Dive into the key concerns for pushing English level forward

Outline

• Preface
• 1. Pronunciation
  • 1.1 Jaw movement and tongue relaxation
  • 1.2 More muscle work in the back of the mouth for American Accent
  • 1.3 Intonation and pitch change
    • 1.3.1 Primary Word Level Intonation Patterns
    • 1.3.2 One trick to make sense of the pitch change for a paragraph
  • 1.4 Others
• 2. The necessary following check list
• 3. Break the list one by one and the corresponding approach
  • From the speaker's perspectives
    • 3.1 How much the delivery degree while speaking?
    • 3.2 What are the missing parts?
      • 3.2.1 The usage of words, phrases, idioms or expressions
      • 3.2.2 Master level comparison between English and native language
      • 3.2.3 The understanding level for the content
      • 3.2.4 Organize words or sentences in a natural and elegant way
  • 3.3 From the listening perspectives
    • 3.3.1 To what degree do I get the meaning while listening?
    • 3.3.2 The missing parts lead to the difficulties for comprehensive understanding
      • 3.3.2.1 The usage of some words or expressions
      • 3.3.2.2 Content itself
      • 3.3.2.3 The differences comparing speaking with listening
  • 3.4 Flywheel between speaking and listening
  • 3.5 Involved AI experimentation for writing and reading
  • 3.6 The summary of the check list
• 4. The metrics showing the real English level
• 5. Final questions

Preface

From the perspective that achieving the ultimate goal of using English, such as clearly expressing thoughts by writing or speaking, grasping others' delivery comprehensively while listening or reading, only taking English as a term or the solution to the goal is a pretty surface level. For example, good communication involves many aspects which include the goals, participants' feelings, the recognition degree of speaker's pronunciation, or the thoughts whether or not were organized in a clear way that can convince the listener's understanding, or the complexity of the topics.

So the question that achieve the ultimate goal should convert into how to build the necessary foundation. Then align with these relative solid foundation, considering which aspects should deliberately put more practice? Such as how to organize thoughts in a clearer way or the more deep understanding about some domain knowledge. Obviously, the demands vary on different people as their specific scenarios or background. Some people prefer a more academic writing level, some people prefer the more elegant public speech, or both of them. Whatever, the more push forwards, the more specific practice should depend on the individuals themselves.

Returning to the topic that truly mastering English itself, why I always stick my mind to this concern? If personal life or career is viewed as a battle in the global economic cooperation, grasping English can be taken as conquering the military stronghold. Conquering it means the more potential resources and opportunities, and the more leverage for the following battles in my life. Even during the AI era, it also plays a significant role related with using AI, As English dominates about 55% of internet materials, which as the critical source for training the LLMs, the content originated in English will work more efficient and precise while using LLM with English. Or talking with tutors who speak English can clarify my confusions quickly compared with spending long time thinking and checking, and can motivate my spirit. To be specific, grasping English in different levels, the higher level grasped, the more efficient the people can integrated with the global resource, the more leverage for the individuals.

The previous post The-journey-on-how-to-improve-English-level-from-the-practical-perspectives that talked about my ways of improving English, which mostly focused on the methods themselves, but as I crossed the basic stage, work well for normal or basic conversation, however, other critical or specific issues always emerge. In other words, the goals that have the casual conversation with some guys, for example, introduce myself, limited or casual conversations ... all these actually bring the convenience in real life, but that actually doesn't leverage the power of the language.

Building long and meaningful relationships no matter in life and career, which isn't limited to casual conversations or jokes, also requires deep conversations, the complex or new thoughts delivery occurs from time to time, Obviously the necessary knowledge or vocabularies are needed to expand to the level as native language in some scenarios.

To be more practical, it's unavoidable in the pressure environment or the more complex circumstance using English. For example, if I were in the adverse situation, can I express my opinions in a clear and appropriate way, or during severe discussions, all the participants are in the critical thinking mode, can I actually deliver my thoughts in a clear way in a limited time. To some degree, I think that represents the real level of grasping one language.

