Just a little more

Here I’m going to discuss a piece of advice I frequently give to my beginner learners. Try to expand your sentences. It’s a really useful way to check that you feel confident using a variety of vocabulary.

For example, with a complete beginner we might go from ‘there is a cat’ to ‘there is a black and white cat.’ Then we could say, ‘there is a black and white cat on the couch.’ This clearly shows the move from simple statement to colour inclusive observation with location specifics. It’s more complex, yet easily learnt.

As a higher-level learner, you will most likely feel very comfortable using sentences like the ones above. This exercise is adapted with higher-level learners in mind.

For higher-level learners I’d encourage you to add ‘just a little more…’ by creating sentences that express your opinion or observation a little more creatively. For example, our initial sentence could be ‘I liked the book. It was interesting.’ We can add depth and linguistic skill to this sentence by using more interesting language. ‘I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. I thought it was very well written and I found the plot-line to be very interesting.’ From there you could describe the characters, scenes or dialogue. Being able to do this makes it easier to create a conversation that increases the rapport between you and person you are talking to.

So today, when you have a minute or two, try taking a simple sentence like ‘I liked the…’ and adding more depth. You can choose a different expressive word rather than ‘like’ or you could add more details by describing what it is that you like and why.

If you’d like a further challenge, try creating sentences about the same thing but for different audiences. How would you express it to your friend, your boss, or, for fun, someone who is interviewing you for a magazine article?

I hope you find this exercise interesting and fun. It should certainly be useful.

Happy creating!