Did you know that...
About 1,500,000,000 people in the world speak English. Another 1,000,000,000 are learning it
75% of the world's letters and postcards are written in English
Almost all international conferences and competitions are conducted in English. For example, the Olympic Games and the Miss World contest
Diplomats and politicians from different countries use English to communicate with each other. English is the main language of organizations like the United Nations, NATO, and the European Free Trade Association
Out of all the eight letter words in the English language, only one has only one vowel in it: "strength"
Only 3 words in the English language end in "ceed": "proceed," "exceed," and "succeed."
Of all the languages in the world, English has the largest vocabulary about 800,000 words.
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
No language has more synonyms than English.
"Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."
French was the official language of England for over 600 years.
There is only ONE word in the English language with THREE CONSECUTIVE SETS OF DOUBLE LETTERS.... Bookkeeper
Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village"
Exercise 4. Read the text and say if you consider these pieces of advice useful and which tactics would you recommend to your groupmates?
How to make your english almost effortless
Learning a foreign language is not an easy thing. This long and slow process takes a lot of time, efforts and patience.
There are different ways of mastering a foreign language (see fig. 1.1). It is useful to read books in the original, listen to the songs or watch films, take private lessons, speak with native speakers or go abroad and study there. Some people do.
Figure 1.1. Traditional ways of mastering a foreign language
All these activities are traditional for those willing to study English. But what is the most important English skill? What skill must you have to communicate well?
Obviously, number 1 is fluency. What is fluency? Fluency is the ability to speak (and understand) English quickly and easily... WITHOUT translation. Fluency means you can talk easily with native speakers – they easily understand you, and you easily understand them. In fact, you speak and understand instantly. Fluency is your most important English goal.
The research is clear – there is only ONE way to get fluency. You won’t get fluency by reading textbooks. You won’t get fluency by going to English schools. You won’t get fluency by studying grammar rules. Listening is the key.
If You have tried the traditional ways. If You tried textbooks. If You tried grammar study. And still there is almost no success – it is time to try something new! May the success come to you with English learning by listening!
So to get English fluency, you must have a lot of understandable repetitive listening. That is the ONLY way. To be a FANTASTIC English speaker, you must learn English with your ears, not with your eyes. In other words, you must listen. Your ears are the key to excellent speaking. What kind of listening is best? Well, it must be understandable and must be repetitive. If you don’t understand, you learn nothing. You will not improve. That’s why listening to English TV won’t help you. You won’t understand most of it. It is too difficult. It is too fast. If you do not understand, you will not improve. So, the best listening material is EASY. That’s right, you should listen mostly to easy English. Most students listen to English that is much too difficult. They don’t understand enough, and so they learn slowly. Listen to easier English, and your speaking will improve faster!