1. Start
your own English language blog. Even for people who don't have to write in
English, writing can be a great way of properly learning the kind of vocabulary
you need to describe your own life and interests, and of thinking about how to
stop making grammar mistakes. The problem most people have is that they don't
know what to write about. One traditional way to make sure you write every day
in English is to write an English diary (journal), and a more up to date way of
doing this is to write a blog. Popular topics include your language learning
experience, your experience studying abroad, your local area, your language, or
translations of your local news into English. 2. Write a news diary. Another
daily writing task that can work for people who would be bored by writing about
their own routines in a diary is to write about the news that you read and
listen to everyday. If you include your predictions for how you think the story
will develop (e.g. "I think Hillary will become president"), this can
give you a good reason to read old entries another time, at which time you can
also correct and mistakes you have made and generally improve what you have
written. 3. Sign up for a regular English tip. Some websites offer a weekly or
even daily short English lesson sent to your email account. If your mobile
phone has an e-mail address, it is also possible to have the tips sent to your
phone to read on the way to work or school. Please note, however, that such
services are not usually graded very well to the levels of different students,
and they should be used as a little added extra or revision in your English
studies rather than as a replacement for something you or your teacher have
chosen more carefully as what you need to learn. 4. Listen to MP3s. Although buying
music on the internet is becoming more popular in many countries, not so many
people know that you can download speech radio such as audio books (an actor
reading out a novel) and speech radio. Not only is this better practice for
your English than listening to English music, from sources like Scientific
American, BBC and Australia's ABC Radio it is also free. 5. Listen to English
music. Even listening to music while doing something else can help a little for
things like getting used to the natural rhythm and tone of English speech,
although the more time and attention you give to a song the more you will learn
from listening to it again in the future. 6. Read the lyrics to a song.
Although just listening to a song in English can be a good way of really
learning the words of f the chorus in an easily memorable way, if you want to
really get something out of listening to English music you will need to take
some time to read the lyrics of the song with a dictionary. If the lyrics are
not given in the CD booklet, you may be able to find them on the internet, but
please note that some lyrics sites deliberately put a few errors into their
lyrics for copyright reasons. Once you have read and understood the lyrics, if
you then listen and read at the same time, this can be a good way of
understanding how sounds change in fast, natural, informal speech. 7. Sing
karaoke in English. The next stage after understanding and memorizing a song is
obviously to sing it. Although some words have their pronunciation changed
completely to fit in with a song, most of the words have the same sounds and
stressed syllables as in normal speech. Remembering which words rhyme at the
end of each line can also be a good way of starting to learn English
pronunciation. 8. Write a film, music, hotel or book review. Another motivating
and easy way to make yourself write in English is to write a review for a site
such as Amazon or Internet Movie Database. Many non-native speakers write
reviews on sites like this, and if you have some special understanding of the
book, music or film due to your first language or knowing the artist
personally, that would be very interesting for the English speakers who read
and write reviews on the site. 9. Only search in English. Switching your search
engine to the English language version of msn, yahoo, Google etc. can not only
be a good way of practicing fast reading for specific information in English,
but could also give you a wider choice of sites to choose from and give you an
idea of what foreigners are writing about your country and area. 10. Read a
book you've already read or seen the movie of in your own language. Although
most language learners under Advanced level would probably learn more from
reading a graded reader or something from the internet than they would from
reading an original book written for English speakers, for some people reading
something like Harry Potter in the original can be a great motivator to improve
their English. To make this easier for you and make sure that it motivates you
rather than just making your tired, try reading a book that you already know
the story of. This not only makes it easier to understand and guess vocabulary,
but you are also more likely to remember the language in it. If you have not
read the book before, reading a plot summary from the internet can also help in
the same way. 11. Read a translation into English. Another way of making sure
books are easier to understand is to choose a book that was originally
translated into English, preferably from your own language. Even if you haven't
read the book in your own language, you will find the English is written in a
slightly simplified way that is more similar to how your own language is
written than a book originally written in English would be. 12. Skip the first
ten pages. If you have given up with a book in English or are reading it very
slowly, try skimming through the first ten pages or skipping them completely.
