10 Practical Tips to Improve Your English Faster

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Welcome to Speak Better English with Harry — a podcast for intermediate learners who want to speak natural, confident English in real conversations.

In this first episode, I share 10 practical tips that will help you improve your English in a clear and focused way. Many learners work hard but still feel stuck. These tips explain what really matters if you want steady, long-term progress.

You’ll learn:

• how to study consistently without losing motivation
• why simple English often sounds clearer and more confident
• how to practise listening, speaking, reading, and writing effectively
• and how to avoid common mistakes that slow your improvement

This episode gives you a strong foundation so you can get more value from every future episode.

Ideal for intermediate and upper-intermediate learners who want practical guidance and real improvement.

If you often hesitate, make mistakes, or feel unsure when speaking English, book a trial lesson. We assess your level, correct you clearly, and give you a focused plan so you know exactly what to improve. 

Book a free trial here: https://www.englishlessonviaskype.com/trial

If you prefer to study on your own, explore our online courses. They give you structured lessons to build stronger grammar, clearer pronunciation, and more confident speaking step by step

Discover all courses and guides: https://englishlessonviaskype.com/confidence

Transcript

0:09

Hi there, this is Harry and welcome to Advanced English Lessons with Harry where we try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language, helping you with your conversational English, business English, preparation for those proficiency exams, whatever it takes, we're here to help you. Instead of a particular lesson today focusing on vocabulary or grammar, I thought it would be a good idea to look at giving you some really important tips as to how you can improve your English. So I've got 10 particular tips. Okay, let's go through the first particular tip. And the first one is to know your level. Now, this sounds very simple, but you'd be amazed how many people come to me without any real understanding of what the level is. Your levels for exams can be documented as A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. And when you get a bit of paper or certificate from doing an exam, it will indicate what your level will be. So these are good indicators as to where you are with your English. It doesn't mean that you're fluent. Just because somebody has B1 or B2 certificate doesn't actually mean that they're fluent in English. And this is the one disagreement I have with that sort of marking approach. But it does give me an indication as to where the student is likely to be. So we can then pitch the lessons based on that level. So we're not going in too low and we're not going in too high. Because the worst thing is to start off at a much lower level, you get bored very quickly. Or if you start at a level that's too high, then indeed you struggle and you lose confidence very quickly. So it's important to identify your level so that the teacher can then build the course around you so that you can get a much better understanding of English. You'll feel much happier in your lessons. And indeed, you're probably likely to make much more progress. Now, my second tip is about consistency. And I use the word consistency because it's really, really important. It doesn't matter to me whether the student takes one lesson, two lessons or three lessons a week. What's much more important is this consistency in attending the classes. If the student only takes one lesson a week, well then let's make sure it is that Wednesday every week or that Thursday every week. If students begin to change or cancel lessons or don't turn up, then they are wasting their money, the teacher is wasting their time and it won't be any surprise that the student won't make the progress that he thinks he should. So when you're consistent, you turn up every Wednesday or Saturday or Sunday, the teacher will be there, the teacher will be prepared, so you will get much more enjoyment for your lesson. And after three or four weeks, you will begin to see progress. It might be limited or it might be really good, depends on your level, but you will begin to see progress. The more consistent your studying is, the more consistent your appearances at the lesson and your attendance, the better your improvement. My third tip is about keeping it simple and stupid. Again, this is really, really simple in my opinion, particularly when it comes to written English, but also with regard to your spoken English. Don't try to be something that you're not. Don't try to use words that you don't understand. The biggest mistake people can make is to try and use expressions and phrasal verbs and then they get them wrong. And that sounds really, really strange. So you're better off not using them than using them incorrectly. So at the beginning, again, I emphasize at the beginning of your learning, make sure you keep your sentences short. A short statement, a short sentence can say a lot. No mistakes and therefore much more clearly understood by the person you're trying to communicate with. So keep it simple and stupid. And this is really, really important when we're writing. So if you break the sentence down into two or three shorter sentences, firstly, it'll be much more clearly understood as to what you're trying to say. Secondly, there'll be less mistakes. And thirdly, you'll feel much more confident in your writing skills. And again, as you progress later, then you can use clauses or other ways in which you can join one or two sentences together so that you can make them more complicated or more complex if you need to. The most important part of English is that you are very clearly understood and you very clearly understand what has been said to you. And the only way to do that is if we can keep the language simple. It's amazing when somebody asks you to repeat something two or three times how quickly your confidence disappears because you feel a little bit foolish. Maybe I'm not being clear enough. Maybe my pronunciation is bad. What about my accent? So you get all flustered and confused and you lose your confidence. If you keep it simple, straightforward, don't use too many big words. Use phrases and expressions by all means, but make sure that they're used correctly. Okay, so kiss, keep it simple, stupid. A lot of students come to me from other teachers or when they begin the lessons, they ask me, am I going to give them vocabulary to learn? Give me 10 or 15 or 20 words and I'll learn them. I really, really don't support that as a theory or as a way of learning English. Yes, you'll see lots and lots of words, but I almost guarantee that from the first minute that you start practicing those, you'll forget them very, very quickly. A much better way of approaching vocabulary and expressions is to take a few of them, understand them really well, understand how we use them, understand which preposition we might use with them if they're adjectives or verbs, and put them into sentences. And then you'll see the meaning immediately and you're much more likely to remember them. Okay, so diving into a dictionary, taking a page or two pages, memorizing words, I don't really go for it. It's a waste of your time. You won't remember the words and you get very, very frustrated. Tip number five is all about finding a good teacher. There are lots and lots of good teachers out there, really, really