.com/

Learning English

21: http://www.rong-chang.com/sites/introductionusa.htm

Online Culture Lessons by Paul Sparks.

22: http://www.rong-chang.com/sites/eslnotes.htm

A detailed synopsis of 100 popular movie with an extensive glossary of vocabulary and various cultural references.

23: http://www.gradedreading.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/index.html

Free graded reading materials for teachers and students of English.

24: http://www.weeklyreader.com/

A magazine for elementary, middle school and high school students.

25: A magazine for elementary, middle school and high school students.

Articles on how to learn English effectively, based on the experiences of successful learners.

26: http://www.rong-chang.com/sites/languageguide.htm

Learn the pronunciation and spelling of thousands of words using an image based interface.

27: http://www.rong-chang.com/gsl2000.htm

The list of the most frequently used 2,000 words by Michael West.

28: http://www.rong-chang.com/sites/leveltest.htm

Take a test to find out your vocabulary size.

29: http://www.rong-chang.com/sites/freevocabulary.htm

A list of words in alphabetical order with concise definitions.

30: http://www.vocabulary.com/

Learn English vocabulary in context (grades 5-12) with free word puzzles.

31: http://www.baltimoresun.com/

Baltimore area newspaper

32: http://www.nypost.com/

New york post

33: http://www.nytimes.com/

New york times

34: http://www.usatoday.com/

USA today

35: http://online.wsj.com/public/us

Wall street journal

36: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Washington post

37: http://www.interest.com/top100.html

Top 100 newspapers

38: http://iteslj.org/

Articles, research papers, lessons plans, classroom handouts, teaching Ideas & links.

39: http://www.topics-mag.com/

A popular online magazine of learners of English, who express their ideas and opinions, and illustrate their writings with drawings and photos.

More through the first link.

A new start

Today is June 25, Monday. I start to work early at 9am today, since my boss told me that I need to wait for a vistor who would come around 9am and I need to give him some info package.
Well, the most important thing is that I need starting my blog again. Here is my blog about my life, especially my job, my english, my GC, etc.
Things has been changed a lot since my last post. I change to a new summer job. Just for the sake of money, I would take it for this summer at least. My english had not improved any bit. I should work more on this part. My GC, this is the exciting part. We filed I-140 on May and will file I-485 in the middle of July.
What I want to do most here is still about my english, which is the important chanllenge in my life.

Forgot to announce my big news: I got my bachelor degree already.