The start of most books tends to be mainly description and are therefore full
of difficult vocabulary and don't have a clear story line yet to help you
understand what is happening and to motivate you to turn the next page. If the
book is still too difficult even after the introductory part is finished, it is
probably time to give that book up for now and try it again after you have read
some easier things. 13. Read a book with lots of dialogue. Opening up books
before you buy one and flicking through them to find one with lots of direct
dialogue in it has several advantages. If there is less text on the page due to
all the speech marks etc., this can make it easier to read and easier to write
translations on. Dialogue is also much easier to understand than descriptive parts
of a book, and is much more like the language you will want to learn in order
to be able to speak English. 14. Read English language comics. Even more than
books with lots of dialogue, comics can be easy to understand and full of
idiomatic language as it is actually spoken. There can be difficulties with
slang, difficult to understand jokes and/ or dialogue written how people speak
rather than with normal spellings, so try to choose which comic carefully.
Usually, serious or adventure comics are easier to understand than funny ones.
15. Read English language entertainment guides. Nowadays most big cities in the
world have an English language magazine and/ or online guide to the movies,
plays, exhibitions that are on in the city that week. Reading this in English
is not only good value, but it could also guide you to places that English
speakers are interested in and where you might hear some English spoken around
you. 16. Read English language magazines. Like books, if you can read two
versions of the same magazine (Newsweek in your language and in English, for
example), that could make understanding it much easier. 17. Take a one week
intensive course. Although you cannot expect to come out of a very short course
speaking much better English than when you started it, if you continue studying
a little over the following weeks and months, the knowledge you gained then
will gradually come out and mean that your level of speaking, listening etc.
are better than they would have been if you hadn't taken that course. This
positive effect can still be true up to a year later. 18. Follow your intensive
course up with an extensive course. The more time you can spend studying
English the better, but studying periodic intensive courses with a few hours of
study a week in between is probably better value for money than any other
system as it gives your brain time to subconsciously learn and start using the
new language you have learnt before you introduce the next new
"chunk" of language. 19. Supplement your group class with a one to
one class. Another good way to combine two different kinds of classes is to
study both in a group class and one to one. Having a one to one teacher, even
if just a couple of times a month, will mean that you can be taught exactly the
language that you need, that you will have more time to speak, and that you can
have as much error correction as you like. 20. Supplement your one to one class
with a group class. The benefits of having a group class are often less clear
to students, but they include the fact that you will learn to deal with several
people speaking at once, have a chance to practice skills such as interrupting
people, and will hear a range of different viewpoints and topics. 21. Teach
your children or friends some English. Recent research has shown that elder
children tend to be a couple of IQ points above their younger siblings, and the
most likely reason is that explaining things to their little brothers and
sisters gives them an intellectual boost. In the same way, teaching someone
lower level than you the English you already know is a great way of permanently
fixing that knowledge in your own brain. 22. Ask your company to start English
lessons. Even if you don't need to speak English at work, English lessons can
be a fun and reasonably priced way for your company to spend their training
budget in a popular way. 23. Have English radio on in the background while you
are doing your housework. Even if you are not listening carefully, it will help
you get a feel for natural English rhythm and intonation. 24. Play English
language learning games on your Nintendo DS. Although such games can have quite
random language and are unlikely to improve your ability to speak English on
your own, the next time you hear or read the same language elsewhere it will be
really fixed in your brain by the fact you have played a game with it in
already. It is also a nice way of taking a break from your other English
studies while also doing some English. To make sure it really is a break and to
avoid wasting time learning language from the game that is not much used in
daily life, don't bother writing down any new language you see in the game, but
just try to learn it from playing the game again. 25. Say or think what you are
doing in English as you do your daily tasks. As you are doing your chores, try
creating sentences describing what you are doing, e.g. ‘I am unscrewing the
ketchup bottle cap'. This gets you used to thinking in English without