So this post I will put more content on the specific issues that should improve or solve.

1. Pronunciation

Previously, I always skipped the pronunciation practices intentionally or unconsciously. I had always been triggered by the compulsion to grasp more words or expressions or engage in more conversations. Of course it's beneficial for improving English level. However, after some observations of my speaking, and some experimentation, I found it's necessary to stick to the pronunciation practice from time to time.

Last year, I tried to study the first chapter of Ready for C1 along with testing how AI can help me during this process. See Checking my English by Leveraging AI along with my personal ways. Briefly speaking, one of the goals is to get feedback from AI. For example, analyze my speech from pronunciation to the words usage, check my writing level or issues comparing with the standard academic paper, and get more suggestions. This section focuses more on pronunciation involved with this experimentation, others will be mentioned in the following sections.

What I found is that some vowels or consonants usually can't get above 90% correctness, pitch or tongue change always seem weird, it's not easy for me to speak some sentences with enough emotion, it's always at a monotone level.

So I returned to the shadow practices again, and decided to check the pronunciation from time to time, maybe every one month or three months. Because some questions or improvements will become obvious when I check them again after some time, and based on this comparison I can get more beneficial feedback. One of the obvious feelings for me after practicing shadow practice for some time is becoming more aware of others' pitch changes while listening.

Below are some insights or tricks which are very helpful for me during the pronunciation practices.

1.1 Jaw movement and tongue relaxation

For speaking the correctness of vowels or consonants, the manner and the position plays a significant role on the speaking effects. The manner means the way to speak one syllable, such as /w/ when two parts of the mouth come together without stopping the free flow of air between them. Position involves tongue, lip, jaw. For example when speaking /ai/, /i:/ the jaw drops down, and /ai/ moves further than /i:/.

One critical issue for me is that the jaw movement is not enough. Like /ai/, previously I spoke it with little jaw movement.

Another issue is the conversion of tongue status between tension and relaxation. Such as relaxed /i/ versus tense /i:/. When I speak /i/, the tongue is not relaxed enough.

One interesting observation for me: even for my native language, my lip and jaw movements are sometimes not enough, which makes the sounds more vague even for my relatives or some friends. Making sense of English pronunciation also helps me figure out my native pronunciation issues.

These are my personal pronunciation issues, of course the possible issues vary among different people. However, once I make sense of the core issues, the following practice will gain more real effects.

1.2 More muscle work in the back of the mouth for American Accent

For American accent, most of the muscle work is in the back, especially in the back half of the tongue. American English involves little front mouth and lip movement during speech. On the contrary, for European, Asian, African, South American, the front muscles do much work during speech.

Reference: The Sound & Style of American English

1.3 Intonation and pitch change

It seems like common sense that we should be aware of the pitch change while speaking, such as when the pitch is high or low during speaking one word or some sentences. However, including me, some people still speak at a monotone level. One practice trick that is often recommended is shadow practice, that can develop the muscle memory.

1.3.1 Primary Word Level Intonation Patterns

The pitch change from one syllable to the following syllable can be divided into two categories, step and slide. For step, such as /paper/, pa-per, there is an obvious distinct change from /pa/ to /per/. For slide, love l-o-v-e, each pitch change moves smoothly.

For step and slide, not limited to one direction, either up or down.

Below are the eight primary Word Level Intonation Patterns

Reference: American Accent Program, Ford Language Institute.

Previously, I was pretty confused when someone speaks very quickly and uses different stresses when speaking one word. I was just wondering how they remember all different emphases for all words. It's very overwhelming to remember all of them. However, as the above 8 patterns show, by becoming familiar with these patterns and practicing more, these issues become easier to solve.

1.3.2 One trick to make sense of the pitch change for a paragraph

In addition to pitch change in an individual word, how about the pitch change in a long sentence, or a block of paragraphs. One trick that is very effective is to translate the paragraph into the native language, feel the pitch change while speaking the content in the native language, and then compare the pitch change with the feeling while speaking the English version, this comparison will make the feeling more clear.

