character in the movie is saying. But since you wrote down the phrase, you
now know a new expression you can use in many different situations.
Here’s another example. Let’s say someone describes their former pet by
saying, “He was a bad dog.” It’s a fairly simple phrase, but you write it
down in your notebook. Every time you review, you study that complete
phrase. By doing that, you are getting free grammar – he was. You know this
is something that was true in the past, not he is, which would mean the dog
still was around. You’re also getting some free tips about word usage. We
don’t usually say he was a horrendous dog, for example, even though the
meaning is correct. In normal spoken English, we don’t usually use that
word to describe a dog. This is not what you would learn from studying the
definition of horrendous. You learn it by studying a phrase.
When you write down a phrase, write where it came from. If you saw this
in a newspaper article about the economy, put that down because that is
going to trigger your memory. It will remind you of how the word was used
and in what context. You’ll start to learn when certain phrases and words are
used and when they are not. This way, you’ll begin to get a feeling about
what is correct and how to put sentences together.
IMPROVING YOUR PRONUNCIATION
Pronunciation is a big worry for many English learners. Learning phrases will help, but there is
another exercise you can do to improve even more. One of the greatest challenges with pronunciation
is the problem of feeling strange when trying to use a native accent.
For example, many learners feel unnatural when trying to use an American accent. They feel they
are not being normal, or not being themselves. Their voice sounds strange to them. This is normal
because speaking a different language naturally forces you to create different sounds.
So how can you develop more natural English pronunciation? One strategy I suggest is to play a
little game with movies. In this game you try to become your favorite English speaking actor or
actress. This is a variation of the movie technique, which I will describe in more detail in a later