translating, and can be a good way of seeing what simple vocabulary that is
around you every day you don't know yet. 26. Watch English language films with
English subtitles. For people who can't understand a film without subtitles but
find themselves not listening at all when reading subtitles in their own language,
this should be the way of watching a film that you should aim for. If it is too
difficult to watch the whole film this way, try watching the (usually
important) first 10 or 15 minutes of the film with subtitles in your own
language, switch to English subtitles after that, and only switch back to
subtitles in your own language if you get totally lost following the story of
the film. 27. Watch films in your language with English subtitles. If you are
finding English films with English subtitles too difficult or you can't find
English films with English subtitles in your local video shop, this is a good
second best option. Looking for local films with English subtitles can also
sometimes be a good sign of quality, as it means the producers of the film are expecting
it to be popular internationally as well. 28. Watch English films with
subtitles in your language. Again, this is not as good practice as English
language films with English subtitles, but is more relaxing, can be easier to
find suitable DVDs for, and is also possible with VHS. 29. Watch the same film
or TV episode over and over again. This can not only save you money on DVDs,
but will mean that you can really learn the language without having to study
it. Some comedies can also get funnier the more you watch them, especially if
you watch them with no subtitles and so understand a little more each time you
watch it. 30. Be realistic about your level. One thing that holds many language
learners back is actually trying too hard and tackling something that their
brain is not ready for yet. Checking your level with a level check test on the
internet, by taking an English language test (FCE, CAE, IELTS, TOEIC, TOEFL
etc.), or by taking a free trial level check and/ or lesson in a language
school will help you find out what your level is and so choose suitable
self-study materials. 31. Be realistic about your reading level. Most
researchers agree that people learn most when reading something they understand
almost all of. If there are one or two words per page that you have never seen
before, that is about the right level. If there are three or more on every
page, you should switch to something easier and come back later. 32. Read
graded readers ( = easy readers). These are books that are especially written for
language learners like you, e.g. Penguin Readers. Although it can be difficult
to find something as interesting as things written in newspapers or on the
internet, in terms of learning the language only people who need to read for
their work or an exam usually gain more from reading things written for graded
readers. Graded readers of classic books like Charles Dickens also have the
benefit of giving you a lot of knowledge about the literature, and culture more
generally, of English speaking countries in a short time. 33. Read the whole
thing with no help. Although using a dictionary has been shown to help with
both short term and long term learning of vocabulary, the fact that using it
slows reading down can stop some people reading in English at all. Reading a
whole book quickly through just for pleasure from time to time will help you
remember how fun reading in another language can be. 34. Read and learn
everything. At the opposite extreme, it can be hard work but very satisfying to
get to the end of a book knowing that you have learnt every word in it. See
other tips on this page to make sure it is a book that is easy enough to do
this with and to ensure that the vocabulary you learn is useful. 35. Watching
English children's films or TV programs. Although some of the vocabulary you
can learn from things made for children can be a bit strange (lots of animal
names and maybe animal noises, including baby names for things), the fact that
not only the language but the structure of the story is simplified can make it
an easy and motivating thing to watch. Like good language learning materials,
the same language is also often repeated to make it memorable, and the use of
catchy songs etc. can increase this positive effect on your memory. 36. Read
English children's books. This is very similar to watching English children's
movies, but with the added advantage of there being more illustrations than
adult books, which both helps you to understand the story and makes the page
brighter and more motivating to read. 37. Keep a list of language to learn,
e.g. a vocab list. Even if you don't often find time to go through your vocab
list and it keeps on building up, just the act of choosing which words you need
to learn and writing them down on a special list can help you learn them. 38.
Go through your vocab list several times every day. If ticking off words on a
vocabulary list on the train to work is inconvenient or embarrassing for you,
you can keep your list of words to learn as an entry in your electronic dictionary,
as a mobile phone to do list or as a text file in your MP3 player (e.g. iPod).
