HACKER Q&A
📣 qnsi

How to Perfect Your English


I guess my english level is pretty ok. I read most of the information on the Internet / books in english.

But I don't talk/write that much. Sometimes I don't feel that confident in my english knowledge.

Any good tips on how to be better at this? What I would ideally want is some kind of feedback mechanism that tells me when I made a mistake, for example in grammar.

What I can think of: 1) Grammarly - try to write notes in english and check text in Grammarly. But I don't like them having access to all keystrokes 2) Try to add a lot of stuff to Anki - I think a little bit to tedious

Ideally, I would have something like Clozemasters (by HN User) [1] but the database they use for english is pretty bad.

I am sure there are a lot of you for example from Europe or China that came up with some good solution to the problem of perfecting English

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13676105

  👤 gigatexal Accepted Answer ✓
Have you looked into finding English language YouTubers you could watch/listen to to get a better ear for the language? It might make your skills more native sounding. Same idea with English podcasts. I find having to study the banality of a language tedious but if I’m listening to the Accidental Tech Podcast, for example, and I like tech and am trying to hear English spoken by native speakers, then it’s like I am learning without the tedium.
👤 qnsi
For anyone browsing HN in the future, when they try to get answers to interesting questions this is what I found after an hour of googling:

https://languagelearning.stackexchange.com/questions/3399/is...

this is probably the best "forum" to browse and find tactical and strategic information.

I link to the specific question, because I think I will go with autogenerated cloze Anki flashcards as adviced in the second answer.

👤 downerending
Hmm. The English in this post is probably already above the average level of English as written in the US.

I suppose one thing you could do is to simply encourage your correspondents to point out your errors. A little humbling, perhaps, but there's a lot to be said for rapid feedback.

You didn't ask, but here's a little:

English in the sense of the language is invariably capitalized.

okay is perhaps a more correct spelling, though many use OK or ok informally.

most of the information sounds a bit odd. Maybe just most things.

Probably when I have made.

You're missing a couple of periods at the end of sentences.

This is all rather trivial, though. Your (written) English is essentially at a native level.