Hi everybody, I'm new too. I am going to practicipate in IELTS exam about next 2 month.
I try to read more and more essays about IELTS topics, and I try to memorise some nice sentences and phrases to using in real test. beacause I don't have much time and I should practice 4 skills as you can know that.
Do you think is that a good idea to memorise the beautifuly phrase or you don't think so, please give me some advises?
I think it is probably good to start a collection of sentences can be versatile. Versatile sentences can be used in many ways. so, you wrote this:
I try to read more and more essays about IELTS topics, and I try to memorize some nice sentences and phrases to using in real test.
You can use that beautiful sentence for anything. For example, about friends:
I try to meet more and more people in order to have fun on the weekend, and I try to create nice experiences that we can share and remember.
Or about working:
I try to make more and more money in summertime of each year, and I try to do it while working fewer and fewer hours.
That is how you can CONSTRUCT great understanding even though you start with only one sentence.
Read Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now in your native language, and then read it in English. that is my most important advice! :)
Beautiful phrases are worth studying because they are beautiful. Try memorizing some lines from poems that have moved you. They can be a great source of inspiration when you need it, even if you can't work a direct quotation into your essay.
Poems can be dangerous to use, because they use nonstandard English -- poetic license can confuse ESL students.
that is just something I thought of last year when I was trying to learn Spanish...
I agree that poetry and song lyrics can use non-standard English that can confuse the ESL student, but there are some that are helpful.
I memorized all of the Catholic prayers in Spanish and I am surprised at how often I rely on that to remind me of Spanish grammar constructions. Dios te salve, Maria, el Senor es contigo. Bendita tu eres entre todas las mujeres y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre, Jesus . . . literally it is "God you saved Maria. The Lord is with you. Blessed you are among all the women and blessed is the fruit of your womb . . ." It may sound silly, but I have found that a prayer I will say without thinking about it can really help me to consider how those words are put together in another language. Now if I were trying to write an essay in Spanish (you really wouldn't want to see that), I would never be able to use words like womb, death, pray, or sinners, but knowing the prayer does help me to remember some of the verb conjugations and when to use tu, tu (imagine this one with an accent), te, and ti.
English is such a complex language that I would think it would be very helpful to put together a few sentences and memorize them ahead of time. I like Kevin's idea of constructing a few sentences that can be changed to fit different situations.
Ah, if the goal is merely memorization of grammatical forms, then the entire essay can probably be reduced to a fairly simple formula, with all of the sentence structures planned out ahead of time. Of course, you'd pretty much have to have mastered English to the point where you wouldn't need to do this in order to actually be able do it, which is sort of ironic . . .
I would discourage memorizing certain phrases because using them may sound awkward compared to the rest of your writing.