fine teachers who are really ready, willing and able to help you. So what have I got next? Well, in tip number six, we're talking about listening. We have to understand what other people are saying. And the only way to do that is to listen. You know, we always use this little joke. We've got one mouth and two ears and we should use those in that proportion. Okay, so we should listen twice as much as we speak. But if you want to practice listening skills, a good way to do it is to get audiobooks. They're a really, really good way to do it. When you get an audiobook, particularly if the narrator is good, you get really strong and good pronunciation so you can practice the pronunciation. You get very clear understanding of what the English is, and you get to understand vocabulary and expression. So I would really recommend audiobooks as a really good way to improve your listening. You can also get plenty of podcasts. They're available on the internet. God knows there's lots and lots of information there. So depending on where you consider your weakness to be, check out podcasts that will help you with that. One of the other skills, of course, that we have in our English is speaking. And if you're not practicing with the teacher, what do you do? Lots of students say, well, I've no one to practice with. What can I do if I'm not talking to you? Well, of course, it is a problem. If your family or one of your family speaks English, well, try to practice with them. It may not be perfect. You may make mistakes, but you know what? At least it's practice. I often suggest have an evening or two evenings a week when you only speak English. Perhaps over the evening meal. When you're preparing the meal, talk about things in English when you're preparing the food or when you're getting the table ready. And then when you sit down together, try talking in English. It could be a bit of fun. Talk about a movie you've watched, what you did for the day. Again, simple English, but try and practice. If you don't have anybody at home who speaks English, well, perhaps you might try and find a buddy somewhere. You could find them online. You could find them in work. Try and participate in those work sessions. I know when somebody says, oh, we're going to have a team meeting later, everybody goes, oh, God, another teams meeting. But apart from the work, they can be really good ways for you to practice. And don't be embarrassed or afraid to jump in there and make a comment. Usually at the beginning of these Teams meetings, there's a bit of a briefing or a chit-chat or small talk. Try and participate in that. And when the business end of it is over at the end, people might be saying things like, well, what are you doing for the weekend? What are you going to do now? And again, try to participate and at least listen to it and pick up the words that they use. Ask a question or don't be afraid to say, well, what was that? What do you mean by that? Again, it will help you to practice. Lots of people when they're writing and practicing their writing, they cheat. They use Grammarly and they use Google Translates. And I understand exactly why they do it. The problem with that is you won't learn from it. If somebody else is correcting those mistakes and you don't see it, then you just, it won't register. Okay. And, you know, that just becomes a little bit lazy. And then sometime when you're asked to write something and Grammarly or Google Translates isn't available, what are you going to do? You'll be lost. Okay. So try and switch them off. Try and practice. Okay, I understand if you're in a rush, you have to submit a document to your boss. Yeah, of course you want to make sure it's as perfect as possible. But if you're practicing your writing skills, which you should do, do it without the use of Grammarly and do it without Google Translates. Again, keep it simple. Don't have very, very long sentences. Keep them short. Start off with writing essays of 100 words or 150 words, because there's no point writing 300 or 400 words and there's lots and lots of mistakes. Better to have 70 or 80 words correct than move up to 100, 120, 150 and so on. So as you get improvements, you can add on extra sentences and before you know it, you have a 250 or 300 word essay with very, very few mistakes. Okay, so that was tip number eight. Now tip number nine. Tip number nine is important. It's all to do with reading. Okay, I really love reading and I like to recommend that students should read. It's a great way to improve your vocabulary. It's a great way to see how expressions are used. It's a great way to look at structure. Okay, so as much reading as you can do. Sometimes it can be a bit of a struggle if your level is not so good, but you can find books that are suitable for all levels. The really important tip here is when you decide to read an English book, make sure that it's a modern book. There's little point in reading Jane Eyre. There's little point in reading Charles Dickens. Absolutely love Charles Dickens. They are really good books, but they're not going to help you to improve your English in the modern world. So what you need to do is get books. And if you need some recommendations, very, very happy to recommend books for you at all different levels. But look at modern books written in the last 10 years or so, particularly those books that focus on conversational style, language, the relationship style books, because there'll be plenty of examples of conversations. There's plenty examples of the way people speak naturally and it'll help you to see how they use it, where they use it, and then follow the particular language that way. And then finally, number 10, the final tip is about practice your written English. Practice makes perfect. You don't have to write lots and lots and lots of text. Again, as I said earlier on, if you write too much text with too many mistakes, you'll lose confidence very quickly. Build up slowly. Make sure the sentences and the paragraphs make sense and then build on it from there. And you will repeat some mistakes. If you have a problem with the verb to be, or if you have a problem how to use adverbs, of course, it may be repeated over and over again, but the teacher will help you to improve that and gradually you'll squeeze that out of your written work. So that's the 10th tip. Practice your written English as often as you can. Okay, so we've 10 particular tips. So very quickly. Number one, know your level. Number two, consistency how often you attend your lessons. Three, the KISS principle. Keep it simple, stupid. Four, stop memorizing vocabulary. Learn how to use them properly. Five, find yourself a really good teacher. Six, do plenty of listening, audiobooks, podcasts. Seven, speak frequently in the office, at home, wherever you get the opportunity to try and do some practice. Number eight, never use or try not to use Google, Translates or Grammarly. Okay, you can have to use them as a must to avoid any problems with your boss. Of course, do, but try to practice without them. And then number nine, read books. Read books all the time, modern books, modern English. And then finally, practice that written English. Okay, so they're my 10 simple tips, Harry's 10 tips to help you to improve your English. And for those of you and your friends or family who want one-to-one lessons, well, you know what to do. Just get in touch, www.englishlessonviaskype.com and you can apply for a free try lesson and we'll be very happy to hear from you and very happy to help you. Thanks for listening. This is Harry signing off until the next lesson. Thank you. Goodbye.