How to learn english fast and easy
How to learn english fast and easy
How to Learn English Faster: 25 Tips for EFL Learners
English can be a daunting language to learn.
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Full of contradictions and odd rules and pronunciations, its idiosyncrasies are what makes it interesting, but it can be a challenge if you’re new to it – and even if you’re not! In this article, we’ll offer some useful tips for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students on how to speed up the process of learning this complex language, so that you’ll be fluent before you know it.
Learning on your own
‘Going it alone’ when learning a foreign language requires extra hard work and commitment, and the speaking parts are particularly challenging. Our first set of tips should help make the process a little easier.
1. Invest in good study materials
Buy notebooks you’ll want to use.
In addition to a basic learning guide that will provide some structure for your studies, you’ll need a good dictionary for translations, and ideally also a dedicated grammar guide. You’ll also need a notebook, lined paper and a lever arch folder for your notes. Get some stationery that you enjoy using, so that it makes studying more fun!
2. Buy an audio CD or DVD
Audio CDs or DVDs are really useful for learning pronunciations, giving you essential practise that you won’t get otherwise if you’re studying on your own. These will also give you practise at saying the words yourself.
3. Find someone to Skype with
Try to find a native English speaker who’s prepared to spend some time speaking with you on Skype. This will give you valuable practise at conversational English, as well as motivating you to learn more.
Formal English study
It’s all very well trying to learn English on your own, but to make real progress and keep your motivation running high, it’s strongly advisable to formalise the process of learning the language by booking yourself onto a dedicated EFL course. This will give you a structured programme to follow and will force you to keep up with studying, and you’ll have the added motivation of learning with other people. Make sure the course you choose is fully accredited – e.g. with the British Council and English UK. Here are some of the options open to you.
4. Go on a summer school
Because summer schools have pupils from all over the world (ORA is expecting 100+ nationalities this summer), you’ll hear lots of different accents and get to practise speaking English with non-native as well as native speakers.
Learning the vocabulary
One of the biggest challenges of learning a new language is simply remembering all the words. There’s a vast number of new words to learn, so it’s vital to be systematic about it or you’ll end up feeling overwhelmed.
Arrange your notes in whatever way helps you learn best.
EFL study tips
To get the most benefit from your studies, it’s important to have a sensible approach to your day-to-day learning. Here are some tips to help you study effectively.
12. Set aside time for homework each day
Be regimental in your approach to studying English, and set aside a dedicated amount of time each day to do homework. Keep away from all distractions, such as the TV, your phone or your computer, and stick to your allotted time every day.
13. Find a study buddy
As already mentioned, it’s useful to have a friend studying with you so that you can test each other on vocabulary. But the benefits of a study partner go further than that. Not only will you be able test each other on the words you’ve learned, but you’ll also be able to practise conversational English together, set each other quizzes and spur each other on if motivation runs low.
Reading rhyming poetry can also help you practise the rhythms of English, and the rhymes will give you a clue to pronunciation.
You might feel silly at first, but your pronunciation and confidence will improve tremendously just by reading English out loud, even when you’re on your own. If you’re unsure of the pronunciation, there are plenty of internet sites that will read out the words to you for you to repeat.
15. Record yourself
Nobody likes hearing the sound of their own voice, but we all sound different in our heads to how we sound out loud. Recording yourself speaking English can highlight words you’re not pronouncing correctly, even if they sound okay in your head. These recordings will be an interesting record to look back on, too — listen to them even a month later and you’ll be amazed at how much progress you’ve made!
Away from the classroom
Some of the most important learning you’ll do when you’re learning English as a Foreign Language takes place away from the classroom environment, and we’re not just talking about homework. There are lots of things you can do to help accelerate your progress without it even seeming too much effort.
16. Make English-speaking friends
Speaking English conversationally is a great way to get your confidence up, and you’ll pick up new words and phrases almost without even realising it. What’s more, you’ll learn the colloquial language spoken by native Brits every day — the constantly evolving slang that language books don’t tend to teach you.
