Studying English on the Internet

http://www.askoxford.com/?view=uk This site is more an information site than a dictionary, although the site does give short dictionary definitions of most words. (Oxford's full online dictionary exists but it is a pay site.)

A portal to many dictionaries

http://www.onelook.com/

Phrase Finder

Quite a good site for finding the meanings of many common English expressions and idioms.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/ Homepage

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/index.html The page for searching for meanings

Roget’s Thesaurus (A famous book!)

This is similar to a dictionary of synonyms.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/dictionary-articles/roget-thesaurus-online.html

http://thesaurus.reference.com/

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/thesaurus/;_ylt=AmZUzDAD.v7L3sS_22XHhSIuCcsF

British Slang

You should not use most of these words and expressions in the IELTS test.

http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/

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Online Pronunciation Guides

http://www.howjsay.com

British English pronunciation of words and many commonly used phrases such as, "What did you do?" This site gives the pronunciation of different tenses of verbs, for example, "graduated". The voices are real people.

http://www.merriam-webster.com

This is a dictionary + pronunciation site. American English. This site doesn't have the pronunciation of past tense of verbs and it doesn't have a library of commonly used phrases. The voices are real people.

http://www.dictionary.com

This is a dictionary + pronunciation site. American English. Some of the recordings seem to be real people but others seem to be 'computerized voices'. The site doesn't have the pronunciation of past tenses and it doesn't have a library of phrases.

http://www.btinternet.com/~eptotd/vm/vowelmachine/vowelmachine.htm

Basic level.

This is a good little quiz to test you on your listening ability for vowel sounds (in British English). It can also be used for pronunciation practice – just mimic the pronunciation.

How to use.

There is a button at the bottom of the page that links to an explanation of how to use this site. But you don't need to use that because it is so simple. Just click the "Spin" button. You'll see three words and hear one pronunciation. Choose which word was pronounced and you'll be told if you are right or not. Just click every button to see what they do. It's simple.

http://www.edict.com.hk/vlc/pronunciation/games/games.htm

This site has several good explanations, recordings of words to mimic and listening quizzes.

http://www.edict.com.hk/vlc/pronunciation/default.htm

This site is connected to the previously shown site.

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Online Listening and Speaking Practice

http://www.dictationsonline.com/

This is a great site for dictation (听写)! British English. Doing dictation exercises will greatly help you improve your listening ability. It will also indirectly help you speak better.

After you have done the dictation, you can copy the correct passage and then go back to the page where the reader speaks the dictation slowly. Listen again while looking at the correct text and mimic the speaker. Then try doing that again when the speaker speaks the passage at normal speaking speed. This will greatly help you improve your speaking ability!

http://www.shiporsheep.com/page1.html

This is is especially useful for those people who have poor pronunciation. It has pairs of words that sound similar but not exactly the same, such as, 'sheep' and 'ship'. Mimic the speakers.

http://www.spokenenglish.org/

This is a very useful site, in British English, that has many short question/answer examples. You can improve your grammar and your pronunciation by practicing with the materials on this site.

http://www.fonetiks.org/

This site is useful for practicing (or reviewing) basic pronunciation. An interesting feature of this site is that it has examples of English pronunciation from nine different countries.

Pronouncing vowel sounds in English

http://www.edict.com.hk/vlc/conversationintro/

Good for short dialogue listening and speaking practice.

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Download Some Listening Materials

This website has free listening podcasts, at different listening levels.

http://www.podcastsinenglish.com/index.htm

Downloads from The British Council's 'Learn English' website

http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-podcasts.htm

(Some of these have transcripts that you can download.)

http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-podcasts-elementary-archive.htm

(It looks like no transcripts of the Elementary level podcasts are available.)

http://www.britishcouncil.org/professionals-podcast-english-listening-downloads-archive.htm

(These have transcripts.)

http://www.eslpod.com/website/ This is an American site with free podcasts. It's good but the people in the recordings speak too slowly and unnaturally. This means they don't do the normal linking of speech sounds that native speakers do.

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Online Translation

Here are four places on the internet where you can translate from English to Chinese or Chinese to English. If you have never used translation software before, be very careful because translation software can sometimes make terrible (and even stupid) mistakes! This is especially true for idiomatic expressions.

See also a short guide on the 中文 page of this website.

http://www.google.cn/language_tools?hl=zh-CN

http://babelfish.cn.yahoo.com/

http://dictionary.reference.com/translate/index.html

http://www.freetranslation.com/

Possibly the third one is exactly the same as the second one because both are based on the Systran software.