Although the time spent transferring the information between different formats
like these may seem wasted, in fact any time you spend using the vocabulary
like this will help you learn it.
39. Convert
your vocab list to English only. One way to stop yourself translating and
therefore increase your speed of comprehension and production is to learn all
your vocabulary without the use of your own first language. Ways you can write
a vocab list in only English include with synonyms (words with the same
meaning, e.g. "tall" and "high"); with opposites
("high" and "low"); with pronunciation factors such as
number of syllables (the number of beats, e.g. three for "de- ci-
sion") and the word stress (the syllable that is pronounced louder and
longer, e.g. the second syllable in "baNAna"); and gapped sentences
(e.g. "I am not _________________ in science fiction" for the word
"interested").
40. Cross
out and delete. Crossing out or deleting words, sentences or whole pages that
you have learnt can be a great motivator, and save your list of things to learn
becoming too big to handle.
41. Throw
everything away and start again. One of the things that can put most people off
learning is a stack of half finished books or a huge list vocabulary waiting to
be learnt. Simply getting rid of all that and starting again with something new
from zero can be a great motivator and get your studies underway again.
42. Label
things in your house or office with post-its. The easiest vocabulary to learn
is the vocabulary of things you see and use every day. If you can write the
names of things around you on slips of paper and stick them on the real thing,
this is a great way of learning useful vocabulary. If you can leave them there
over the following days and weeks, this is a very easy way of revising the
vocabulary until it is properly learnt.
43. Label a
drawing. For people who can't put labels on real things, the next best option
is to take a photo of a real place in your life like your office, print it out,
and then draw lines to all of the things you can see in the picture and label
them in English with the help of a dictionary. You can do the same thing with
places you pass through every day like the station. Because you will see the
same thing again and again, it should be easy to really learn the words for
those things.
44. Keep a
diary in English. This is a popular method of making sure you use English every
day for people who don't often speak English and can't think of things to write
about. The fact that you are writing about real things that have happened to
you means that any words you look up in the dictionary will be vocabulary that
is useful for you and easy to learn.
45. Online
chat. The closest thing to speaking for people who don't have the chance to
speak English is online chat, as you have to think and respond quickly, and the
language is short and informal just like speech.
46. Listen
to the radio news in English. You can make this easier by reading the news in
English first, or even just by reading or listening to the news in your own
language.
47. Read an
English language newspaper. Freebie newspapers like "Metro" in London
are usually the easiest to understand, followed by mid-brow titles like
"The Daily Express" or "The Daily Mail" in English. Popular
newspapers like "The Sun" are more difficult because of the
idiomatic, slangy use of language and the number of jokes in the headlines and
articles.
48. Write
fiction in English, e.g. short stories. For people who find writing a diary
about things that happen to them every day boring, the best thing is to let
your imagination go and write about whatever comes into your head. The
advantage of this is that if you can't think of how to say something in
English, you can just change the story to something that is easier to explain.
Perhaps the easiest way to start writing fiction in English is with a diary,
changing any details you like to make it more interesting and adding more and
more fantasy as the weeks go on.
49. English
language exercise videos. This is quite similar to how babies learn, by
listening, watching and copying. It is also good for your health!
50. Learn a
famous speech or poem in English by heart. Although you may never hear or get
the chance to say exactly that line, having one memorable example of English
grammatical form in your head can make it much easier to learn other examples
of the same grammar as you hear them. It is also something you can practice
over and over without being as boring as grammatical drills.
51. Get
tipsy ( = a little drunk) before speaking English. This can not only improve
your fluency while you are drinking, but can also improve your confidence in
future days and weeks by showing you that you can communicate what you want to
say.
