To all native English speakers! On which part of English should I focus my learning??

Question

Hi friends,

I really need to improve my English due to the fact that I want to work as a steward. I think my pronunciation and vocabulary is alright, but I have problems with the grammar. I can just write or talk in the normal past tense, present tense and futur form.

E.g. its not easy for me to understand when I have to use one of those 7 future forms (i will be going to - i will - i am going to .... and so on) . In German I dont mention which tense I take - I just talk.

So I dont know if it is needed to learn this stuff, or maybe it is not so important in the first to handle those many tenses.


What do you think? What is important, whats not? On what should I focus if I want to improve language for beeing steward?

Thank you :-)

Answer 1

I have just spent a holiday on a ship with staff from many different countries and I think that most of them coped with the simple past, present and future tenses. I think that it would help if you added the perfect to these, i.e. the equivalent of "ich habe gemacht", etc., as you would then be able to say things like: "I have prepared your lunch", "I have ordered your food." I think that if we analysed the conversation of most English speakers we would find that they seldom used other tenses. In fact, it is interesting to note that speakers of American English often use the present tense where we would use the past.

Otherwise, concentrate on vocabulary. You will need to assimilate a great many words in your job. I wish you well in your chosen career!

Answer 2

Present tense is the most important to learn of course. Secondly is the past tense. For the seven forms future tense, I guess is the least important among the three.
The importance of learning English, or any language, is to get your voice, what you want to say, to be heard. As long people understand what you mean, they may be regardless about your grammar. Even native born Americans do not use their grammar right.
The best thing to do is practice your grammar by using it in conversation, so you can feel more comfortable speaking with wrong grammar and from then, you can fix your grammar out loud


Hope it's helping

Answer 3

Personally you sound like you're doing just fine as it is. You speak a lot better than some people I know whose first language is English. And if you have an accent, but can still speak good English, most people will realize it isn't your first language and won't mind at all if you don't pronounce something exactly perfect or if your grammar isn't spot on. I know people in college that can barely speak in correct sentences.

Answer 4

May I recommend "Understanding and Using English Grammar" by Betty S. Azar. It's a very good guide to English grammar, and grammar is the foundation of good usage.

The verb forms in English take a bit of getting used to, but I'm sure you'll do fine.

Answer 5

firstly, your written english is excellent, english is my 1st language, and i would have thought it was your first language too from this piece of text, although you did spell future 'futur'. what you have now should be fine for being a steward, but it would be good to travel around england, or english speaking countries, so you get used to listening and speaking to english speakers. there are a large range of english accents and dialects, and i think thsi would really help your english, and help you understand english a bit better.

Answer 6

You don't need to know anything about the seven tenses just know one way to say something in every tense and you'll be fine...