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Grammar Quizzes

There are many good grammar quizzes on this site: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/quiz_list.htm

This site has a few quizzes on rather basic grammar: http://www.esldesk.com/grammar/index.htm

This site has two games for identifying grammar mistakes in a sentence. (You don't need to give the grammatically correct word – just show that you know what kind of error is in the sentence.)

You place bets and try to win as much money as possible. Warning: Before you play the game, you need to fully read and understand the explanation under the heading of 'Types of Mistakes'.

http://www.edict.com.hk/vlc/roulette/

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Phrasal Verbs

Websites on phrasal verbs in general

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-phrasal-verbs.htm

http://www.rit.edu/~seawww/phrasalverbs/pvintroduction.html

http://esl.about.com/cs/intermediate/f/f_phrasal.htm

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/phrasal-verbs/

http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-word-games-phrasals4fun-index.htm

Websites with lists of phrasal verbs

http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/phrasal-verbs-list.htm

http://www.uazone.org/friends/esl4rus/pvlist.html

http://www.phrasalverbdemon.com/dictionarya.htm

http://www.learn-english-today.com/phrasal-verbs/phrasal-verb-list.htm

http://esl.about.com/library/weekly/aa011198.htm

Websites with quizzes on phrasal verbs. (There are many other websites similar to the ones below.)

http://www.phrasalverbdemon.com/

http://www.eflnet.com/pverbs/phrasal_verb_alpha.php

http://www.churchillhouse.com/english/exercises/phrasals/

http://www.stuff.co.uk/phrasal.htm

http://a4esl.org/q/h/idioms.html

http://www.carolinebrownenglishlessons.com/

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-phrasal-verbs_quiz.htm

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/phrasal-verbs

http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/phrasal.html

http://www.linguarama.com/ps/297-5.htm

http://esl.about.com/library/vocabulary/blphrasalref1.htm

http://www.saywhatesl.com/quizes/phrasal_mx.html

http://www.eslpartyland.com/quiz%20center/the%20big%20let%20down%202.htm

http://esl.about.com/library/weekly/aa031098.htm

http://english-zone.com/index.php?ID=52

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/phrasal-verbs/quizzes-verbs.html

http://www.learn-english-today.com/wordgames/quizzes-printable/ph-verbs1.htm

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Quizzes on 'Linking Words'

This is a short quiz on some connecting words (=discourse markers) although not all of these connecting words are the types that are useful for the IELTS Speaking test. The answers are at the end of the quiz, with detailed explanations. You need to download the small pdf. file.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/files/teacheng/discourse_markers.pdf

This one is on a British Council English learning site.

http://www.go4english.com/vg/read.php?unitid=2028

A Headway quiz on connecting words (connective discourse markers): http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/headway/advanced/a_grammar/unit04/hwy_adv_unit04_2/

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BBC Learning English

The following BBC pages have lots of excellent material to help you improve your English.

Here is the Chinese language page for BBC Learning English: http://www.bbc.co.uk/china/learningenglish/

Here is the English language page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

This page is especially useful for people who need to improve their pronunciation: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/

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Headway

Homepage: http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/headway/ This website seems to be mostly quizzes on grammar and vocabulary. It also has listening dialogues, with the transcripts, but I couldn't see any questions based on the dialogues.

'Headway' is possibly the best general English textbook for British English. It is very suitable for students preparing for IELTS.

Other well-known foreign textbooks have been republished in China (with some added Chinese language content) and are sold at a reasonably low price in China. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any Headway books that have been republished in China. But you can find Headway books at certain bookshops in China, such as the imported book section of the Foreign Language Bookshop in Wangfujing.

A Headway quiz on connecting words (connective discourse markers): http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/headway/advanced/a_grammar/unit04/hwy_adv_unit04_2/

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The British Council's 'Learn English' website

This looks like a very good resource to help you improve your English, especially listening. The only problem is it's hard to know what is on this website. You need to click on everything to see what this website has. See also the listening downloads, above.

http://www.englishonline.org.cn/zh-hans/home (Chinese)

http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/

http://www.britishcouncil.org/central.htm?mtklink=central-learnenglish-portal-main-promo

The IELTS section

http://www.britishcouncil.org/professionals-exams-ielts-intro.htm

Phrasal Verbs

http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-word-games-phrasals4fun-index.htm

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The Virtual Language Centre

http://www.edict.com.hk/vlc/default.htm

http://www.edict.com.hk/default.htm

(There seems to be two home pages! )

This is a great site from Hong Kong with lots of useful information and quizzes, recordings, dictionaries etc. Click on everything. You can spend hours on this site!

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