When I came to the United States, I was barely fluent in spoken English, although on paper I seemed competent in the language. In fact, it turned out the English I had learned over the course of my middle and high school years was quite different from American English.

When you’re not comfortably fluent in the language of your “new home,” a casual chat can rapidly turn into a rollercoaster of confusing words. I could barely even understand the information that the immigration officer told me when I landed in the U.S.

Now, after two years, I can proudly say that my English is lot better than it used to be, although I’m still trying to improve my speaking skills.  To get there, I had to understand that assimilating to a language is an art. You have to feel it, visualize it, and experience it yourself. It’s an art that you create, not that you learn. Here are the four ways in which I have crafted my own art of fluency.

1.     The Craft of Listening

Treatment with leeches. Woodcut from Historia Medica by W. van den Bossche.

Have you ever heard of leeches? There are slimy and tiny worm-like organisms that can suck human blood without even getting noticed. A leech will absorb as much blood as it pleases, and then instinctively lets go and begins its well-deserved digestion break.

I know, you must be wondering why I would talk about leeches in an article about learning English. But actually, those little creatures can teach us a lot about the approach to take when learning English. If you really want to be comfortable with daily spoken English, you have to start absorbing the language as much as you can.

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I will never forget my very first conversation with an American. He was an employee at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. I was a new arrival, highly exhausted after almost 20 hours of flight.

When this is all you want, and you can’t remember the word for it

Upon landing I found myself overwhelmed by homesickness, and very badly wanted to find a telephone to call my parents. I went up to this man to ask for help, but blanked immediately after opening my mouth.

I did eventually ask for the phone and call my parents, but I was so frustrated by that experience. It was as if I had never learned English before! I was considered to be good at English in China, yet I almost felt the worker at the airport was talking to me in another language.

My mind was blown again when I ate at an American restaurant for the first time. I had no idea that most of the words I had learned for food were about fast food.

It is true that we international students take the TOEFL exam before coming to the U.S., and this exam seems well-balanced in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. But it still doesn’t fully prepare you for what it’s like to be immersed in a language.

Why academics turned out to be the biggest struggle

It was inside the classroom where I really had trouble at first. I could understand lectures for the most part, except for certain accents that I had not been exposed to before. However, participating in classroom discussion was very hard.

What a small, discussion-based class might look like (Creative Commons Photo: Marcos Ojeda)

I was so shocked by my American classmates’ thought-provoking and nicely-phrased comments that I did not even try to speak out – not because of a lack of ideas, but because of a lack of confidence in my English. Since we have many interactive, small-sized classes at my school, not being able to participate in classroom discussions disappointed me very much.

[More about surviving academics in English]

Writing papers was also difficult, which was a problem because as a liberal arts major my life is always occupied with writing—lots and lots of writing. In my first semester, I would always receive comments on my papers like, “Try to be more clear (explicit),” no matter how clear and explicit I thought my papers were.

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Editor’s note: Shree is currently in the process of applying to study in the U.S. for the fall of 2013. He’s agreed to take us with him on that process, recapping each step as he accomplishes it, and filling us in on what he did right and wrong so we can learn from his mistakes.  First up, the TOEFL.

I have always feared standardized tests. In fact, I fear all tests, from college exams to oral exams at the dentist. A fear of something-might-just-go-wrong always makes me nervous. So I was not looking forward to the standardized tests I was told by U.S. Education Foundation advisors would be crucial to my college applications. But, the TOEFL turned out to be different.

Alongside the SAT/ACT, the TOEFL is the standardized test required by most U.S. colleges. Unlike the SAT, however, which sort of measures the intellectual ability of students, the TOEFL is a check of basic skills – Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing (the four sections of the test) – the same things students do during their school years.  In other words, you don’t need to be smart to score high on the TOEFL.

[What is the minimum required TOEFL score?]

But you do need to know the test format in advance.

The TOEFL is strictly formatted in each and every section. For example, the writing section always contains an integrated task (writing an essay based on a given report and a lecture) and an independent task (a topic is given in which we are free to write).

Knowing the format and instructions beforehand helped me a lot during the test. Although they give you time to read the instructions for every section, I found that reading the instructions broke my focus, so I learned them ahead of time and skipped them during the test. Sometimes I would take deep breaths during that time to ease the pressure, because once the sections start they don’t pause.

