Improving English Skills

Olá Leandro,

Boa noite. As a former Vancouverite and the Brazilian representative of Expat-blog Experts Team I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you on board.

I am Canadian born, lived near Toronto for the first 26 years and in Vancouver for 26. Now I've been in Brazil for 13. I have been an English teacher for 27 years now.

You are wise to continue striving to improve and to use your English language skills, since as with any second language the moment you stop using the language you begin losing it. You must, however, always seek to converse with other individuals who have a higher level of fluency than you do, in order to challenge yourself and to grow in the language. If you converse with people who have a lesser level of fluency you will find that you sink down to their level.

Remember that listening skills make up 50% of the spoken language so you must work hard at keeping them up. Use English music and try and write the lyrics as you listen. Watch films on DVD. The first time you watch a movie use English audio ONLY and no subtitles. You will understand much of what is being said simply because of the action and situation. Watch the same movie a second time with English audio and English subtitles. That will help you understand what you may have missed the first time around. If possible to watch a third or fourth time (same conditions as the second viewing) this will only make it easier still. NEVER use Portuguese subtitles or that will destroy all your hard work. If you don't understand an English word in the subtitles write it down (keep a pen and notepad handy while watching), then check out the definition of the words you've written down in a dictionary afterwards.

When learning new vocabulary DO NOT focus just on the word itself and it's meaning; but rather write down full sentences that use the word. Just like Portuguese many words (especially verbs) have many different meanings so if you just do a simple translation then you miss the other meanings completely.

For example the word CRAZY which all Brazilians know means LOUCO

Bob is crazy. (louco)
Bob isn't crazy about his new job. (não gosta)
Bob is crazy about Mary. (apaixonado)
My grandmother is sewing a crazy quilt. (aleatória / sem padrão)

So as you can see just with this one word if you simply translate you learn one meaning and miss the other three, by not writing full sentences. It's even more important when it comes to verbs since some have as many as 21 different meanings.

A primeira aula é de graça, mas a partir dai vou cobrar, viu!

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team

Hi William!

Nice to meet you and thank you for replying me back. I would like to thank you for the tips which you have written on your post. I will do what you wrote me.

Thank you very much.

Cheers,

Leandro.

Hello, guys!
I'm leaving Toronto in a few days after six months here. I am going to Brazil and I really don't know when I will come back to Canada but I will.
My English isn't bad, but I  wanna improve it while I live in Brazil.
Thank you so much for the tip.

Best regards

Fernanda

Hello Fernanda,

On behalf of everybody here at Expat-blog, welcome on board. I hope your participation here will be both enjoyable and informative.

Just out of curiosity where will you be living when you return to Brazil? Perhaps I can point you in the right direction to finding someone with whom you can practice your English.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team