1.4 Others

In addition to American accent, other necessary points include getting accustomed to more different accents, such as making sense of British or Indian accents. Meanwhile, it can let more people from different regions easily catch my accent. That needs more immersion for the different accents and more practice with different people from different regions.

Of course, from the comprehensive perspective, so many other factors are omitted, such as the tricks for speaking linked words, or the correct description of vowels or consonants. I think this is not the practical perspective, Most people who speak English as a second language always have some foundation, the goal is not to review or study all the basic knowledge again, the goal is to be aware of the basic components, and figure out which components are missing or critical. For me, the above are my obvious issues that I must solve if I want to push my pronunciation level forward.

2. The necessary following check list

So the following question is beyond pronunciation: what about other necessary considerations?

To illustrate the issues more vividly, take the below two videos as the examples.

Take the above videos as the benchmarks (of course these are not comprehensive examples, just for illustration), what are my issues and gaps?

My feeling about my fluency

Most of the time and for most general topics, I can get others' thoughts, even though sometimes there are some missing parts during the conversation, which doesn't matter for delivering the main content. Where I obviously get stuck is when the expression involves more advanced collocations or words along with unfamiliar topics (like the second video talks about economic policies). Of course, the understanding about the topics also contributes to the fluency.

One obvious feeling is the hesitant stop for a relatively long time compared with native speakers (when I compare my speaking speed with the first video). Also, I feel my speech is not natural and listeners will feel weird compared with native speakers.

To make the potential issues or questions easier to track, and supply more workable approaches, I break them into the questions below.

From the speaker's perspectives

1. How about my delivery degree, 80% or 60%?
2. Comparing with the above videos, it seems there is something missing compared with native-level speaking, what's missing, the words, the awkward expressions, or the needed domain knowledge?
3. To be specific for the missing parts, I break it into four layers, how about each layer?
   1. The necessary words/expressions.
   2. The content understanding.
   3. Organize the thoughts in a clear way, does it achieve the delivery goal?
   4. From the sentence structure level, can I organize the words or sentences in a natural way and quickly express my thoughts?

From the listener's perspectives

1. Do I actually get the whole meaning? To what degree did I get the meaning?

2. If I missed some content, what's missing, the reasons why I missed?

   1. What is missing: words, background knowledge, English cultural references?
   2. For the content I couldn't catch during listening, what are the underlying reasons, the available approaches?

3. Some content or words/expressions that even I know, still can't quickly catch. What are the reasons?

What are the relationships between speaking and listening?

I think if one can speak about a topic with some words or expressions and others can understand, there should be no problem listening to the same topic with similar words or expressions, even if the words or expressions structure varies or is in an unfamiliar accent.

But one may understand some topics by reading, yet may not be able to express the topic fluently, and also sometimes encounter some problems while listening or speaking about the related topics.

How to understand the gaps among reading, speaking, and listening?

Briefly speaking, I think the reason directly points to: the English foundation is not enough, lacking enough practice in different scenarios to achieve the level as the native language. For more related points, I will mention them in section 3.5 Involved AI experimentation for writing and reading, which is based on my previous experimentation Checking my English by Leveraging AI along with my personal ways

3. Break the list one by one and the corresponding approach

From the speaker's perspectives

3.1 How much the delivery degree while speaking?

Naturally, the goal is 100% delivery degree while speaking, to make sure listeners can get the main content. Of course, even sometimes speakers make some mistakes, such as the wrong usage of words/expressions, even the grammar mistakes, the listeners can also get the meaning from the conversation content. However, this increases the recognition load for listeners.

Personally, based on the criteria below, my feeling about my delivery degree approximates 50%~80%.