Email is simpler, quicker and certainly cheaper, but you might find the delight of getting airmail letters helps motivate you to learn.
Travel
We think you might like our final tip, so we’ve saved the best until last.
Why not come and practise your English in an Oxford summer school?
How to Learn English Fast and Easy
Have a clear vision
Before getting an answer to your question “How can I learn English”, find a reason why you need to improve your language skills. Having a clear vision will:
Reflect on the reasons why learning this language is so crucial for you. Do you have a specific purpose? Make sure that it’s significant enough to motivate you to keep on moving forward throughout your language training journey. The more focused you are, the faster and easier you’ll make progress.
Set specific goals
How long does it take you to learn English? First of all, it depends on your goals and a study schedule. After specifying WHY you want to become proficient in English, write down WHAT exactly you want to achieve and WHEN. Setting clear and specific goals will give you the needed clarity of the process and help you make the right decisions. Set a long and short-term goal and focus on working towards them.
Pay attention that poor goals are not specified and have no time limits. So, adding deadlines is crucial for evaluating your progress.
Besides, unclear goals don’t have an accurate measure of success. What do you mean by “speak fluently”? What do you need to do to enroll at the desired university? Perhaps, it’s required to pass the TOEFL/ IELTS exam or have a B2 level. Find your measure of success and make your goals as detailed as possible.
Let’s see how SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) goals look like:
Make your goals ambitious, but stay realistic at the same time. If you work for twelve hours per day, don’t spend three hours a day studying English. Overscheduling never leads to high results. Instead, think out a balanced learning plan — start small, but learn regularly. In fact, daily practicing is key to your language proficiency. Even if you spend only 20 minutes on it, instead of an hour, it’s better than nothing.
Do you like to learn English on Skype with a tutor or prefer studying in a group? There are different ways of learning a language. Just find out what works best for you, stay committed to your goals and you’ll learn English in no time.
Find a balance
As you may know, there are four main language skills: reading, listening, writing, and speaking. But how do you know what is the most significant? According to Cambridge English and QS global overview of English language skills at work, all of them are equally important. However, some employers consider that preferable language skill is reading, which is then followed by speaking.
Everything depends on your goals. When it comes to traveling or business trips to another country, speaking fluently and with good pronunciation will surely come in handy. If you want to make friends abroad, improving your writing will help you keep in touch with them via social media and messengers.
So how to study English effectively? In any case, it’s important to keep a balance between these four major skills while studying. Being proficient in only one of them is not enough for having a good command of a language. Before you can write perfectly, you have to read well. On the other hand, to respond with ease, firstly, you should be able to discern the succession of words that you hear and of course, understand them.
As you can see, each skill relies on the other one. Thus, the best way to learn a language is to create a balanced learning plan. For example, you can learn English watching our English Speeches with subtitles on YouTube. By that, you will be training listening and reading at the same time. Also, you can regularly read our blog or listen our podcasts on Spotify and then, discuss them with a friend.
Use resources that match your level
Want to learn English from zero to at least Upper-Intermediate (B2) level within a short period of time? Choose study resources that are right for your level or just a bit challenging.
For example, if you’re still a beginner, there is no need to learn English by reading news from the BBC. Instead, start with the websites like News in Level or The Times in Plain English. To find the best book to learn English via reading, you can also check out platforms such as Project Gutenberg, a place with free public domain e-books.
Besides, make sure that the resources you use are not too simple. If you’re an advanced English speaker, reading storybooks for kids is not an option. Of course, understanding each word on the page can make you feel confident. But you’re just wasting your precious time focusing on words that you already know.
