What is the best way to ______ my English?

[hirashin]

Dear native English speakers, would you help me?
(a) What is the best way to ______ my English?
(improve, better, upgrade, advance, level up, develop)
Which one in the parenthesis would be possible in the blank?

(b) Learning English is the key to _____ a lot of foreign friends.
Which would be suitable, make or making?

Thanks in advance.
Hirashin

 

[mdchachi]

(a) What is the best way to ______ my English?
(improve, better, upgrade, advance, level up, develop)
Which one in the parenthesis would be possible in the blank?

My opinion:
improve: perfect, most natural choice
better: it sounds ok but if I heard this, I'd think the speaker learned this in Britain or elsewhere.
upgrade, develop: maybe grammatically ok but doesn't sound natural
level up: not sure if it's grammatically acceptable or not; it sounds unnatural and like Japanese-English to me.

(b) Learning English is the key to _____ a lot of foreign friends.
Which would be suitable, make or making?

I don't know which is correct grammatically. As a native speaker, I think making is the most natural choice. However I think make is also acceptable and doesn't sound strange.

 

[lanthas]

(a) "Upgrade" is what you do to a machine, it sounds weird when used about people.
"Level up" indeed most likely comes from the 和製英語 「レベルアップ」. In English, your character in an RPG can level up (as in, gain a level), but it's not something you can say about your real self - except as a joke, applying video game logic to real life. (And then there's スキルアップ "skill up", which is not valid English under any circumstance )

 

[hirashin]

Thanks for your help, mdchachi and lanthas. I thought that level up would be in "Japanese English"

 

[RobertoSeven]

(a) What is the best way to ______ my English?
improve - perfect.
better - sounds odd, I think because of 'best' already being used. "How can I better my English?" is, well, better.
upgrade - only really applies to gadgets and things like your mobile and apps.
advance - a little odd.
level up - only someone obsessed with gaming would even think about this one. Lanthas is right.
develop - excellent.

(b) Learning English is the key to making a lot of foreign friends.
I agree, 'making' is more natural and you will hear that much more often but 'make' is OK. Not sure why though. Possibly because it sounds more potential and applies to the current and future continuous.

 

[hirashin]

Thanks for the help, RobertoSeven.

develop - excellent.

Do you mean "develop" can be put in the blank?
If so, what's the difference between "improve" and "develop" in meaning?

Hirashin

 

[ElaineThomson]

Dear native English speakers, would you help me?
(a) What is the best way to ______ my English?
(improve, better, upgrade, advance, level up, develop)
Which one in the parenthesis would be possible in the blank?

(b) Learning English is the key to _____ a lot of foreign friends.
Which would be suitable, make or making?

Thanks in advance.
Hirashin

As a native of the United Kingdom, I can advise that 'improve' is the correct answer to (a), 'making' is correct for (b). Best wishes,
Elaine

 

[hirashin]

Thanks for the help, Elaine.