By Robby
If you are new here please read this first.
The moment you start reading my blog, you can’t help noticing that I’m highlighting specific word groups in red.
These word groups are idiomatic expressions or the so-called collocations, and they’re very useful for all foreign English speakers for the following reasons:
- They allow us to speak using native-like English speech patterns;
- They enable us to group words together thus avoiding hesitant speech;
- They render translation unnecessary thus facilitating overall English fluency.
For best results, you should incorporate such and similar idiomatic expressions into your spoken English practicing routine, but here’s the million dollar question: “How to organize all those phrases for optimal learning?”
Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty of how exactly you should organize English phraseology for the optimal learning experience, let me remind you that I’ve already done all that work for you ❗
I’ve created a unique fluency improving program called the English Harmony System and it took me a good few months to organize hundreds upon hundreds of idiomatic expressions which provide the framework for almost a hundred speech exercising video lessons.
Basically you can save yourself all the hassle of organizing all your phrases and you can start practicing your spoken English RIGHT NOW!
But what if you’ve already been using my product and now you’d like to keep practicing on your own?
As we all know, spoken English improvement is a lifelong process, and it only stands to reason you would want to keep working on your English phraseology for the rest of your life, right?
So for those of you interested in taking your fluency improvement to the next level, here’s a few ways of organizing your English phraseology for your spoken English practice sessions.
Sentence Starters + Middle Section + Endings
This is a great way of organizing random English phrases.
It will give a seemingly unrelated phrase list a deeper meaning, and as a result you’ll find it very easy to use these phrases when practicing your spoken English.
Let’s experiment with phrases from this article:
- Can’t help noticing
- The so-called
- For best results
- Get into the nitty-gritty of
- Such and similar
- Save yourself all the hassle of
- It only stands to reason
- Take to the next level
Now, you don’t have to over-analyze.
Your task is to simply categorize all the phrases according to where you think they’re most likely to go in a sentence – right in the beginning, in the middle or in the very end.
Let’s take the first one – “can’t help noticing” – it seems to me that this phrase is most likely to go in the beginning of a sentence, for example: “I can’t help noticing how different everyone looks today.” I’m putting it under the “Sentence Starters” category, and then I move on to the next one – “the so-called”.
Now, my gut feeling tells me this word combination is most likely to position itself in the middle of a sentence, so I’m going to categorize as a “Middle Section” phrase.
And here’s how I categorized all 8 phrases:
Sentence Starters:
- Can’t help noticing
- For best results
- It only stands to reason
Middle Section
- The so-called
- Get into the nitty-gritty of
- Such and similar
- Save yourself all the hassle of
Endings
- Take to the next level
You don’t have to worry about distributing all the phrases equally among the three categories – quite naturally you’re going to have more phrases falling under the “Middle Section” phrases and the “Endings” category is going to have fewer phrases under it.
And here’s how you go about practicing your spoken English when you have phrases arranged this way.
You just talk about some completely RANDOM stuff by picking one phrase from each category and trying to make a sentence. And bear in mind – it doesn’t have to make much sense in terms of the actual content, you’re just doing it to develop your ability to SPEAK OUT LOUD and say SOMETHING!
Here’s an example:
“For best results, when baking a cake, you should take the so-called baking powder and add it to the mixture – then you’ll definitely take your cake baking skills to the next level!”
Basically you have to IMPROVIZE on the spot when using this specific technique and it mightn’t come easily at first, but believe me – it’s a very powerful method because you’ll develop your ability to speak about random stuff which is very useful when communicating with people in real life.
And in case you’re wondering how many phrases you should have to make the most out of this technique, the answer is – the more, the better!
As you can imagine, you’re going to find it hard to generate something to say out of a couple of phrases; if you have 30 of them, it becomes a walk in the park.
Sentence Starters + Specific Collocations
Now, the above strategy is good for getting your creative juices flowing, but it’s not really an effective way of speaking about a SPECIFIC TOPIC at great lengths.
It’s one thing to pick a sentence starter, initiate a random thought and then pick another couple of phrases and blend them in, but it’s quite another to do it in every sentence during a story.
It’s pretty much IMPOSSIBLE.
And that’s why by far the best approach when it comes to talking about a specific topic is to have a few “Sentence Starter” phrases along with a number of specific collocations you’ve found to fit the actual topic at hand.
Selecting a “Sentence Starter” phrase in this instance is the same as in the previous section; it’s basically a phrase that you would start a sentence with such as “As you can imagine” or “In case you’re wondering why…” (these phrases are also taken from this very same article), and they will help you start your sentences in a professional and native-like way.
Speaking of more specific collocations – they’re all phases and word groups that you can use to explain concepts in relation to the particular topic you’re discussing either with yourself (if it’s a self-practice session) or someone else.
For example, the collocation “getting your creative juices flowing” is quite specific, and you’d be using it when talking about creating a piece of art or writing something.
Another example of a very specific collocation – “excruciating pain”.
It would come in handy when telling a story about how you broke your leg, for example, and needless to say, it’s best to have a bunch of such phrases prepared so that you can center your story around a few key-phrases such as this one.
Sentence Starters + General Idiomatic Expressions + Small Talk Phrases + Specific Collocations
If you’re keeping an English phraseology notebook and you want to tidy it up a bit, I would suggest a slightly different approach to the aforementioned methods.
Basically you have to go with some sort of a classification to cover almost all phrases in your notebook, so you’re going to have two more categories on top of “Sentence Starters” and “Specific Collocations”: “General Idiomatic Expressions” and “Small Talk Phrases.”
“General Idiomatic Expressions” are the ones that can be used in wide variety of situations.
“A walk in the park”, for example, is an idiomatic expression meaning “easy”, and it can be used whenever you’re describing the easy nature of a specific task.
“Small Talk Phrases” is quite self-explanatory – it’s phrases you’d use when chatting with people such as “Hold on for a moment!” or “I’d really appreciate if you could…”
But in case you’re wondering about phrasal verbs and other types of expressions – I’d put them all under “General Idiomatic Expressions” – unless they’re very specific in which case you’d put them under “Specific Collocations”.
There’s no need to over-complicate things and having all of your English phrases categorized according to these 4 categories is enough!
Cheers,
Robby
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!
P.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out the English Harmony System HERE!