English Learning Tips that Work
English – there has been a lot of fuss around this language for decades. Everyone wants to know it and speak it fluently. And no wonder it is so – being a global language spoken all over the world, it does not only facilitate communication between people from different nations, but also enables doing business with partners overseas.
One thing is certain – English is a must-know language, unless you are a stay-at-home individual having no intention to travel, use international business and trade channels, or just make new friends who don’t speak your language. If you read on, then you most probably don’t belong to that group and it means you need some effective English learning tips to improve your command of this language. The key to learning it effectively is a well-structured and step-by-step strategy to study English. Remember that the main obstacles that are going to affect your study may be the lack of time, motivation, inappropriate English learning books, monotonous study strategies, and a few more. Which is why, this article is focused on minimizing your mistakes and giving you the most out of your study by providing you with some proven English learning tips and tricks:
Avoid Monotonous Study
You cannot even imagine how many people give up studying English after months or even weeks. Lessons become less and less intensive until they disappear completely from the schedule. The main reason why people lose interest in English is learning it from one single resource, for example from English learning books only. To make things better, it is very important to make your study more entertaining and combine it with some fun. Try watching movies and reading books in English. If your English is too poor for watching movies without translation, why don’t you watch them with the subtitles? Use some reliable resources that offer hundreds of movies with the subtitles in your language. If you prefer reading books, there are a lot of options for you here too. If you use certain book editions, they are intended for readers with certain language levels. This way, people with different levels of English can watch films and read books, whatever their language skills are. In fact, all the modern English teaching books suggest studying the language through writing, reading, listening and speaking except for grammar. This is a perfect way to study the language in complex.
Use Appropriate Books
The variety of English teaching books is so diverse now that those who wish to study English often do not have an idea what are the criteria to choose a book. First of all, it is vital to determine your English level to make sure you won’t find it difficult to understand the rules and wording. If you believe you’d better start from the very initial level, there is nothing bad in it. The next aspect is a book type. There are both English learning books for kids and adults. Regardless of the language level, these two book types use different approaches towards teaching. The next thing is that, in the majority of cases, it is better to use English editions of language books. But be ready to look up for unknown words in the dictionaries.
The separate role goes to dictionaries as you are going to use them while studying grammar, reading books and watching movies. Do not limit yourself to only one dictionary as it is much more effective to use both bilingual and monolingual ones. Very often, for better understanding of the meaning, you may need to read not just a translation but a detailed description of the word or phrase. Using desktop and online dictionaries has now become extremely popular among language learners as it is undoubtedly faster and more convenient. However, you may still be fond of paper-back or pdf dictionaries. If you are not willing to buy paperback books or dictionaries, pdf is a good option to save some cash.
Constant Communication and English Learning Speaking Tips
The majority of learners make a huge mistake – they just study English grammar and thus believe it’s the only key to knowing the language. However, when it comes to speaking, they face a strong barrier they cannot overcome. It is thus possible that you know all the English tenses and grammar structures, but you may fail to talk to an English speaker due to the lack of speaking practice. As a solution, find someone among your friends who has the same goal – improve their foreign language skills. Discuss weather, plans for future, movies, share emotions about a lovely party and wonderful vacations – there are a lot of topics to talk about in English. Go along your city and imagine you are going with a foreigner. Tell as much as possible about your city architecture, buildings, history, interesting places, etc. You will thus enhance your communication skills and get prepared for potential visits. When you go to a different country, ask people about direction, some local restaurants and culture. Make friends with people from all over the world, chat with them online and enjoy live communication. Starting with simple communication, you will then be able to discuss business matters with your potential employers, clients or partners from all over the world. With no doubt, English gives tremendous opportunities in terms of entertainment and work. It would be good to have a dictionary always at hand. You may download it to your smartphone to look up for a translation of any unknown word you need. It is fast, easy and convenient.
If this is possible in your city, you can have a chance to visit English speaking meetings. Usually, they are free and enable you to join a community of people who have come to practice their language skills too. You can even meet native English speakers at such meetings. Joining such communities is a big benefit for your study process, especially if you have no one to practice your speaking skills with.
It’s not about How Fast – It’s about How Effective
Whenever you meet someone who started studying English, everyone of them will be curious about how fast they will make their English perfect. Even though it is not bad to strive for speedy results, you should concentrate on efficiency first. Wonders do not happen overnight. Good results require hard work and time. The results you are going to see will be gradual – it means your English is supposed to become better and better. Stop expecting that your English will become fluent in a month or two, even if someone claims it will. It hasn’t been written to discourage you from studying. One or two months is a huge period that can bring you awesome results if your study is intensive, but be ready to keep the ball rolling and keep studying. If you concentrate on effective study rather than on speed, you will follow a certain strategy instead of chaotic learning of unknown words and studying only some parts of grammar.
Grammar vs. Words
The major doubt that learners often face when they start learning the language is what is more important: grammar or knowing words. In fact, they should cover both. No matter whether they need English for business or communication with their friends abroad, operating only with grammar or only with words is a bad and ineffective practice. In addition, applying all the strategies in complex will make your study not so monotonous and will thus generate more interest to learning.
Learning with Ease and Fun
The choice of learning resources is tremendous. However, it’s worth concentrating on the websites that offer easy English learning tips for free, huge variety movies to download, some entertaining exercises and other opportunities to study the language. Speechyard is worth recommending as it is an all-in-one English learning resource. On this website, it is possible to study English through movies by conveniently translating unknown words, adding them to your list of words for further study and practicing them with the help of exercises. With the greatest collection of video files, you will find videos to your taste and liking. What makes this website different from other resources of this kind is that it is also a social network that enables live communication with other learners. In addition, the website is compatible with smartphones and tables, which makes the study process even easier and always at hand.
Discuss movies, music, make new friends, discover cultural differences, learn unknown words and watch your favorite movies in English. Don’t postpone your study. Combine all the peculiarities of the Speechyard website and the above mentioned English learning tips that we have gladly shared with you. Keep the ball rolling and see how your English is getting better.