1. Whether or not I successfully deliver the main content.
2. Some obvious mistakes increasing the listener's cognition work.
3. Pronunciation issues make it hard for listeners to understand.
4. Content itself (familiar level and complexity level), which needs a higher expression level or some tricks along with the increasing complexities.

3.2 What are the missing parts?

3.2.1 The usage of words, phrases, idioms or expressions

Based on the familiarity and grasp level, I divide them into the categories below.

1. New words, phrases, idioms or expressions. Almost don't know them, depend on guessing.

Some of them are related with the advanced collocations or domain terms, such as "ebb and flow" whose meaning I can't guess when I first encounter this phrase, or homomorphisms when I first learn group theory.

2. Vague understanding. Under specific context, can get the meaning.

Sometimes I can't guarantee my understanding of the meaning is right, sometimes I get lost in some scenarios. This often occurs in reading and listening, recognize the words in reading but lost in listening. For example, take the above second video as an example, the expression: "the strong momentum", "momentum" which looks like moment, the first thought that came into my mind may be the meaning of moment. However the actual meaning is force or strength.

"compulsory relocation", the "compulsory" is relatively easy to identify while reading. However, I rarely hear this word in listening. So I can't quickly figure out the meaning of this expression during listening.

The above phenomena involve either I know my understanding may be wrong, or I don't know but am aware I have encountered them before. All of these will affect my real conversation from time to time.

Sometimes the reasons why I don't understand some content is not because of the difficulties of the content itself, just because I don't know the word meaning or the vague understanding about some words. However as one reads enough books and makes sense of the correct meaning from the books or the related materials, the accumulated necessary basic words or expressions will help one understand more content in more and more scenarios.

3. Most of the time make sense, occasionally wrong.

This situation is the opposite of the above situation, the above is most of the time guessing wrong, occasionally getting the right answer. This situation is most of the time getting the correct meaning, occasionally getting the wrong answer.

Take me as an example, the word characteristic, I make sense of it in most situations, but always can't fluently speak this word.

4. Reading recognize

Make sense of the meaning while reading, but need more time to think while speaking or listening.

Once, I listened to someone saying hundredth while explaining a concept, but I mistakenly took it as hundred. This led my logic to get stuck, however when I converted hundred to hundredth, it worked. This shows sometimes unclear understanding will create more recognition load.

Other similar categories for me that work in reading but can't work in listening or speaking are listed below

1. Some general knowledge, such as how to speak countries' names.
2. How to speak some math symbols.

The above points involve new words at the reading-recognize level, there are huge words or expressions related to this level that need to be pushed to the basic or master level. My approach is when I encounter the words I know, but can't be sure whether or not my pronunciation is right, I record them together, until enough are recorded, then I ask AI to generate paragraphs, I will shadow practice these sentences to build correct pronunciation or feeling.

I think the first high ROI is these, pick them up, get more familiar with them, then try to apply them in different scenarios or create more possibilities to encounter them.

Another trick which was recommended by Drew Badger, the EnglishAnyone founder, is reviewing the same content many times in different ways. Such as the same article, watching the video once, listening to the related audio once, and reading the article once. Or listening to different accents for the same content, like American accent or Australian accent. Or reading the article using different tenses, from the past tense to future tense or present tense.

5. Basic level

Recognize them, and can make sense of their meaning in most situations. But sometimes can't quickly apply them, and there's no guarantee of 100% confidence.

It seems many people struggle with these situations while wanting to achieve the master level.

I think the reason is that people most of the time grasp the words or expressions in a passive way, don't put more time and energy into trying to apply them, or lacking the corresponding environments to apply them in different scenarios, missing the opportunities to make sense of the sophisticated usage of one language.

6. Master level

Confidently apply them correctly in different scenarios, sometimes using expressions in a creative or sophisticated way.

3.2.2 Master level comparison between English and native language

Most educated people can apply their native language beyond the natural level. For their profession, they can achieve the precise level, some smart guys can apply elegant usage or creative ways.