52. Use a
dictionary while you are watching a movie. Films often have the same words many
times, so if you look up important words the first or second time you hear
them, you should have learnt them by the end of the film. It is easier to use a
dictionary if you watch with English subtitles. 53. Learn and use the phonemic
script. Although there are many sounds in English, there are even more
spellings. By learning the phonemic script and writing vocabulary down with it,
you can both add another stage to your vocabulary learning that should help you
learn it more thoroughly, and improve your pronunciation. It can also make
things easier for you by stopping you trying to pronounce different spellings
of the same pronunciation different ways.
54. Learn
some spelling rules. Many people think that English spelling is random, but in
fact most words follow some kind of rule, e.g. the "magic E" that
changes the pronunciation of "mad" and "made".
55. Record
your own voice. For people who don't have much or any correction of
pronunciation from a teacher, recording yourself and listening back makes it
easier to hear whether you are really making the English sounds that you are
trying to or not.
56. Use
computer pronunciation analysis. Although most programs that claim to tell you
when you are pronouncing correctly or not don't actually do that, listening
many times and seeing how your voice changes as you try to match the sounds and
waveform given by a pronunciation CD ROM can be good practice and more
motivating than just recording your own voice.
57. Learn
as many words as you can of one category, e.g. animal words. Learning similar
words together can both expand your overall vocabulary and make them easier to
learn by forming links between the words in your brain.
58. Take
holidays abroad. This is not only a good opportunity to speak English in
situations where you really have to make yourself understood in order to live,
but it is also a good motivator to study English seriously in the weeks and
months before your trip. If possible, also try to use English even when you
could use your own language, e.g. when you pick a guided tour of a museum or
historic place or when you book a flight on the internet, and try to avoid
package tours.
59. Draw
pictures of the words you want to learn. Especially if you are artistic, this
can be a better way of learning vocabulary than writing translations or example
sentences.
60. Find a
foreign boyfriend or girlfriend. No tips on how to do this here, but everyone
agrees that getting or even just looking for a date in English can be a great
motivator to improve your language skills.
61. Arrange
a conversation exchange. Swapping lessons and conversation with someone who
wants to learn your language can be a good alternative for those who aren't
looking for romance, or can sometimes lead onto dating for those who are!
62. Sign up
for an English language exam. Even if you don't need to take an exam and don't
want to or can't take a special course to study for it, paying to take an exam
like TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS or FCE can really motivate you take your English
studies seriously.
63. Model
your accent on one particular actor. e.g. try to speak like Robert De Niro.
Students who say they want to sound more like a native speaker have the problem
that native speakers don't sound all that much like each other. Choosing one
model can make the task of improving your pronunciation more clear, and is
quite fun. Doing an impression of that person also makes a good party trick. 64.
Use an English-English dictionary. Trying to use a bilingual dictionary less
and switching to a monolingual one can help you to stop translating in your
head when you are speaking or listening, and other useful English vocabulary
can come up while you are using the dictionary. 65. Occasionally talk to or
e-mail your friends in English. Many people find this a bit false or
embarrassing, but if you think of it as a study club and set a particular time
and/ or place, it is no different from studying math together.
66. Go to
an English or Irish pub. As well as having a menu in English and being a good
way of finding out something about the culture of English speaking countries,
you might also find there are free English language listings magazines, English
language sports on the TV and/ or foreign people you can speak to. 67. Buy a
speaking electronic dictionary. Although most electronic dictionaries are not
as good as paper ones for the amount of information they give you about each
word, some of them have the very useful function of saying the word with the
correct pronunciation. 68. Learn your electronic dictionary vocabulary list.
Most electronic dictionaries also have a button which you can push to see the
last 30 or more words you looked up. By deleting words you decide are useless
or you have already learnt from this list, you can use it as a "to do
list" of words to learn that you can look at several times a day in the
train etc. 69. Switch operating system to English. Changing the operating
language of your mobile phone, video recorder etc. to English can be an easy
way of making sure you use the language every day.
70. Set goals. Deciding how many hours you want
to study, how many words you want to learn or what score you want to get in a
test are all good
ways of making sure you do extra study
