6 Ways to Immediately Improve Your English Communication Skills

• 
  during the day
  
• 
  in the meantime
  
• 
  It’s been a long time since
  
• 
  Sorry to bother/trouble you, but…
  
• 
  Would you mind if…?
  
• 
  Oh, come on!
  
• 
  I’m just kidding!
  
• 
  For what it’s worth, …
  
• 
  To be right/wrong about
  
• 
  Tit for tat/an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
  

In a way, this will take the pressure off too. When you learn a new word, try to memorize a couple of sentences that contain it.

There might come a time when you can use one particular sentence with little, or no alteration at all. Unfortunately, many people learn words by heart, but have no idea how to use them in a sentence.

It will be such a relief not having to worry about whether the sentence is correct grammatically or not. Let’s look at an example:

• 
  I think it’s necessary to feel appreciated in a relationship/ at work.
  
• 
  I appreciate all your hard work.
  

When speaking in a foreign language, you might be so focused on what you are saying and whether it’s correct or not, that you forget to listen to what others are saying.

This is a big mistake as they might be using the exact words or grammar you’ll be needing later on. So pay attention to what’s being said around you, it’s your most important resource at the time of speaking to someone.

5. Practice Your Interrogatives

We also need to keep in mind the fact that communication is a two-way process. Not only does it make you seem uninterested – even rude – if you don’t ask questions, you might also end up being the one who has to do all the talking. So, when you’ve run out of ideas about what to say next, remember: others might have something to add.

• 
  What are your views on that?
  
• 
  How about you? What do you think?
  
• 
  Why do you think there’s so much violence on TV?
  

Interrogatives can be quite tricky, so make sure you spend enough time learning the correct ways of asking questions.

As I said at the beginning of this article, you might know a lot about the language, but this is passive knowledge that must be activated somehow. Your aim is to be able to produce correct English; practice is undeniably the best way to learn and improve.

Writing is one way of producing language; it may help you get used to and reflect on the ways English operates, which, in turn, might prove to be useful when speaking.

Speaking, on the other hand, is a much more spontaneous process and nothing prepares you for it better than actually doing it.