Comparing with native level, for English, the benchmark I think for the professional requirements should achieve the precise usage. Daily life or casual conversation should achieve the natural usage. And any higher level should depend on the individual's own ambition and talent.

3.2.3 The understanding level for the content

No matter which language one is speaking, the understanding level of one topic is the foundation to express. And this is the point I mentioned earlier that after building the necessary solid language foundation, which aspects should take more deliberate practice to push forward. For example, engineers know so many terms related to their industry, and when speaking to people without the related background, the engineer can speak the term in a plain and easy-to-understand way. For people who have so much interest in history, it's natural for them to pick history events and show the background and the following effects. Taking English as a tool, this is the real usage for a language for one's life and career. And the more meaningful and beneficial usage is to gain more resources and communication. For these scenarios, English is only a default process in the background.

Imagine a scenario, financial engineers discussing how to implement the option protocol should make sense of the widely applied model (Black-Scholes), make sense of the basic concepts of options, how to take account of the risks and rewards. Even for English native speakers, it also needs a long time to absorb these concepts and to apply them in a correct way. If one can discuss the design based on one's knowledge of options without realizing English itself, and implement the design, this demonstrates the guy actually achieves the real usage for one language.

3.2.4 Organize words or sentences in a natural and elegant way

When expressing one topic, there are many different ways of organizing the thoughts, which play critical effects on the listener's understanding. As the topic becomes more complex, the ways play more critical roles.

Open any English grammar book, there exist big components that involves how to use different tenses and different sentence structures. It's also the core component for standard regular tests. Recalling my student days, there exists one phenomenon that is even though one can answer the regular tests correctly, it's still difficult to apply them in writing and speaking. However, this creates the necessary foundation for the one who wants to achieve a higher level.

Generally speaking, some tenses or sentence structures are heavily used, such as below. Making sense of the below can handle most daily scenarios and work requirements.

1. the present simple.
2. the present progressive.
3. the past simple.
4. the past progressive.
5. the present perfect, the future.

For the typical sentence structure: subject + verb + object, we can describe subject and object by using clauses, even for the verb, adverbs can also make it more vivid, which leads to a more complex sentence structure.

For example, this sentence - Had Mallory been in possession of the kind of camera adventurers take for granted today, his fate would no longer be the subject of speculation., which applies both inversion and conditional clauses to create a more advanced sentence structure.

More grammar details are covered by the related English grammar books. The more reading, the more related grammar in use one will encounter, the more complex and long content one encounters, the higher the possibility of encountering the grammar being used in a complex way. On the contrary, when writing more, one will find it necessary to grasp grammars correctly.

Take me as an example, how about my level of applying grammars? Even for the basic grammar, I can't guarantee my usage is in a clear and elegant way. And this was verified during my AI experimentation.

Overview feedback

Your writing successfully tackles the core assignment ideas (deadlines and rewards), demonstrating an understanding of the concepts. However, the current draft is significantly hampered by consistent grammatical and structural errors which detract from clarity and formality. Furthermore, the essay needs revision to fully meet the prompt's argumentative requirement regarding the comparative effectiveness of the two methods.

Core issues

1. Formal and Impersonal Style — The task requires a formal and impersonal style. Your writing frequently deviates from this.

Version	Sentence
Original	From my own experience, if I don't work harder.
Adjusted	The understanding that trouble may result from inaction can motivate individuals to adjust their current behaviors.

2. Vocabulary / Sophistication — While the instructions suggest adding "sophisticated language" after review, the foundational grammatical accuracy is currently a greater issue than lack of sophistication. Many phrases are awkward or unnatural (e.g., "an valuable question", "aims for giving people rewards").

So for this issue, the approach is obvious, guaranteeing the correct basic usage, then move to the complex usage.

Besides the practical usage, some people have higher talent in writing, they can apply words or organize sentences or paragraphs in a way that most people hardly come up with, such as the greatest writers, their writing not only delivers the content, but also inspires one's spirit, expands one's mindset. This level is the result of the combination of persistence plus ambition plus talent. Why I mentioned this is to remind me that achieving the required basic level is the goal, but for the level itself, there is also a long way to go if one wants to enter a higher level.

