vocabulary and spelling?

[Sam111]

I am not very good with English spelling, writing , or pronunciation.

I am wondering if their is a site that would help me learn the way to properly pronounce English words
Mostly geared to scientific terms and upper class words.

That would help me learn how to properly write things as well.

So I want to be able to speak better , spell better , and write better

Their must be sites out their the speak stuff back , but I don't know how properly they do.

Thanks for any help

[JackScott]

The best way to learn how to speak properly is to find somebody who is a native English speaker and talk to them as much as you can. Same for writing and reading: find a penpal.

I can recommend the site http://livemocha.com.

[Tosi]

The way I learned to pronounce other languages is by using the International Phonetic Alphabet. It can be used to represent the pronunciation of almost any other language, and has marks for indicating pitch, accent, and tone, as well as the pronunciation of the various phonemes. The only difficulty is that it has a steep learning curve, having so many symbols and diacritics. You also have to learn how to pronounce the individual phonemes, and it does require lots of practice to pronounce a word that has multiple sounds that aren't in your language, such as "huître" in French.

As for English spelling, most of it is historical and does not accurately represent the actual pronunciation. There are some basic rules but there are so many exceptions that strict adherence to them can lead to a worse pronunciation than just guessing. Frankly, I would just memorize how a word is spelled and then associate that with its actual pronunciation.

English grammar and morphology is mostly regular, but has some odd quirks from centuries of influence from French and Latin. Is it the conjugation of verbs and the pluralization of nouns that confuses you, or is it how to put the words in the correct order? The first one can be solved through the classic "repeat until you're sick" rote memorization, but the second problem is much more deeply connected to the differences in how speakers of different languages arrange their thoughts. The best I can recommend is trying not to think of English in terms of your own language (i.e., translate from Language X -> English), but try to think of the rules of English in the context of the language itself. Eventually you get a feel for whether a sentence feels "natural" in the language you are speaking; it took me around 5 years to get that way in French, despite the fact that I found French grammar and pronunciation relatively easy.

As always, the more practice you put in, the more results you get out. If you aren't willing to put in some time and work, it will take longer to get better at English. As JackScott recommended, knowing a native speaker of the language, or just somebody who is very fluent in it, will help a lot. If you don't know anybody like that personally, there are plenty of websites on the internet that can set up pen pals, and there are programs such as Skype that will allow you to speak to others over the internet using a microphone. Good luck!

[Combuster]

So I want to be able to speak better , spell better , and write better

Speaking can be done through practice. Vocabulary similarly improves by usage and especially when you have multiple sources of text as you will more likely come across different choices of words. In all the posts here, how many words have you needed to look up in a dictionary?

Spelling and punctuation however needs someone or something to actually correct you. Point in case, you seem to be from an Asian country for consistently putting spaces before commas. You also forgot a period at the end of the sentence. You have to actively compare yourself to whatever standard you wish to conform to. Spell checkers are a great tool to get your writing in line.

[Solar]

A thing that helped me immensely was reading.

Not only did it improve my English. Many books also lose something in translation. I found "The Lord of the Rings" to be a wholly different experience in English. Terry Pratchett can only be really savoured in the original. I haven't even read Harry Potter in German yet.

It's also something that you do in your spare time. You don't use up your "studying time". You just pick up a feeling for the language alongside.

[DavidCooper]

The trouble with the international phonetic alphabet is that it uses lots of weird symbols which no one can type, so it isn't easy to find anything written in it that's worth reading - you only normally see it in dictionaries, and reading through those isn't a lot of fun. A better way to do things would be to find some software designed for blind people which can read everything out for you, and I'd imagine that anything you can read on the Web can be read out by such software. I've heard that the Kindle can read books out to you, so that kind of software must be available for the PC too.

When it comes to spelling, doing all your writing with a spellcheck will sort out most of your problems, but it doesn't always help if you use the wrong correct spelling of a work, as in "Their must be sites out their the speak stuff back" - both times the "their" should be "there". I wouldn't worry too much about that kind of thing though because there's absolutely no problem understanding it, and many native English speakers make the same mistakes these days anyway due to crap education systems which don't teach anything.

Edit: search for "reading software" and see if you can find something - this came up as the fourth result for me: http://www.naturalreaders.com/download.htm. If you try it, let me know if it's any good so I know whether to recommend it to others.

[Love4Boobies]

I started learning to speak English as a kid, watching movies and cartoons. After that, it all came naturally. Perhaps watching movies and talks on subjects you're interested in will help---just make sure there are no subtitles.

As for spelling, you'll need to practice by reading/writing. IRC, forums, etc. will help you a great deal with that as long as you spend some time communicating with the right people. I've seen English improve in several of our members because of them.

[TylerH]

For pronunciation, you can watch videos or listen to talks on topics you're interested in. MIT's OCW (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-e ... r-science/) has a lot of videos of lectures from their classes, if you're interested in math or computer science. You can also access some CS lectures from UC Berkeley (http://webcast.berkeley.edu/series.html ... er_Science). They even have some about OS and system programming. Some TED videos (http://www.ted.com/themes/browse) are interesting and you might be able to find something on YouTube.

[Muneer]

A thing that helped me immensely was reading.

Not only did it improve my English. Many books also lose something in translation. I found "The Lord of the Rings" to be a wholly different experience in English

True down to every word, Reading is the key. Although I have read lots of novels, reading documentations and technical specs was a little different. You find that as a wholly different experience because reading tech docs at leasure wont help much.

The film was also a different experience. But I guess a film that shows that book in all sense can never be accomplished. I am 21 yrs old. Been a fan for the last 12 yrs. Still am.