Learn vocabulary in the context
How to learn spoken English in the best way? Do not even try memorizing words derived from the context you’ve encountered in the dictionary. A perfect way to build extensive vocabulary is to ensure that words in the list you’re learning are related to a strong context. Learn new words and phrases you find in some texts, dialogues, podcasts, books, YouTube videos, etc. The context helps you figure out the meaning of the unknown words and shows in which situations they are used. By the way, this can also help you improve your grammar.
Build confidence through daily practicing
If you want to improve your English, use it on a regular basis and you don’t necessarily need to move to an English-speaking country for it. Platform like Italki.com connects people worldwide with native speakers who can help them enhance their speaking skills simply staying at home.
There are also various mobile apps such as Tandem that allows you to have a conversation with people from the global learning community. Today, the internet provides a lot of opportunities for learning English by listening to podcasts, watching movies and videos, communicating with others, etc. There are also sites to learn English by song lyrics. Just choose the method that suits you the most and make English learning your everyday habit.
And finally, never give up!
Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Business language training is an excellent opportunity for personal growth and continuous improvement. So, don’t worry to look foolish when you communicate with native speakers or learners with higher fluency level. Don’t be too sad about being corrected. Remember that you’ll never improve your language skills if you’re too afraid of making mistakes. Just stay confident and keep on trying. Why not start today?
How to Learn English Quickly | 12 Best Methods
Many of us try to find the answer to learning English quickly and faster. Sometimes we think English is a complicated language to learn. Especially those types of people who want to learn English as their second language sometimes become frustrated and give up learning English.
Learning a second or foreign language is not an easy task, but you can learn it quickly if you spend some time following some best methods. Sometimes we can’t apply proper strategies, so we are not skilled in English and fail to learn English accurately. However, we have to learn English with a proper understanding. Otherwise, it will be tough to achieve all the existing skills in English.
Importance of English Learning
However, if you wish to trip abroad, you have to speak English, especially in Europe and America. Furthermore, you also have to learn English to talk to your foreign friends and business people.
The twenty-first century is a period of globalization and technology. So we have to connect ourselves around the world. English learning can be played a significant role in connecting with the globe. Let us analyze how to learn English quickly?
How to Learn English Quickly
If you follow the given strategies, you will be benefited from them and learn English quickly. Follow the below best methods to learn English faster:
1. Develop Your Reading Skills Proficiency
Reading skills is one of the best skills in the English language. To develop reading skills proficiency, you have to read comprehensive texts more and more. If you continuously emphasize reading, you can generate many ideas to improve your English skills.
Now the question is how to improve my English reading skills? Well, you can improve your reading skills in various ways. Let’s see the below methods in brief:
You can follow various kinds of books. These books will help you to grow up your knowledge. You may choose famous English writers and follow their writings. Without developing reading skills, you can’t learn English properly. So follow this step and learn English comfortably.
2. Communicative Language Teaching
Communicative language teaching is a learner-centered method that believes in learning to communicate through communication; this method encourages practice to develop communicative skills.
So communicative language teaching is an excellent platform for efficiently developing English or second language skills. You will get a massive benefit if you correctly follow this method.
3. Virtual English Classes
You can develop your English skills by attending virtual English classes. There are vast online courses available on the internet, and they teach English in modern methods. You can participate there without any hesitation.
You may participate in virtual English classes to improve your English skills. Please spend some time with them and follow their instructions. You can get different ideas that help you improve your English skills badly.
4. English Grammar and Vocabulary
These both are the trump cards to develop English proficiency. Let’s follow basic grammar properly and memorize new vocabulary more and more. You can make a routine to learn unknown vocabulary every day, and try to follow the pattern, and increase your vocabulary more and more.
The more you memorize English vocabulary, the more you get a lot of ideas that help you make a new sentence in English.
5. Use a Dictionary
Dictionary always helps a student to learn a second or targeted language quickly. Nowadays, you can use a dictionary on your smartphone and computer through different types of applications. If you have a smartphone, you can easily download a dictionary from the Google play store or apple apps store.