3.3 From the listening perspectives

3.3.1 To what degree do I get the meaning while listening?

Generally speaking, this also varies on the topic's complexity and the familiarity degree. However, although it seems I can catch all in most scenarios, in some scenarios it's also not enough to catch all the content. Take the above second video as an example, the involved words or expressions (such as compulsory relocation, urban renewal) some of them I'm not familiar with, and can't catch them quickly during listening, which leads to the vague understanding about the content. I think the necessary basic goal like native language is no problem in listening to news, podcasts, watching videos, TV or movies.

3.3.2 The missing parts lead to the difficulties for comprehensive understanding

There are some overlaps with speaking. Obvious aspects include the grasp level of words, phrases, idioms or expressions, and the familiarity degree with the topic itself. The reading-recognize level sometimes works for speaking, however it sometimes gets stuck while listening, as the limited time to absorb the meaning, especially for some scenarios that I rarely encounter. For example, one doesn't always pay attention to economic news, although I have seen urban and renewal, so I hardly make sense of them together in a limited time. Of course, it's impossible to be familiar with every topic, but a necessary broader degree is needed.

3.3.2.1 The usage of some words or expressions

Sometimes the problem is someone can speak in a clear way and people can understand, but when listening to the same topic or using similar words or expressions, occasionally I get stuck. One of the critical issues is related to the pronunciation. For example, encountering weird pronunciation, along with other applied factors such as linked words, quick speed. That's why I put pronunciation as the first priority, so as to make sure my speaking is more correct, make sure more people can understand, and help me accustomed to different accents, so I can understand some words or expressions even in different scenarios. Of course, this needs long-time immersion to develop the feeling.

Derived from the above point, one should build the correct solid relationships between speaking and listening: for some words or expressions, at least make them work well for normal and basic words or expressions. Initially, make sure speaking and listening both work well, avoid when speaking works well but listening gets stuck, vice versa.

3.3.2.2 Content itself

For listening, beyond the point 3.2.3 The understanding level for the content mentioned, I feel it's easy to feel tired when I'm practicing the listening for a long time, such as repeating what others said compared with my native language, and I'm always missing some details, which is not like the native language that I can almost catch everything, or find some hidden clues. It's more like physical exercises, one should increase the muscle power, to adapt to the more intense activities, same as quickly absorbing the complex content and being able to repeat them in a correct and clear way.

3.3.2.3 The differences comparing speaking with listening

Speaking emphasizes how to organize the structure of the sentences in a clear way. On the contrary, the encountered sentence's structures are relatively simple but one should catch the meaning in a limited time while listening.

For listening, the familiarity degree of the topic or the related background knowledge also contributes a lot.

3.4 Flywheel between speaking and listening

Learning new words or expressions, making sense of them during reading, the grasp level will become more effective if one encounters them during a conversation and checks them again, the more times one encounters them in random situations, the more effective these words or expressions can be grasped, and for future casual scenarios, one can apply the words or expressions automatically and naturally, which demonstrates the real mastery of the words or expressions. This is like the trick I mentioned earlier, that is, reviewing the same content in different ways many times.

3.5 Involved AI experimentation for writing and reading

Above from the speaking and listening perspectives, of course, reading and writing also play critical roles, which decides whether or not the foundation is solid, and this also decides how deep the conversation, how advanced a level one can achieve. As the real understanding of some things always depends on reading or writing, no matter writing documentation or some implementation for coding.

In the section: What are the relationships between speaking and listening?, I mentioned reading is OK, but doesn't work well for speaking and listening, if one dives into the reading and writing, some issues become obvious. The goal is to push forward the reading and writing level, which will generate positive effects in speaking and listening.

