How to Make Google your English Teacher

How to Make Google your English Teacher

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Disclaimer:  The material herein is designed to assistlanguage learners and not replace English teachers entirely.    

Googleis a very popular search engine, but did you know that it could also serve as anEnglish Teacher? Let   me show you a fewways that you can use Google to practice your written English and more...

1.    Did I say that the right way?

Thereare often several ways to say the same thing in English. So, how do you know ifthe way you are phrasing your sentences is correct? I would suggest that youcompare various sentences in Google and pick the sentence that is most popular amongthe search results.  

Forexample, I searched the sentence "What do you mean by that?" onGoogle and received 489,000 search results.I then looked up the sentence "What is itthat you mean?" and found 74,300 search results. From this comparison,I would deduce that   "What do you mean by that?" is generallymore widely used as an English expression than "What is it that youmean?"  

 
2.    Should I say that over here?

Thanksto the movie "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery," thephrase "Yeah Baby!" has become a popular slang phrase in America.Is this generally accepted slang in Italy? What about the United Kingdom?What about Russia?

To investigate this, I searched thephrase "Yeah Baby" and ask Google to only return search results frompages in certain locales. For example, the command site:uk only returns web pages that are hosted inthe United Kingdom. 

·        "YeahBaby" site:uk returned37,000 search results from the United Kingdom.

·        "YeahBaby" site:it returned  5,520 search results from Italy.

·        "YeahBaby" site:ru returned17.900 search results from Russia.

So, from this experiment, I wouldascertain that the phrase "Yeah Baby" is more popular in the United Kingdom than Russiaand much more popular than in Italy.Make sense? Clickhere for a list of top level domains (such as co.uk) and the countries thatcorrespond to them.

3.   Is there a word missing?

By using an asterix in a sentence,Google will assume that a word is missing and search for phrases that it thinksfills in that blank. For example...  

Bysearching, How are you * today?

Googlereturns search results that includes:

·        "How are you doing today?"

·        "How are you feeling today?"

·        "How are you guys today?"

·        "How are you coping today?"  

 
Click here to see for yourself and payattention to the phrases that are bolded.  

4.   Is there another word I could use?

By using Google's Tilde command (~), you can find words that Googlethinks are synonymous to the word you are searching for. For example, if Iwanted to find words that are similar and/or associated with"coffee," I would perform the following search:

~coffee

Click here to see the results. What you willnotice is that certain words are bolded and these are the keywords to focus on.In this case, these keywords include: Starbucks, Starbucks Coffee, caffeine andcafe.

5.            Wherecan I find a practice test?

Wouldyou like to practice for your TOEFL (Teacher of English as a Foreign Language)exam? You can find all sorts of practice tests by following these Google searchexamples:

·        Clickhere to find free TOEFL practice tests

·        Clickhere to find free TOEIC practice tests

·        Clickhere to find free IELTS practice tests

·        Clickhere to find free ESL or EFL practice tests

6.    Wherecan I find free ebooks on practicing or learning English?

·        Clickhere to find free ebooks on learning English

·        Clickhere to find free ebooks on practicing English

7.    Howcan I practice my word association?

Ifyou would like to make sure that you are associating the right words with theright objects, I would suggest that you enter keywords in Google’s imagesearch. For example, the term “flowers”brings up images of different types of flowers. However, there will beoccasions when a word’s meaning is dependent on how it is being applied. Forexample, the word “windows” brings up images of Microsoft Software as well asdifferent types of windows that appear on buildings. In those cases, I suggesttyping a sentence into Google’s image search for a reference point.

Hereare a few examples for inspiration. Click the highlighted words below foradditional insight into that word.

·        “Lookat the windows on that house,”he said.

·        “Mycomputer runs on Windows,” shereplied.

·        “Imade a bank deposit today,” shesaid.

·        She whispered softly, “…bythe river bank.”

·        The baby is eatingfrom a bowl.

·        He goesto the bowlingalley every week, just to bowlstrikes.

 Anadditional resource to use would be the digital library of Life Magazine.Google has indexed the photographs of Life magazine from the 1860’s to the1970’s. Clickhere to see an example of the word “cowboy”as depicted by Life Magazine.  Click here to search moreimages from Life Magazine.

8.    What does that word mean?

Ifyou do not know what a word means, Google has a free dictionary available toyou. Simply use the “define” command. To do this, type “define:” and then the word that you want to discern.  For example, clickhere to see how Google defines the word “realize.”

9.    How can I practice my English by karaoke?

SingingEnglish pop songs is a great (and fun) way to pick up the English language. Performingthe song with the original artist via music video is even better. If you have afavorite artist, you can find the lyrics to several of their songs on Google.In the event that you know the song title, but not the artist, you can stillfind the lyrics. Here are a few examples:

• Click here to find lyrics to various songs by Alicia Keys.  
• Click here to find lyrics to the song, “Are you gonna’ go my way?”
• Click here to find lyrics to several songs by Sade.

Tofind the lyrics you have an interest in, simply change the name of the artistor song title in the examples above.

10.          How do I say that in English?

Doyou have an idea of what to say in your native tongue, but unsure how totranslate that into English? Well, some words or phrases do not translate wellfrom language to language. However, if you would like to try, Google has a toolthat could prove quite useful. It is called Google Translate. (Click here to see it foryourself.)

Simplyadd text in your native language (1), choose your native language as the firstoption (2), choose English as the language you want your text translated to (3)and then click the “Translate button (4). Google will then give you thetranslation. It is that easy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jim Stroud is a Social Media Development Manager for EnglishCafe,the premier English learning community for global professionals. Its parentcompany - GlobalEnglish Corporation is the leading provider of on-demandbusiness English communication learning and support for the world's topcompanies. 

• Click here to read Jim Stroud’s profile on EnglishCafe.
• Click here to read Jim Stroud’s blog on EnglishCafe.

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