So it’s not a difficult task to use a dictionary. If you want to learn English, you must have a dictionary, follow a dictionary and try to memorize unknown words.
6. Try to Watch English Movies
English movies are an excellent source to develop English skills. It would help if you watched English movies. If you don’t have enough time, you can watch at least once a week.
The first time it will be difficult to understand the language of the native speakers. But don’t be frustrated. Try to see subtitles and understand the pronunciation passionately. Continuously follow this routine until you have a good knowledge of English.
I think you will understand the language by watching English movies and improving your English skills.
7. Follow English Newspaper and Magazine
English newspaper and magazine is excellent platform to improve English skills. If you don’t read English newspapers and magazines, please concentrate on them.
If you cannot translate the sentences to your mother tongue, then follow a dictionary. You need to use this trick for more than one year to gain proper English knowledge. You can follow the below English news channels:
Try to follow those news channels regularly. You can learn the world news and improve your English skills by following these English news channels. However, it can be one of the best ways to improve yourself in English. So follow this strategy, and I’m sure you will get a good result from it.
8. Improve Your Writing Skills
If your writing skills are so poor, you cannot improve your English skills. Writing abilities is another trump card to develop English skills.
You can develop your writing skills by following some methods. It would help if you practiced free handwriting. Let choose a topic and describe it according to your ways. Let’s see how to improve writing skills in English in brief:
Suppose you can follow the above steps in writing skills. You will be able to develop your writing skills and improve your English skills quickly.
9. Improve Your Listening Skills
Listening skills will also help you to learn English properly. You can improve your listening skills by following some methods. To know more about listening skills, you can read this article. Let’s see how to improve your listening skills in English:
You may listen to English music, and it is another way to improve your English skills. Further, you can join an English conversation with a group of people and listen to them, and this is how you can understand the English language correctly.
10. Improve Your Speaking Skills
Speaking skills is another method to improve your English quickly. If you acquire speaking skills, you can develop your English without hindrance. So you need to practice every day. Let’s see how to improve your speaking skills:
However, you can practice it over the phone by joining in an English conversation with your friend. It is an excellent idea to develop your English skills. Please don’t waste your time and start it as soon as possible.
11. Talk to Yourself
If you cannot join in a conversation physically, you can talk to yourself. The first time it seems to be strange. But don’t lose your consistency. If you feel shy, you can stand up in front of a mirror and talk to your shadow. I think you will become a fluent speaker of English if you follow the trick regularly.
12. Group Conversation
Group conversation is an excellent platform to improve your English skills. You can create a group with your friends. When you guys attend, you can start a group conversation. Choose a topic, whatever you want, and then start the conversation.
It helps you to improve both listening and speaking skills. Further, you will get many ideas from your friends to develop your skills.
Now it’s almost transparent that we need to learn English to compete globally. No one can attain all the skills overnight, and you have to keep patience and follow those 12 best ways to develop your English skills.
Afterward, try to understand quietly whatever you want to learn. And this is how you can get the best ideas to know English quickly and faster.
How to Learn English Fast: The Language Hacker’s Method
written by
Benny Lewis
If you want to get fluent in English, you’re in luck. It’s the second most spoken language in the world. So you won’t have to look very hard to find lots of English resources and lots of chances to practise both spoken and written English.
What if you want to learn English fast? Then there are some steps you should follow so that you don’t waste any of your precious study time or lose interest in studying.
Let’s get to it! Here are my 9 steps for how to learn English fast.
Step 1: Find a Good GREAT Reason to Learn English
Are you surprised that the first step isn’t about how to learn English words or grammar? Don’t be! Finding your Big Why is much more important than knowing which words to learn (“the what”) or the best study methods for English (“the how”).
Before “the what” or “the how”, start with “the why”. Get a pen right now, or open a text document on your computer, and write down why you want to be fluent in English.
