Trying to improve my english

Your grammar seems really good, Luis.

Thanks a lot. But tat is because i check and recheck and recheck my posts.

And once they are posted i still make a few changes while i still can.

I lost a lot of time doing this. I know that practice and time will help. But sometimes i still have an uneasy feeling about some sentences i wrote.

Try just posting what you first write, Luis. That way, it's more likely that any real issues will show up.

Then if you don't mind, we can help you out.

Luis - first of all, I think it is great that you are here.

Don't worry about your sentences, it's your brain that matters and a lot of us already like you. We can all talk about it.
Meantime, my spanish is awful.

I'll tell you about farmerman, since he knows about himself already - he is a geologist who posts badly, spelling word wise, much of the time. Well, hey, he has a smashed hand and quite a life.

I hope you relax, we'll help.

JTT doesn't represent most of us.

Tell us, Osso, who is your leader?

One obvious (and often, tho not always, enjoyable) thing you can do is watch English (or American) TV programs, most of which now seem to be available online for free, I'd recommend "Big Bang Theory", which is funny too, and uses big words a lot. I've seen it online, I think at www.cbs.com "Elementary" is pretty good too, a modern version of Sherlock Holmes, with English and American lead characters, so you get exposure to several accents and pronunciations.

I am already on it. That is how i had manage to improve my listening skills. I love "Big Bang Theory", i can almost get like 90 to 95 per cent of the dialogues.

I had been doing the same with movies and other series. Southpark, Walking dead, Dr Who, IT crowd. As much variety as i can found. Do you know any good Australian series?

Thanks a lot. I realy appreciate your comments.

Thanks a lot too. Any help i can gather is very welcome.

Now that is advanced following of the language (and slanguage, too) if you get that high of a percentage.

But it is just listening. And by the way once i get used to the accent causes little problem for me to understand someone. I am quite familirized with the southern US accent. What drives me nuts is the pronunciation problem.

It is really anoying to understand everything a person says, but sounding like a stammerer robot while trying to talk.

I write much better than the way i speak.

I am interested in Italy, both academically and emotionally, and I took several quarters, ah, seven, to learn the language. What a putz (I speak as a woman).. I was old to start with, and still am interested, simply will never be great with it.

Don't get agita about this, you are doing well. I don't regret a minute of my classes.

There is a technique that helps people get comfortable speaking a language fluently and quickly. It's called immersion. In essence you need to speak the language all day and be understand either in a classroom and/or in your daily work activity. In order to eat or do anything, you have to ask or speak in that language, in this case English.

My recommendation then is to find a practical way to do this: whether it's being part of a classroom or sitting and yacking away at an English-speaking pub,...immerse yourself. After all that is how you learned your first language fluently. You sat with you parents and siblings as well as classmates, friends and spoke your language. It takes awhile.

In addition to this suggestion, turn on captioning when you watch TV. That way you'll hear and read the words to see both spelling and hear how they are pronounced.

Some of our most erudite posters make occasional gaffes.

Why, even I made a mistake once. . . (ahem)

Anyway, you make very readable points. Proficiency will come.

BTW, you're doing very well as far as I've read.

What does "spelling word wise" mean? Care to explain?
The opposit to spell word bad (or badly)?

Hey luis, I'm not a native English speaker myself. I have a terrible accent, since I'm Dutch and I sound like a German eating a bradwurst while talking when I tackle the english language, which I do with about as much grace and subtlety as a lumberjack wielding a chainsaw to trim the hedges in his garden.

Nevertheless, I don't let these minor setbacks deter me in my goal to stun the whole world (probably quite literally) with my english.
However, if you have a need to speak english for your vocation, as your indication that you read a lot of medical texts seems to imply, apart from the most effective way that ragman suggested, which is, to immerse yourself in speaking and listening to the language as much as possible on a daily basis,
I would suggest the following:

- Listen to english songs, particularly slow ones you are not familiar with. Try to translate the lyrics as you hear them. I found that a good way to pick up more vocabulary in an enjoyable way.
- try to analyze what sentences you say most often during your conversations. I could imagine that, if you have occasion to speak english for your profession, you'll probably gravitate to explaining about certain problems that you may have encountered or not.
If you have a good idea on what words you use most often, try to write down and rehearse some standard sentences with these words in them. It won't take long before those are easy to pronounce, and that allows you in turn to gain more confidence in the way you talk, and might allow you to speak more smoothly and fluently.

Even if you find you can't pinpoint anything in particular you frequently use, the one thing that should be remembered is that most of the spoken language revolves around a limited amount of core words you string together. Not sure how many, perhaps a 1000 or so?
Try to limit your sentences to those at first, and once you use them effectively, you can expand your vocabulary when you speak english.

But who am I to say this anyway? Dutch people with the accent of a German eating bradwurst while spitting out english words have no business helping others expand their own vocabulary. Especially not when you have already the attention of a number of incredible people, who as far as I know are all native english speakers, and whose combined intellect reaches into the 1000's...