It’s true that falling in Love or finding an English lover is the best reason, most encouraging, intense and fun way to learn English, but there are plenty of other way to improve your level. Here are my top 10 tips for improving your English.
1. Find a native in Trojmiasto
Truth be told there is no better way to improve your English than to spend time with a native in your local city of Trojmiasto, especially one that does not speak any other language. This will force you to work harder in order to communicate.
2. English Day.
One day a week should be dedicated to speaking English for every family member able to. No excuses, from morning to night, it should be the only language used. It may also be useful to change your mobile phone, computer or social media pages into English.
3. Learn a new word (or phrase) every day.
During the weekend, sit down and write down 5 new words for the week. Each day, take a word (or phrase) and repeat it to yourself over the day. Practice using it in sentences and try to fit into conversations.
4. Travel abroad.
Going to an English speaking country great for really immersing yourself into the language. You’d be forcing yourself to open up, communicate and really dive in.
5. Keep the conversation going.
Improving your language skills is about listening as much as speaking, so keep the conversation going by encouraging the other person to speak. Saying things like:
“So what do you think?”
“Do you agree?”
“And you?”
“I’d like to hear your opinion?”
6. Nothing like a heated debate.
It’s true that heated debates and deep conversations do get the juices flowing. It’ll open a different part of the brain and so encourage you to find those hidden and lost words in order to get your point across.
7. Keep a little black book.
No the little black book isn’t for storing the phone numbers, but instead used for the words you don’t know. As you go through your day, write down any new words you hear and try to keep a daily log of these words. Reviewing the book will greatly help you add new words to your vocabulary. I repeat. Reviewing the book will greatly help you… I can’t stress how important it is to review your words.
8. Read as much as you can.
Reading books, magazines social media feeds in English is a great to improve. You’ll be revising previously learnt words whilst exposing yourself to new words, sentence structures and context.
9. Watch movies with English subtitles.
When you watch English movies, try using English subtitles rather than your native language. It’s a great way to combine reading, listening and soon enough you’ll realise you don’t actually need the subtitles.
10. Listen to music
Music can be great for improving your listening skills. It’s fun, relaxing and songs can be a great source of new words. Having said this, many songs have little sense, and use words more for the rhythm than there grammatical value, so take music with a pinch of salt.
Remember, learning a language isn’t easy, so you should take it one step at a time. There will be a lot or repetition and times when you just want to give it all up. When learning gets you down, keep your chin up, it’s a long road but you’ll reap the rewards in the end.