Don’t write a reason just because it sounds cool. Really think about why learning English is important to you. You don’t have to show it to anyone. Just make sure that your reason is great enough to motivate you throughout your English mission. The more motivated you are to study English, the easier English will be to learn.
During the remaining eight steps in this article, if you ever find that you’re losing interest in studying English, come back to this step and remind yourself why learning English is a great idea.
Step 2: Decide Exactly What You Want to Do in English — And When You Want to Do It
I’ve studied a lot of languages in the past 15 years. I’ve learned that I make much faster progress when I have a clear goal in mind than I do when I’m just studying aimlessly.
In this step, take the same sheet of paper you used in step one. Write down exactly what you want to achieve, and when. If you’re reading this article, then you probably want to learn English fast. In that case, your goal should be ambitious. Even if you’re not in a big hurry to get fluent, make your goal clear and specific. Here are some examples of bad (unclear) and good (clear and specific) goals:
Bad Goals
Good Goals
Notice how the bad goals have no time limit. When do you want to complete your goal? This is important. If you have a time limit, then you can evaluate your progress during your studies and figure out if you need to change your routine to meet your goal. Each of the good goals has a very clear deadline.
The bad goals also don’t include a clear measure of success. What do you mean by “fluently”? Which university do you want to attend and what are the English requirements there? If you want English friends or romantic partners, what do you want to talk to them about?
Before you move on to step 3, write down a clear, well-defined goal that you want to achieve in English.
Step 3: Find English Resources that are Just a Little Bit Challenging
If you want to learn English fast, this step is key.
If your English is still basic or lower intermediate (for example, if you find this article a little bit difficult to read), then don’t try to read the New York Times yet! It will only discourage you. Instead, look at resources such as VOA Special English News where you can listen to news stories in clear, slow English.
Make sure your study resources aren’t too easy, either. If you’re an intermediate English speaker, reading children’s storybooks or Wikipedia in Simple English might make you feel confident if you understand every word. But in fact, you’re just wasting your time. Are you really learning English if you’re only seeing words you already know?
The perfect English resources will be just easy enough that you can understand the basic ideas without looking up any words in the dictionary, but difficult enough that you have to look up several words if you want to understand everything in detail.
Try out as many different English resources as you can. Discard the ones that are too easy or too hard, and keep using the ones that are just right for your level.
Step 4: Find English Resources that Match Your Goal
Make sure everything you do in your English studies brings you closer to your goal.
If your goal is to talk with native English speakers about films, then watch English films. If you want to pass an English exam so you can study abroad, get a tutor who’s qualified to prepare you for that exam. If you just want to learn how to have casual conversations in English, then go to meetups and language exchanges where you can chat about everyday topics.
This is why it’s so important to have a good, clear goal. If you aren’t sure where you want to be in three months, six months or next year, then you won’t know where to start looking for good practice material.
Step 5: Learn New English Words — Lots of Them!
I’ve met too many English learners who put all their effort into perfecting their accent and grammar. They’re already trying to sound like a Wall St. stock trader or a BBC Brit, before they know enough vocabulary to talk about these subjects.
This is a mistake. Your English will take you much farther if you have a wide vocabulary than it will if you speak with a perfect accent but don’t know very many words. Most English speakers in the world speak English as a second language. Nearly all of them speak it with a foreign accent. So we native English speakers are used to hearing foreign accents, and we don’t mind it at all.
Perfect grammar also isn’t as important as vocabulary at first. Lots of native English speakers haven’t mastered English grammar, and they get by just fine. You can still be fluent in English and make some grammar mistakes. But you can’t be fluent if you only know a few words.
What you can say makes a bigger impact than how perfectly you say it. Even the president of the EU speaks English with a foreign accent! So don’t worry about it. You can still go very far in life even if you don’t sound like a native English speaker.
6. Speak! Speak! Speak! Speak English!
No amount of listening, reading or writing practice will make you a good English speaker. If you want to speak English, you need to practise speaking it.