[How nerves impacted Anna's TOEFL performance]

Photo by Nick Hoang

Knowing the format isn’t everything though.  I practiced.  A lot.  Over and over again. I found the Delta’s Key to the TOEFL Test book to be very useful, as it contained drills on individual question types, and I used the Cambridge Preparation for the TOEFL Test book to work on basic skills like note-taking, summarizing and paraphrasing. The fun part about TOEFL, though, was that I didn’t need to actually *practice* to get practice.  There were a lot of ways to fit TOEFL preparations into my normal, everyday life.
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“I have always asked myself why people have made borders. Is it right that because my grandfathers lived in this land, it is mine and no one else has the right to live in it? Why do people want to get away from each other and differentiate themselves from one another? For example people say: “I’m from Afghanistan”, “I’m from Saudi Arabia,” or “I’m from England” and so on. Why they don’t say “we are from this world” Let’s open our minds and think about it as if we didn’t have the word “country” that all these countries were only one, and we wouldn’t suffer from discrimination or racism.”

Jawad says his love of education developed over a lifetime of struggling to stay in school, as his family moved between Iran and Afghanistan to escape war and discrimination, and fought to afford school expenses. “Education is a gift,” he recalls of the times when he was able to attend school regularly as a child.

“In my opinion, education, from which our people were deprived through the three decades of war, is the major problem of our society. Instead, superstitions and wrong beliefs have opened their space among people. Being educated, the parents would know the fact that all humans have the rights for education and what bright future it will bring to the family. They should give their children the right to choose while they should not force them to do hard work. If they are educated, they will know the fact that how worthy education is, therefore they would send their children to school to build their future and the community.”

Jawad says he completed most of his later schooling in night schools, learning computer skills and studying English.

Since 2010, he has been applying to continue his education at a U.S. university. One of his major challenges is the cost. Jawad says he needs full financial aid, and although he was admitted to a university in 2011, he couldn’t accept the offer.

“The college provided me 13,000 USD scholarships each year for four years. The rest I had to pay (About 35000 USD each year) but I had only 3,000 USD in my personal savings account that I had been saved since long time. We have a poor family financial position here, my family couldn’t help me. I tried some foundations and charities as well but it was disappointing. Finally I refused their offer because I couldn’t afford to.”

But he also says he is having trouble reaching the level of English he needs to gain admission to schools that might give him a full scholarship. His English skills have waxed and waned as he took and abandoned jobs that required him to put those skills to work. His TOEFL results from last year were 483 – not high enough, he says, to meet the standards of many universities.
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Many of you, including our own blogger Nick, have suggested using American songs as a way to practice English.  Well, the holiday season is filled with classic Christmas carols that are great for just that purpose.

Some Christmas carols have been around so long that they use beautiful archaic language like “hither and thither,” which most English speakers can still recognize as meaning “here and there.” But I bet even native English speakers don’t know the meaning of some of these words that pop up in their favorite Christmas songs.

Lowing
Heard in: Away in a Manger

“The cattle are lowing, the poor baby wakes”

Lowing (verb) = Mooing

Verily, Riven
Heard in: Ding Dong Merrily on High

“Ding dong, verily the sky is riv’n with angel singing”

Verily (adverb) = Truly

Riven (adjective) = Split Read the rest of this entry »

You might remember last year we had a blast recording and sharing a few phone conversations where the bloggers compared notes from their year in the States.

If you haven’t listened to those, check ‘em out.  They were lots of fun: Pete and Repeat are on a Boat…and Other Adventures in American Culture

In fact, they were so much fun that we did it again!  Here’s the first of two phone conversations we had recently. Take a listen:

Or download the mp3

In this one we discuss why the bloggers chose to study in the U.S. and some of the pieces of American culture they’ve found most difficult to get used to (yelling and oversharing). We also share stories about the problems with having an accent, and share some tips for getting rid of it.  Plus, Thuy tells us about what it’s like to study for an MBA.

Of course there’s also tons of advice for anyone thinking about applying to U.S. colleges or business schools in the near-ish future. If you’re only looking for the advice bit, it starts at about 21 minutes in, and there’s lots more coming in the second conversation, so stay tuned for that as well.

Oh yeah, and we almost burn down an apartment! (Just in case the other stuff wasn’t exciting enough for you…)

Germain is from Benin and is studying in France at Supméca-Paris for a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering.  As part of his studies, he is required to do a number of internships, and his current internship has brought him to a university in America for a semester.  He contacted me a few months before coming to the U.S. because he was worried that his English wasn’t good enough and he couldn’t find many opportunities in Paris to practice with native speakers – this is the story of how he found a solution.

Hello everybody!

Photo by Nick Hoang

In each year of Supméca, we must do a mandatory internship. My dream was to perform my 2nd year internship abroad, especially in the U.S. After a huge amount of applications sent to companies and universities around the U.S., I ended up getting accepted for a research internship at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

After being accepted, I immediately started to worry about my poor spoken English. As you know, for a non-native English speaker being able to write a resume or a cover letter doesn’t necessarily imply being able to have daily conversation free from, “What?” “Can you repeat that?” or “Can you speak more slowly, please?” That was my case.

