If you want to improve your spoken and written English the best way to do this is to add a few decorative, flowery touches to you sentences. There are lots of ways of doing this. Don’t try to use them all in one sentence or you will make your English sound ‘silly’. For example, if I said:
The cuddly, curious, cute, little, fluffy kitten tore through our house like a wild, fierce, stormy, unannounced tornado and damaged our new, Italian leather, expensive sofa.
It would be much more effective to use fewer adjectives:
The cuddly bundle of fluff that was our new kitten, tore through the house like a tornado, damaging the sofa as it went.
Too many adjective over describes the scene and make the English sound clumsy and unpolished.
Another example of this is an email that I received from a student:
‘You are patient, kind, good, excellent teacher who gives good mark. My homework is late, not finished, forgot, undone. I am bad, useless, sad, unhappy student.’
This actually sounds funny but I don’t think the writer intended it to be.
Don’t overdo the adjectives, or use strings of adverbs that mean the same thing. Using two different adjectives that mean the same thing can sometimes be very effective and gives impact to the sentence.For example:
It was black dark outside and I couldn’t see a thing.
Acronym.
It is generally acceptable to use acronyms when speaking and writing English. You will sound better if you use these instead of using full titles.
Take the initial, or first letter, of a group of words and put them together, they form an acronym. An acronym is a word in its own right. There are many examples of this:
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
CAT Computer assisted testing.
WHO World health organisation.
However, you should only use established and accepted acronyms, don’t make up your own.
Using Alliteration.
Using alliteration makes English language makes what you say more expressive but here again, don’t over do it. It is the grouping together of words which start with the same letter.
Slowly sizzling sausages
Cool, calm and collected
Long, lanky legs
Using Analogy.
Using an analogy makes speech and writing much more effective. It is a way to show off the finer points of the language and to express yourself clearly. An analogy takes another situation that is similar to the one you are describing and uses it to illustrate. This is good to use in writing creative pieces and is especially useful when presenting at a seminar. Using analogy makes your English sound richer and more polished.
The arrival of the new kitten in my house had a similar effect to an unexpected tornado.
ESO’s Qualified, Experienced Teachers Are All Native English Speakers let them help you to write English like an English native person.