The easiest way to do this is to take English lessons at home on Skype. Start by searching for tutors on Preply (our review is here). If you don’t have money for tutors, you can search for conversation partners to do a free language exchange. A language exchange is a conversation that you have with a native English speaker who wants to learn your native language. You take turns talking in English and your native language.
There is no substitute for speaking practice. Do it as often as you can.
7. Practise Your English Every Day
Daily practice is important for a few reasons.
It keeps you motivated
If you do something every day, it will become a habit. Once you create a habit, you’ll be motivated to continue it.
It saves time
When you only study once or twice a week, you forget a lot of the new things you learned in your previous study session. So you have to waste a lot of your valuable study time reviewing things you’ve already learned. If you study every day, material that you learned the day before will be fresh in your mind, which means you’ll spend less time in review.
You can skip a day without big consequences
If you decide to study for a little while each day, then it’s not a big deal if you have to miss a day of studying for some reason. But if you study for a long time once or twice a week, then missing a day means losing a lot more study time.
Try to practise all four skills every day: reading, listening, speaking and writing. If you don’t have time to do all four, then I recommend at least speaking and listening.
8. Make Time to Actively Study English
Reading online in English, watching English TV, and having English conversations will all help you use what you’ve learned. But you still need to set aside active studying time each day. This is time where you do flashcard drills, quizzes, lessons with a teacher or other structured study. This way, you’ll be sure that you’re really learning new material instead of only reusing things you already know.
9. Make Mistakes! Fail Fast and Fail Often
Failure is an essential part of language learning. Mistakes are actually a really easy way to improve your English.
If you’re like me, you were probably taught that mistakes are bad. That might be true if you’re an engineer, but not if you’re an English learner. You’ll never speak English fluently if you’re too afraid to make mistakes while you learn. The more mistakes you make, the sooner you’ll be corrected, and so you’ll learn faster.
Don’t be worried about looking foolish when you talk to native English speakers. Most English speakers don’t speak any other languages. So we’re very impressed when foreigners communicate with us in English, even if they make mistakes. If you make a genuine attempt, English speakers will be more than happy to help and encourage you. Try it and see!
Above All, Don’t Give Up
I know you can learn English fluently. How do I know? Because millions and millions of people all over the world have proven that it can be done. The more you practise, make mistakes, and speak, the faster you’ll get fluent in English. So why not start today?
Benny Lewis
Founder, Fluent in 3 Months
Fun-loving Irish guy, full-time globe trotter and international bestselling author. Benny believes the best approach to language learning is to speak from day one.
Speaks: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Esperanto, Mandarin Chinese, American Sign Language, Dutch, Irish
How to Learn English Fast in 5 Easy Steps
How to Learn English Fast in 5 Easy Steps
Do you want to learn to speak English fast while sitting at home? Here are the tips to learn English easily by following simple steps. These are useful tips to learn English that can help you to achieve the task of learning English. You have to spend more time with English. Abraham Lincoln has rightly said:
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
That’s why native English speakers are so good at it: they’ve spent thousands of hours listening, talking, reading, and writing English. Studying only is sufficient for learning. Listening, talking, reading and writing all are equally necessary to become a fluent speaker of English.
How to Learn English Fast in 5 Easy Steps
Learn English in a fun way
Learn some basic grammar
Use the power of phrases
If you have a conversation partner, ask him to say the phrases while you record them on a smartphone, computer or recording device.
Listen, Speak, Read, Write
The brain of a human being doesn’t remember every detail. Instead, they remember the things that seem important. If you just learn a phrase once, and never read or hear it again, you probably won’t remember it. Try to review once within a few minutes. You should focus most of your time to listen to English. Once you have heard phrases or sentences a few times, start using them in your daily routine. Talk to whoever you can; if you can’t find anyone, talk to yourself!
Reading and writing are also equally important, but you’ve probably already gotten a lot more practice with those. Just make sure to read more than you write.