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“Remember to keep warm when you get there. America is a cold place. And to call us daily. Don’t forget us.”

Brunch at an American dining hall (Creative Commons photo by Flickr user superfem)

These very words were the ultimate installment in a long series of many, many snippets of well-meaning advice from aunts, uncles, friends, neighbors, cousins, passers-by, cousins of those passers-by, and anyone else who had caught wind of the fact that I was, indeed, going to America.

I had been warned about things such as the perceived perils of overeating when I got there, and it had been predicted that once I tasted that delicious American food, I would surely eat too much of it until I fell ill or exploded.

Would I cope with speaking in English all of the time? No, it was hypothesized that I would surely forget I was in North America and I would end up confusing my American friends by cracking jokes to them in my native language while still expecting them to laugh at those jokes.

And what of the cold? Would I survive? I would never cope with all that ice! After all, America is colder than the deep freezer! (an actual quote).

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Am I the one? Am I the Promise who promised himself his Nigerian accent was not going to take a slip? I never would have believed I could so easily twist my tongue in an American twang.

But let’s go back to the beginning.

Yawn!

You might be asking, “How has the experience been so far?” I have been doing well – yawning like 50 times a day (not exaggerating). I haven’t slept for a total of 12 hours for the past three days I have been in Minneapolis. Could it be heat? The excitement? Maybe you can help me with that.

Tonight is one reason.

It’s 11:39 pm here, and I can picture you forming a question like, “Why is this dude not sleeping at this time?” Well, I have been asking myself that question too; but you’ll laugh when you find out why.

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In this video, by a student in San Diego, international students talk about their biggest struggles when they first arrived in the U.S. For most, it was keeping up with English.

If you like “kelzosaurus”‘s video, she has another on making friends, and one on culture as well.

The library at NTU

This summer I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of months in Taipei, Taiwan studying Mandarin Chinese at the International Chinese Language Program. It was a great experience and probably one my best summers ever – meeting new people, exploring a new place, and really improving my Chinese through intensive study.

Some of my cooler experiences from Taiwan involved language exchanges with local friends. I met with two Taipei residents, Angela and Lynn, separately usually once a week, and we would alternate between English and Mandarin conversation for a couple of hours.

It turns out that language exchange is a pretty common practice at National Taiwan University (NTU), where my language program was located. The language center on campus had tons of flyers from people seeking exchange partners, as did the bulletin board in the lobby of my dormitory (although it was actually a mutual friend who initially introduced me to Angela and Lynn).

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There’s a great discussion happening on Quora between a group of Singaporeans discussing what it’s like to study in the U.S.

A lot of what they talk about we’ve discussed before, such as trying to fit in but maintain your home culture, or being in a minority ethnic group for the first time.  But these two stood out to me as things we haven’t really touched on:

1) Transitioning to American English

Hongwan Liu writes:

Singaporean English is so completely different from American English that using what we think of as ‘English’ would be an insurmountable communication barrier to Americans, yet we know no other way of speaking English. The need to learn a new way of speaking doesn’t really occur to you till you actually arrive in the US, and when it finally hits you, it suddenly becomes a struggle to speak what is technically your first language. I must say the American accent is really unnatural to me: it took me the better part of 3 years to achieve an accent that is not really American, but at least not placeable as being clearly foreign.

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Over the past few days, the BBC has been ranting about what writer Matthew Engel called “ugly and pointless” ways American usage differs from British English. They even collected a list of 50 American words and expressions that Brits find annoying, irritating, and even infuriating. It includes things like:

“Can I get a … ” (as a way to ask for something)

“24/7″ (to say 24 hours a day, 7 days a week)

“Going forward” (to mean from now on)

“Bi-weekly” (to say once every two weeks)

There have been plenty of responses to the list, both from people who support the annoyed Brits, and those who defend the Americans. Whichever side you fall on, these are some great examples of the (often unexpected) ways British and American English are different.

Last week we shared a post from VOA intern Matthew Kopfer, who talked about common mistakes Russians make when learning English, and why some of them are very funny to Americans.

Since then, some of you have shared your own funny mistakes, or ones you’ve heard your friends make. Sure, no one likes to make a mistake, but being able to laugh at yourself when it happens makes learning way more fun!

Homayoon wrote:

Once a road in a rural township was under construction and it was supposed to be asphalted. While US military convoy crossing the area, the road was blocked. The American Soldier asked his interpretor that why the is blocked, the interpretor doesn’t understand how to tell the word asphalt, he translates the word “Pukhtan” from his native language which means cooking. He respond his U.S soldier that “A road company is cooking the road”.

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