Hello people. I would like you to give me an advice as to what I could to to improve my English. I followed a redditor’s link to cambridgeenglish preparation tests and I spent some time completing the ‘Free English Activities’ .Even though I face no difficulty on completing these C1-C2 activities I do not believe my English are of this level. I have a high level of understanding written English but I don’t think I can speak/write in this level myself. I’m looking forward for your response. Thank you very much
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Keep at it. Advice is freely offered, but painfully realized. It takes time, attention and patience. I’m at a much lower level in Portuguese than you are in English, but what I hear from others is keep reading, writing, speaking and listening. Easy to say, hard to do in sufficient quantities to see a difference.
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Well, my experience is that in order to learn how to speak, you have to speak, a lot. Sure, having vocabulary acquired through reading is critical, and being able to understand what people say to you is a pre-requisite for having a conversation. But if you have a reasonable amount of vocabulary and you can understand what the other person is saying, then you have to get somebody to not only talk to you but, perhaps most important, to provide you with detailed feedback on what you need to improve.
That last point is hard to achieve with a conversation pal. In my experience, in order to get meaningful feedback you need to have a good tutor. Does it work? You bet, I went from just stuttering a few words to being able to hold a conversation in most topics that matter to me – full disclosure: I am referring to my experience with a language other than English, but it should work with English as well.
How many hours a week did you work with the tutor and how many months?, years? did it take for you to feel comfortable speaking in another language?
If you don’t have anyone to converse with in English, watch sitcoms in English. Listen to podcasts. Read a lot. You subconsciously learn natural expressions, just immerse yourself in English.