I don’t know how to use proper words in English for context that I am not familiar with.
For example, nevertheless = even though so, but I don’t think “nevertheless” is applicable everywhere.
One more example, “to produce animated GIF” or “to generate animated GIF”? I still don’t think “produce” can be used together with computer terminology. But the problem is, those synonyms sound the same to me.
The other problem is pronunciation. I don’t know “the rules” of pronunciation (if any).
For example, breakfast is pronounced differently than break and fast alone.
For person names, I heard from my Australian friend that they need to listen to audio recording first before they know how to pronounce the hundreds (if not thousands) of different Biblical names. It is so scary…
You remind me of one English story book which I read years ago. I barely remember anything except: Knock your head, punch your face, kick your stomach. Hahaa…
I am not sure, but oral English is a major problem for me. Just want you to clarify: How do you pronounce a new English word? Is there any guidance stating how to pronounce any particular word?
How about hundreds of person names and city names in the Bible? Do you know how to pronounce each of them automatically?
Part of it you can figure out but some words are still hard to pronounce if you don’t know them. You can look up the phonetic spelling. It’s really just learning over time though.
There are foreign language sites where you can look up a word in the language and often there are audio recordings of native speakers pronouncing the word.
For example, I gave my little dog an Icelandic name and I listened to audio clips of native Icelandic speakers pronouncing the Icelandic word that is her name.
There are so many rules, and also so many exceptions to rules in English, but English is very clear once mastered.
It is a great skill to have! Try some Rosetta’s stone programs to learn English. They’re very reputable. Or at least they were the last time I checked.
I cant help you there. I love my russian style pronunciation.
There are lots of good apps out there that can help you to improve your grammar ( although I never noticed that you have problems with it). But for understanding idioms or slang words - there is no help but to be in touch with natural speakers.
You can produce an animated gif. That’s acceptable phrasing.
Unfortunately, while the basics of English are pretty easily learned, the one place where it’s a total mess is pronunciation. I’m a native speaker, and I’m always coming across new words that I’m not sure how to pronounce. I ask, I say, “don’t know how to pronounce this one,” or something like that.
Lots of webpages have recordings of words so you can hear a native speaker say them. Youtube has channels just devoted to people pronouncing words. Strongly recommend you take advantage of those things.
