Dmitry
My first notebook entry Several days ago I decided to countinue my English studies. The plan is to make as much practice and exercises as possible on a daily basis. The issues I would like to focus on are pronunciation and fluency. Actually I thougt my pronunciation is not that bad, but after I've recorded my short conversation with a community tutor I realized that I have a lot to do in order to improve my speaking skills and the way I pronounce English words. Though, during the conversation the teacher could clearly understand what I say (at least I hope so) but all these small details make sense. As far as I don't have an opportunity to visit the USA or the UK (more likely it is going to be the UK) at the moment, my progression will be slow, but I do not care at all. It's quite obvious that even if you live in the reliable enviroment (not sure if that's correct - I mean the country in which people speak the language that you learn natively) for a long time, you will still have an accent, so the goals are to speak fluently and do not make too much mistakes in order not to bother people with whom I will speak with. Since I'm focusing on speaking I've started to listen BBC Radio 4, some of the BBC podcasts and films without translation and subs. There are also several TV shows that I am watching and they are: 'Never mind the buzzcocks', 'The Countdown' and Stephen's Fry's 'QI' (his pronunciation is brilliant! ). As you may noticed from the list these all are British television shows and British radio programmes. No offence for the American English speakers, this is just my personal prefference.
Jan 31, 2015 11:07 AM
Corrections · 1

My first notebook entry

Several days ago I decided to countinue my English studies. The plan is to practise as much as possible on a daily basis. The issues I would like to focus on are pronunciation and fluency. Actually, I thought my pronunciation was not that bad, but after recording my short conversation with a community tutor I realized that I have a lot to do in order to improve my speaking skills and the way I pronounce English words. Though, during the conversation the teacher could clearly understand what I was saying (at least I hope so) but all these small details make sense are still relevant.
As far as I don't have an opportunity to visit the USA or the UK (more likely it is going to be the UK) at the moment, my progress will be slow, but I do not care at all. It's quite obvious that even if you live in the reliable enviroment (not sure if that's correct - I mean the country in which people speak the language that you learn natively) [you could just say 'a native English environment'] for a long time, you will still have an accent, so the goals are to speak fluently and not to make too much mistakes in order not to bother people with whom I will speak with during a conversation.
Since I'm focusing on speaking, I started listening to BBC Radio 4, some of the BBC podcasts and films without translation and subs. There are also several TV shows that I am currently watching and they are: 'Never mind the buzzcocks', 'The Countdown' and Stephen's Fry's 'QI' (his pronunciation is brilliant!). As you may have noticed from the list, these all are British television shows and British radio programmes. No offence to the American English speakers, this is just my personal prefference.

<em>Your English is very good! Just pay attention to the Sequence of Tenses and try to keep to one verb tense when writing, so, if you start in Past, keep it Past. Good luck!</em>

January 31, 2015
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