most people would tolerate non-fluent English as majority of Malaysians have awkward sounding English accent to begin with.

you just have to press on on opportunity given. my friend who last time was so shy in speaking English now speaks soooooooooooo well.

Sorry, I just have this urge to correct this...its CONVERSE not conserve. Conserve is totally a different thing, example, conserving water/woodlands.

Cheers.

Surfing forum is one of the good way!

Yes it may prove worthwhile but got to beware of the "forum/internet langauge".
I'm from the age when IRC starts booming in the mid 90s and quite addicted and engrossed. Seriously a lot of us got caught up with using abbreviations and internet chat language, thus it's really hard for us to write essays in reality as we tend to shorthand our sentences.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

get yourself a group of more supportive friends. your current friends are definately jerks

that's rude...

okay, so how to you describe the people who laugh at others who speaks incompetence english?

Damn rude? Honestly, I really can't stand some of my friends who likes to laugh at oth ppl's incompabilities in pronouncing English words correctly. Just because you're better doesn't give you the licence to look down on oth ppls.

yes, that is very true. if you are good at English, you should help out your friends by correcting them but not laughing at them. macho_siot, don't bother them if they are keep on laughing at you. you should take it as a challenge or something to motivate you to be better & excel in writing or talking. don't let people look down on you include your friends.

For me.... Read a book, watch movie..

U join forum like this also can improve ur language....

I think if you want to learn a language, first thing is to love the language. Bear in mind that English is beautiful. For grammar, buy those grammar books, even though they are for children, just hide in your bedroom and read, because they are easy to understand, fast to finish(haha), and most important, you need the basics. Then read more, if you read English everyday, you'll start to think in English, start with simpler books like Chicken Soup, there are wonderful and simple quotes and sentences there. You can watch English programs like Oprah Show, her english is easy to understand....for vocab part, try using thesaurus,i think it is the most effective way to learn more words...for the presentation part, you can look for books which teach you how to speak, write, presenting with proper language and etc....there are lots out there...read Reader Digest, open a blog and write it in English, you'll find yourself starting to tell what is happening in your daily life using English....anyway..just my opinion

Be careful of forums though, there are lot of direct translations from Chinese as far as I can tell (even here).

I guess first of all, you gotta ask yourself by how much do you want to improve your English? Do you want to be able to speak fluently like English native speakers? Or you are satisfied with Manglish/Singlish?

This post has been edited by HanYH: Dec 14 2008, 02:34 AM

To improve English, I think these tips do work (at least for me), you may take them as reference:

1. It is crucial to love the language. Yes, I really love English, ever since I was young.
   
   
2. Don't feel embarrassed to communicate in English. If others tend to correct your mistakes, take it as guidance and make sure do not repeat the same mistakes next time.
   
   
3. Do some reading. As for me, I'm not a bookworm. Sadly. Nevertheless, I read newspapers, online articles everyday and I'm a subscriber for Reader's Digest. RD is a very interesting magazine, I would recommend this to all.
   
   
4. To improve my vocabulary, I actually forced myself to read dictionary during my schooling days and of course I can't remember every single word that I read, I do not have superior memory.
   
   
5. Play words based games. I'm addicted to Facebook's Word Challenge.
   
   
6. To enhance your confidence in speaking English in the public, you can try practising talking to the mirror. Make sure your body language is good too. As for pronunciation, I installed a free software - Wordweb on my computer, it has the pronunciation feature. It is actually an English PC dictionary. You can get it for free here.
   
   
7. Try to write a blog, in English obviously. It is optional though. But blogging does help my language.

These are the methods on how I improve my English throughout these years. Of course, learning is a lifelong process. I'm also a learner and hope to learn from others too.

This post has been edited by fruitie: Dec 14 2008, 11:37 PM

For certain ideas, I will agree with frutile. Like in terms of blogging, and playing (but I am more into RPG or SLG games, not word based game)

I am not good at reading (actually... I don't like to read and I force myself to do so), but speaking might improve your English. (My course in UNI is an English course, so I got no choice )

I will prefer to focus on grammar rather than vocabularies. This is because to let other people understand what you are going to tell is more important than to let other people thinks that you know English well because of vocabularies. Nothing to be shy of if you use simple words, as long as you can pass your message clearly. (I am improving my grammar, and sometimes myself also can get it wrong)

About love the language, it might be... but I am not so sure as I don't know I love English or not (but I get used to English).

Hope these will help.

I don't know what to read in Reader digest. I have lot in my house. Soemtimes I just study the fact of life subtopic.Whta else intresting?

In my opinion, learning English is a lifelong process. Why not try reading newspaper everyday? I enjoy reading newspaper. It not only helps you improve your language but also your general knowledge It helps me to write better english essays with my wider knowledge in daily issues ( eg crime etc etc ). Besides that, try joining school clubs such as interact club ( i wonder if this is helpful ) and public speaking if there is. It will really boost your language power.

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Added on December 15, 2008, 12:28 amO yeah, posting more in this forum with the proper use of english will improve your english too

This post has been edited by ReaperOfSoul: Dec 15 2008, 12:28 AM

Read many english articles and books. Take note any word that you don't understand and try to look at dictionary.
Save all of this in a book for your future reference. It helps me alot.

i am using hazairi way to improving my english
everyday i will search for the meaning of words that i don't know

The best is to read, write, speak, listen and use it all the time. Even think with it.