Any recommendations on some websites or apps I could use to polish my essay or email to make it seem more native/proper/advanced,or what should I do to improve my vocabulary

Answers

rightside_10

7 February

English (US)

I would definitely check out Grammarly. It's a computer extension that will check the grammar of your essays and sentences, and with a premium subscription can even change the words of your essay to reflect different tones and formalities. Super cool!

I would also recommend the website UrbanDictionary.com for learning or researching slang. A lot the slang on there is used often with the youth of today, so if you're young, it can be a real asset.

Hope this is helpful!

inkychat

7 February

Simplified Chinese (China)

@rightside_10 Hi, thanks for your suggestions. I did use grammarly during my graduate time, happy to hear the website recommended by native speakers. As for ud,I've also used it for years, the challenge is to figure out the proper word in a quick time or something, and think in an "English" way, not transforming into my native language,etc.

Orion_the_hunter

7 February

English (US)
English (UK) Near fluent

One of the more bizzare tips I learnt in Uni was to actually not look for synonyms online. If you're using vocabulary that you're unfamiliar with, your sentence might end up sounding awkward.

Learning when to use which words just comes with experience. Personally, I think that many of the example sentences in online dictionaries come off sounding unnatural.

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inkychat

7 February

Simplified Chinese (China)

@Orion_the_hunter Yeah…definitely agree, thus I am using a clumsy way by simply gaining experiences, like reading some novels, literature,newspapers,etc, but going slow right now（sigh）