Most people learn English so that they can speak. Anything else about the language is a secondary goal.
But most people do not have many or any opportunities to practice their English on daily basis. Many people do not have an opportunity to speak in English at all. And so they think that they will never learn to speak in English.
It is very important for learners of English that they start speaking as soon as they have learnt the basics of the language. If they fail to learn to communicate at the very beginning, they will find it difficult to make further progress and will feel demotivated.
That’s the reason why the students must be brought to speaking in English as soon as possible.
Is it possible to practice English speaking alone?
Absolutely yes. Yes. And yes again. The very common misunderstanding among the students of English is that if they want to speak in English, they have to speak to someone. This, of course, is not true.
Why? Think about it this way. If you want to learn to speak, you need to speak. But what is speaking? Speaking is pronouncing the words out loud. That is how you practice speaking. You read aloud. And you can do it on your own.
How? Of course, when you have a conversation with someone, you ask questions and you get back some answers (or the other way round). And so, yes, to have a conversation, you need two people. BUT, in order to practice a conversation, you can do the speaking for both!
How do you imitate an English Conversation?
Simple. Based on what we have said you need two things to practice a conversation. First you need to read aloud and secondly, you need to read an actual conversation, i.e. a dialogue.
Please, understand this: when you are reading out loud, you are speaking! And when you are reading an English dialogue, you are having an English conversation with yourself!
Where can I find English Dialogue exercises?
We have prepared many English dialogues with audio for beginners. You can find them here: Level 1 English Dialogues and here: Level 2 English Dialogues.
In many of our graded English readings, we use a lot of dialogues as well.
How many times do I need to read these dialogues to get fluent?
It is individual. You may have much better level of English than someone else and you may need only few months. But to give you a simple answer, until you are fluent.
Learning to speak takes time. Even if you read every day a lot, it will take some time. The reason for this is that your brain is getting used to hearing you speak. The more you speak (read out loud) the more natural it will be for you to say those sentences.
After some time, you will read those dialogues very fast. And in many cases you will say the sentence faster than you will read it with your eyes. Or you will say it without reading it. That is how you know that you are getting better.
Are your English Dialogues ordered by conversation topics?
No. We have written dialogues where you will talk about a shop, car, health, money, family, job and many other things, but we did not write them to a specific topic. We wanted to write real-life English conversations with simple English sentences which you can use in your daily lives.
Furthermore, the goal of those dialogues is that you repeat the same expressions and the same basic sentences again and again. Believe me, when you can say these sentences fluently, you will learn other words about hotels, shops, hospital, etc. very quickly.
The sentences in your dialogues are very simple. I can understand all the words.
Good. But can you say those words and sentences? Can you say them fluently and without thinking?
Our English dialogues are not written to teach you new words. Maybe a few. They are written in such a way that you practice questions, negative answers, grammar tenses and infinitive structures. Our English Dialogues are exercises to help you speak fluently and without thinking.
Look at this example, from a level 1 Dialogue:
‘I decided to visit my friend. He lives on the other side of the city. But my car broke down a week ago, so I couldn’t use the car.’
‘OK, I see. So what did you do? Did you take a taxi?’
‘No, I didn’t take a taxi. I took a bus.’
‘Bus? Did you go to the other side of the city by bus?’
Here, in two sentences you practice how to use the verb take in the Simple Past tense question, negative and positive forms. If you practice these sentences a lot, you will not be thinking about the words. You will simply say them.
Conclusion
You can practice English Conversation at home by reading English Dialogues out loud every day. Your fluency will increase and after that you will learn new words much more easily.
Sparrow's English Reader 