Non-native English speakers - what helped you the most to become a better communicator?

For me, it was about learning the culture. Living in another country may not be an option for most people, but even trying learn more about the culture from different resources makes a difference. You don't learn about the mannerisms in textbooks.

Reading and writing in English. It helped me a lot. The best would be to live in an English speaking country.

For writing, I would recommend these books:

• On writing well
• Keys to great writing
• The element of style (more as a reference)

For me also living in an english-based country, having a fiance who speaks English and writing a lot of blogs in English! https://daily-dev-tips.com/

This depends strongly where you live:

1.) None English speaking country: Movies, Audio books, Podcasts and Blogs to learn the language and get a feeling for phrases, word combinations and dialects. All the news you and information you consume on daily base - replace it with an English alternative.

2.) English speaking country - continue with all things from point 1 but get out (as much as possible - stay safe) and speak with people --> Meetups, Networking, Volunteer, ...

3.) Last but not least is the confidence to speak up in a different language. This gives you an additional boost. Yes it is hard but the more you speak the better you get and the embarrassing feeling will slowly disappear. A good approach here is to ask more questions instead of telling stories (Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Ziglar).

Living in an english-based country. I'm a Brazilian and lived 13 moths in Ireland. This kind of immersion helped a lot. I also changed the language of all my electronic environment (computer and cellphone), but living in an english-based country was the main difference when I compare myself with other Brazilian friends who finished their english courses.

I remember being a teenager and wanting to speak English.

I fell for a British girl...

That helped a lot then just making English speaking friends and so on.

I had to learn it, it would have been ridiculous being born in London...and not speaking a crap of English.

It was living in England, reading newspapers every day on public transport, watching the news on the BBC and repeating what the newsreader said... Over time, you start sounding like a BBC newsreader... I never had enough time for English lessons because of having to work to survive. Oh, also, reading whole grammar books, and years later, writing English courses for beginners and teaching English in French-speaking Africa.

I always worked in science outreach and education, which likely helped.

As for practicing English, I haven't stopped reading in English almost daily since I left school over three decades ago. Also, I have been writing in English almost daily since going online in the early 1990s and joining my first Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists.

By the way, I'm Italian.

While moving countries to an English speaking one I found most of the communication gap was cultural not actual language.
Behaviour, social clues and common exchanges from jokes and jabs to politeness and even negative response teach you a lot..
I guess there is much to the saying if you want to truely learn a language, go to that country...
Specifically I guess if you have key contact people try to have some non work or light conversation to kind of get a baseline with them (it's a 2 way thing)
There are teaching around building repur with people like mimicking one thing from them..
And there is listening to people who it really well, extremely good speakers.
You can also try joining a toast masters group.

I'm a French native speaker living in London since 2015. From my experience the fastest way to improve your communication skill is to record yourself and listen to / watch your recording.

It is, for most of us (me included), very painful to listen to your own voice but I can assure you, you'll see the difference in few weeks.