Take some parts of my AI experimentation:

READING

Some conclusions:

From the several perspectives — including advanced grammar, more complex sentence structures and richer language use— this article is more complex than my usual reading materials. That’s why I think it’s worth reading multiple times, as it gives me a clear reference point for what a higher-quality article looks like.

The more I read, the more I can feel the beauty and power of language. With each reading, I enjoy discovering its sophisticated grammar, useful expressions, complex sentence patterns, and elegant combinations even more.

WRITING

You demonstrate a Lower-Intermediate to Intermediate level (A2/B1 transitioning to B2) in English writing, sufficient for communication of basic ideas but currently lacking the grammatical accuracy and stylistic control required for formal academic or high-stakes examination writing.

Strengths: Good content generation, solid structure, and ability to identify key concepts.

Weaknesses: Persistent issues with fundamental grammar (articles, prepositions, subject-verb agreement, verb forms), lack of formal tone, and sentence complexity causing confusion.

3.6 The summary of the check list

To summarize the above content, I pick the pronunciation as the first priority, then put most of the time on the speaking and listening perspectives, evaluating the real level, then try to figure out which component to pay attention to, then supply the AI experimentations which show the writing and reading aspects, how they relate with speaking and listening, aiming at building a framework on how to take advantage of their relationships to push the English level forward.

Comparing with the previous English practice articles The-journey-on-how-to-improve-English-level-from-the-practical-perspectives, this article focuses more on the specific issues, and more concretely. One feeling is my English foundation is not solid, so I should put more time and energy on the specific errors and the lacking parts. My previous learning and practice was more like the "immersion mode", where I absorb freely and don't over-correct myself. And this article is more like the "precision mode", which should guarantee the correctness, then advance to the complex.

4. The metrics showing the real English level

The above shows the concrete issues from different perspectives and the available approaches, but how about verifying the real English level or stage? Some institutions release their standards, like CEFR levels. However, from the practical perspectives, below are my own metrics.

4.1 Listening recognition. How broad are the scenarios I can understand? Can I catch everything as I do in my native language, such as news, podcasts, casual conversation, videos without subtitles. It's impossible to recognize all topics, but no problems at least for my career, daily common topics.

4.2 Expression recognition. Do listeners from different regions understand my speaking? Do they have some troubles while listening?

4.3 Comprehensive level. The comprehensive and accurate level while speaking, writing. What's missing? Which components are always missing, which increase the difficulties during speaking and writing.

4.4 Conversion level. Can I convert the content absorbed in reading into speaking by using a clear, concise way? The same conversion level for listening to speaking, reading to writing.

4.5 Mistakes rates. How frequently do I make some basic mistakes, can I actually solve these mistakes?

4.6 Advanced reading level. Can I figure out some relatively complex books, even some books which are challenging for natives, such as "A Song of Ice and Fire"?

4.7 How about my performance during public speech or casual conversation?

5. Final questions

Finally, from the practical perspectives, the questions below involve whether or not I actually apply English in real life and whether or not I achieved the expected effects.

1. Do I immerse enough for reading, listening, or watching? Whether or not it develops efficient feeling during the real conversations or public speech?

2. For the real conversation, how about the topic diversity?

3. How about my performance from casual conversation to formal conversation? Does it bring more pleasure or excitement? For formal conversation, like the discussion or debate in the project, different people hold different perspectives, can I effectively deliver my thoughts in a limited time like in native language, or can others catch my thoughts clearly?

4. Do I actually fight for my team's interests or my own interests, actually deliver the main meaning in an appropriate way?

5. It's hard to grasp one language in some months, but it's achievable to solve one specific issue in a limited time, like the correct usages of prepositions, by the compound of these accumulated achievements. How about the effects of truly grasping English?

6. Do I apply English as a tool without being aware of its existence in more and more scenarios?

7. Comparing with purely searching and reading materials, what about the real inspirations during the real communications?

8. When looking for a private teacher or joining an English speaking community, does it actually serve the goals mentioned above?