self-learning of speaking english

Hi everyone. I am learning english by myself but my english speaking skill is still very very bad. I am intending to participate in a speaking-listening course but wondering whether i can learn it by myself or not? And if i do so, what must i prepare for efficient study? Anyone that was once successful in self-study for all english skills please helps me?

hi! you
As you learn English by yourself you can only learn three English skills including: grammar, reading and listenning except for speaking skill.
you want to improve this skill you have to speak to foreigners frequently. you''''ll listen to native speaker''s pronunciation then you should imitate. talking to foreigner provides you with your reacted ability more fast

Actually, I dun quite agree with you, yearn_forever. Strictly speaking, you can , but its not easy at all. Personally I think there are 3 factors which would lead to the key *****ccess: take you time, effort and how you deal with . Take my self as an example, in general, I do learn E on my own, including speaking skill and in my opinion, it has worked so far, at least to me. Sorry for not telling you all futher because its too late, its time I must crawl towards my bed. I will come back later to tell you how I practise speaking skill on my own. Okay?

Yeah, especially living in the envirement that all of native speakers around.

what about learning through internet? I can talk to foreigners by microphone but i guess it will be very expensive and too shy to do that among so many people at internet cafes.
traingheolangtu, i am waiting for your conveyance of experience
Được xbt sửa chữa / chuyển vào 16:36 ngày 08/02/2005

2day, I found that my speakin'' eng was dull horribly. maybe i will try to go sword lake to talk to some foreigners in the forthcoming time. does anyone here wanna join???

Im going to reply you in full tomorrow, now just a quick post.
To babegirl20: All native speaker around me are Vietnamese- vietnamese. The way I practise speaking has nothing to do with those coming from English speaking countries or whose E is excellent. Its only me and no one else.
To tieu co nuong: Hanging out Sword lake that days is not a good idea, IMO. The temperature will reduce soon. Actually, a couple of weeks ago, due to the need of higher level in E, I had the same thought as yours and managed to hang out Sword lake as often as I could. But the coldness prevented me from carring out this fulfillment. As a result, I gave up after just several times.

Yeah i know it''s so hard to practise speaking english in Vietnam cuz there are not many native english speakers to speak with and we have to pay so much money for english language centers so that we can study with native speaker teacher, and the people outside class who are also native speakers but they live in vietnam so the speed they speak english to us is very slow, when we are actually in the real environment where all native english speakers around then we will know that many foreigners in vietnam speak english so slowly,from my personal experience, I found that those native speakers in vietnam don''t help us much about english, when i first came to the united states, oh my god everybody speaks english when i got out of the airplane,it was amazing,and they used slang that all appeared in the toefl that i studied earlier,now i realize that the toefl helps me that much,and the normal speed of people speak english here is like 7 times faster than the current toefl test,that''s it , just wana let everybody know and aware of this.

It appears that self-studying to enhance speaking skill is impossible, according to English learners and native speakers whom I have discussed. They said with just some books, dictionaries, PC and a mirror, the scenario of higher level of spoken English is unbelieable, waste time and pointless. I disagree with them. In my case, I dun have much chance to hav conversation with native speakers and I find English communication courses not useful, this way is the best solution. It has worked to me and I strongly believe it will take affect to the others. The point is how you do and what sort of you.
Step 1: Start with every single word.
-First of all, you should know this principle:
1. Stress on first syllable
Most 2-syllable nouns: CHIna, TAble, EXport
Most 2-syllable adjectives: SLENder, CLEVer, HAPpy
2. Stress on last syllable
Most 2-syllableverbs: to exPORT, to deCIDE, to beGIN
3. Stress on penultimate syllable (penultimate = second from end)
Words ending in -ic: GRAPHic, geoGRAPHic, geoLOGic
Words ending in -sion and -tion: teleVIsion, reveLAtion

Native speakers don''''t always "agree" on where to put the stress. For example, some people say "teleVIsion" and others say "TELevision". Another example is: "CONtroversy" and "conTROversy".
4. Stress on ante-penultimate syllable (ante-penultimate = third from end)
Words ending in -cy, -ty, -phy and -gy: deMOcracy, dependaBIlity, phoTOgraphy, geOLogy
Words ending in -ical: CRItical, geoLOGical
5. Compound words (words with two parts)
For compound nouns, the stress is on the first part BLACKbird, GREENhouse
For compound adjectives, the stress is on the second part bad-TEMpered, old-FASHioned
For compound verbs, the stress is on the second part to underSTAND, to overFLOW.
( I dun hav its source)
- Make use of dictionary:
When you have any new words, look it up in your dictionary at once. Apart from its meaning, its pronunciation and is essential. Be aware of its own stress. What is more, take a look at nearby family words and their pronun. By this way, you can easily memorise more than one word''s pronun.
E.g: When you need to know what " detect " mean, look it up and never ignore its family words etective, detector. Try to spell them out
Sorry tớ phải ăn trưa rồi, đánh tạm TV cho nhanh nhé.
- Softwares that work.
Mọi người đa số đều có máy tính đúng ko? Nên setup cái từ điển có phát âm. Khi mình cần tra từ mới thì cho nó nói luôn, then imitate. Phải copy your voice bao giờ tương đối chính xác mới thôi nhé. Cũng ko đơn giản đâu, nhiều từ tớ phải bật đi bật lại đến chục lần mới na ná giống, thậm chí giống rồi cảm tưởng mình méo hết cả mồm
Thế còn những từ ko có trong từ điển phát âm thì sao. Số lượng những từ này ko phải là ít, mà nhiều từ quan trọng. Chẳng hạn phát âm từ Chicago, Manhattan, Niagara thế nào. Kinh nghiệm của tớ đừng có đoán, sai nhiều hơn đúng đấy. Những từ này là danh từ riêng, nhiều khi cấu tạo hơi khác so với từ TA thông thường, nếu đọc đúng nghe rất hay. Mọi người down cái Readplease về tại www.readplease.com này. Cái soft này có thể đọc whatever you type in the blank box. Tớ choáng thật sự khi đánh linh tinh vào rồi mà nó vẫn đọc được, lại còn hay.
Thôi nhé, tớ phải măm bữa trưa đầu tiên năm mới đây. Tớ sẽ tiếp tục nếu mọi người thấy cần

Personally, I really dont think you can learn a language without coming to the country / at least talk to native speakers.
There is a motivation for everything we do.
So WHY English? Dont pick it just because everybody does so, you will lose interest easily (of course reading is not that fun). English is a skill, just like driving, writing, computing... Best is to do it the practical way! Use it for your own life, join chat rooms with ppl with same hobbies as yours, for example, look at what they say, you will pick up something.
Also grammar is heavily violated here in the States (by American).. he he, I love that part though.
babegirl20: Slang and the use of it varies from place to place.. toefl cannot handle that
Btw, my friends and I are going on a trip to the North East this March; and we love to visit NYC.
If you are not so busy and still there, I''d be very happy to meet friendly people like you.
PEACE!