I bet you have at least once felt frustrated learning English and said that it was difficult, that it’s not for you. Sometimes we all feel like that when learning a new language and we don’t feel or see the progress that we all desire. Instantly the negative thoughts surround our minds and block us and make us feel that we are not doing great, that we are not made for learning English or that we will never learn the language.
Whether you’re struggling to learn English or just want to improve it, in this post I will provide you with 5 tips to learn English and take advantage of every single one of them.
Engage with English Every Day
I can tell you that practicing English every day is a matter of commitment, and this tip is just that, you need to commit, not to practice, but to engage with the language on a daily basis. If you speak, write, and listen in English, you’ll be able to enhance your skills. Things you do every day like watching Tiktoks, cooking videos, memes, travel vlogs, music, all of that, switch it to English.
Do not just listen or watch whatever you consider is best for you, use the same kind of content you consume in Spanish to English. Do this gradually, don’t switch completely the first day because you will feel overwhelmed and most likely get frustrated, we don’t want that, for sure.
The idea behind this is for you to get used to the language. Remember that the time you have for a class is not enough for you to learn a new language, especially if you want or need quick results.
Learn the Vocabulary You Actually Use
Focus on your own Spanish vocabulary. If you ever get a list of 500 verbs in English, throw it away. Well, maybe save it for later, but at the beginning it’s useless, because what you need is to learn vocabulary that you will actually use and not words that you maybe will use once in a while.
How many times will you use the verb “enroll”? Maybe if you work as a sales agent or work for a school, then you will use it, contrary to that, on a daily basis, it is very rare for you to use it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to know it, but only if you need it, not because you were forced to learn it.
When we were kids, our parents didn’t give us a textbook with a bunch of Spanish Grammar rules for us to learn, nor a paper with 500 verbs in Spanish and the 21 tenses. Be honest, if you speak Spanish, do you know how to conjugate the “pretérito pluscuamperfecto”? No worries, it’s the same Past Perfect in English, but it has a difficult name.
Make a list of the words or verbs that you use the most on your daily basis, it not necessarily has to be a list of 100 words, it can be a list of 10 or 20 words and that should be enough for you to go to your favorite AI and ask: Translate the following verbs to English, provide me a table that contains the translation, if it is regular or irregular, the pronunciation, the past participle and simple past of each verb and finally an example of how it can be used.
With this, you should be able to obtain vocabulary that you use regularly and not words that you will only use once in a while. This may seem boring, but remember, how do you learn a language? By practicing and by doing an effort in learning new words.
Record Yourself Speaking
Record yourself, this is very simple, but many people don’t do it because they don’t want to listen to themselves because “I don’t like my voice in English”. What if you record yourself now and in the next two years after practicing and speaking English fluently you listen to it again, you will laugh at how afraid you were at the beginning, but also, you may feel proud of yourself for taking action and obtaining what you wanted.
Record simple things like what you did during the day, what you will do the next day, even vent about a specific situation. It doesn’t matter, just give it a try and save those recordings. Listen to them on a weekly basis and try to identify what you said correctly, congratulate yourself and then focus on your areas of improvement, mispronunciation, grammar mistakes, among other things.
This will help you understand where you are and how and where you can improve. Use AI tools to help you identify those mistakes that you will probably unconsciously miss or if you are in private lessons, ask your tutor to help you with that task.
Read Aloud Often
Read a lot, yes, I am not kidding, you have to read a lot. Read aloud so, again, you can hear yourself and focus on pronunciation. People underestimate the reading skill because what they want is to talk as soon as possible. However, if when reading you pause, you give rhythm, you use a proper tone, you will see the improvement just by reading a short paragraph on a daily basis.
Repeat that paragraph at least three times and that should be it. You can even combine the recording tip with this one and have some really good practice time.
Reading aloud will help you be more conscious about the way you speak, trying not to add unnecessary accents like African American, Indian, Chinese or even Latino.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that accents are bad, what I am saying is that you can improve your speaking skill by reducing your accent as much as possible to the point people tell you: “You sound native”.
Be Patient with Your Progress
Keep in mind that learning a language takes time. It is different for everyone and you cannot say that in the next two months you will be speaking on an intermediate level if you start from zero today. Maybe you can, but then again, it works differently for each of us.
Be patient, if you really need to improve your English level, book some private lessons, or if you are short on budget, book group lessons and combine them with all the tips above. Remember that the most important thing when learning a language is not just attending class, but putting into practice what you learn.
If you really desire to speak English fluently, be patient, you will master it with time. If you want to speak English soon, increase the daily practice time from 10 minutes to an hour, for example.
When I was younger, I started playing the guitar, I had guitar lessons, but after that I practiced for 2 hours more and now, after 25 years, I play smoothly, but I am still learning new tricks. The same happened with English, it was not until I started speaking on a daily basis that I got the results I was looking for.
Final Thoughts
In short, you can boost your English learning process by being efficient and applying the tips I mentioned above. Do I guarantee the results in two, three or four months? No, as mentioned above, it works differently for each of us, so it may take more or less time for you, but start now and you will be closer to your expected results.
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