How to Learn English for Free
My Grandpa's dream was to immigrate to America. He worked hard to realize his dream. One of the barriers he faced was learning English. Back then there was no internet, and books teaching languages were much harder to come by. Besides, he did not have the funds to spend on instruction, so he had to get creative.
A popular America Folk Singers album was making hot waves across Europe, and when my Grandpa heard her he scrimped and saved and bought her record. He played her record repeatedly, whenever he had spare time. To him, Brenda Lee embodied the American Dream. At first, he did not understand her, but he focused on the sounds and emotions she portrayed through the music, and over time through repetiton he learned basic English. All from one musicians record.
The experts agree- the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it. Whether you pay for classes or find free resources you need to practice it constantly daily: listen to it and speak it and use it.
How did you learn your native language? Nobody bought you fancy teachers. You listened and practiced and used it all the time daily. You were completely immersed- your language was all around you in every way every day- television, radio, mail and magazines on the table, and of course your parents and everyone around you spoke constantly.
You too can learn English as a second language for free in this manner. Or any language you choose.
Find English television and radio stations and keep them on as you go about your daily routines. Your mind will quickly start to pick up on words and phrases and memorize them, correlating them into your native language equivalent.
Get ahold of some English magazines and "read" them. Using the photos as guides, "figure out" what the articles are saying. Keep these magazines laying out so you see them constantly.
Find a couple English novels. Do the same thing and "read" them. Easier books aimed at children or teens can be helpful in this regard, as the pictures will help your mind know what is going on in the story to eliminate much guesswork.
Flashcards are helpful. Write top English words and phrases on index cards with the translation written on the back. This will also help you track your progress. Make them colorful if you can- research shows colors help the brain remember things better.
It's better with a friend! If there are two of you learning the language, you can practice on each other. Spend the day with English TV or radio playing, and make a rule that you can only talk to each other in English. This will train your brain faster.
The key is you must immerse yourself in the language you are learning. Listen to it, speak it, live it! If you surround yourself and commit to only English, you will learn it faster and easier.
You can find free English tidbits if you look around: free newspapers, menus, booklets, and of course the internet is a vast resource. Start small, and remember to be patient with yourself. English is a difficult language to learn! Congratulate yourself for your efforts!
Happy Steeming my friends!
Do you have any fun or interesting tips on learning English? Share them in the comments!
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@arbitrarykitten I don't know what I wanted to say in this comment. It doesn't matter since I am tired and I should go to sleep now..............
I appreciate you thinking of me before you settle into Dreamland for the night <3
LOL!
As you always highlight, being patient with oneself is imperative. Especially as a beginner we might get frustrated as our focus is constantly laid on that which we cannot. I also found many people running crazy because of the many synonyms a word has with virtually no different context meaning. Like "there HAS to be some difference".
As a rule of thumb, we do better in not comparing ourselves to the language proficiency of other students, otherwise this only again leads to disappointment and capitulation.
In addition to that very important point of immersing ourselves in the language by going abroad, watching TV etc, I find reading a book aloud quite useful to get our tongue acquainted to the language flow and to remember phrases better.
Thank you, Ms. do-gooder! :)
You are absolutely correct- never compare yourself to others! Your success in not based upon any other human!
The very first step you need to do is to talk with yourself in English only. The thoughts that arises in your mind should be in English rather than your native language. You'll feel the difference. Btw, @arbitrarykitten told some incredible hacks that will really make you fluent.
Absolutely true! This rule applies to learn anything faster and retaining better not only language. A person who immersed himself passionately in a specific task continuously for a month without being lazy will learn more and be better at it than a person who spent six months but not did it without passion and whenever he found the time to do it.
Best wishes.
Ah, yes, you are absolutely correct and pointed out an important thing I missed...
You must think in English!
Speak it, listen to it, practice and use it, but most importantly think in English.
Thank you!
Your welcome. I Appreciate your work and efforts to make this community better.
True, true.
These are exceptionally wonderful tips to learning a particular language but I think the best out of all you have said is to surround yourself with that language. By surrounding yourself I mean going to a community where that language is being spoken alone or atleast to a percentage of 80.
Seriously it can be very difficult learning a new language by just reading books and watching the telly even though the telly (with subtitle translation) is way easier than reading. But going to that actual place just makes it easy...how do I know this.
There's something we do in my country where graduates are sent to different parts of the country to go serve the father land. It's called National Youth Service Corp NYSC. The idea was to help unite the while country and to make everyone have a feel of other parts of the country you have never been to. I am feom the East where we speak Igbo but I was sent to the west where Yoruba happnes to be the primary language. Now I am forced to learn yoruba so as to be able to cope in the land. Now learning that has been quite easy because I stay with people who speak Yoruba every second and most times don't even understand me when I speak English .
If I were to by Yoruba books, trust me I wouldn't make a head way with that or it would take me even longer to learn yoruba.
So it is important to go to the community and stay a while with them thereby learning their language ...My 2 cents though
That is absolutely the very best way- to go to that country for an extended time and fully immerse yourself in to the language, Culture- everything. You are right. Then, you're forced to learn because that is all there is.
Unfortunately, many people are unable to do so- much like my grandpa. He had to learn via the record album as he worked and saved year after year to be able to go to America.
But if you cannot travel yet, you can do something like that at your home with a little planning- get your friends together who wish to learn and have entire days and weekends where it's nothing but English! You might even be able to find someone in your community who speaks English well who will love to join!
I really love what your nation does. I believe everyone should travel and experience other people's and cultures. I believe travel is the absolute best education.
Excellent advice, @arbitrarykitten. I loved your story about your grandfather and how he learned English.
English is technically my third language, but everything I read is in English, I listen to English, I think and dream in English, and I speak sort-of Danish with my husband (who's French).
We live in Israel, but I've failed to learn Hebrew very well. I would love to, but since I make a living by writing in English, learning Hebrew is a past time project... and well, I could do better with it.
As for learning languages, back eons ago, our class learned a lot of Latin by reading a comic book, Asterix, in Latin. There were lots of repeated expressions, and of course, since we loved reading the funny story, we were motivated.
Years later, we moved to France (in 2000) with two kids who didn't know a word of French. My daughter soon spoke without any accent (she was 10) because they had to learn French poems by heart.
I dream in English
I love that!
I had a store which catered mostly to immigrant communities and I had so many customers who learned English by watching Sesame Street :)
Oh I love that! lol! Sesame Street helped me learn English too, lol, and counting, and probably a whole bunch of other things!
Oh, happy thoughts!
Find a couple English novels. Do the same thing and "read" them. Easier books aimed at children or teens can be helpful in this regard, as the pictures will help your mind know what is going on in the story to eliminate much guesswork.
:)
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How do you learn your mother tongue? Nobody buys you a fancy teacher. You listen and practice and use it every time every day. You are completely submerged - your language is around you every day - television, radio, letters and magazines on the table, and of course parents and everyone around you talk constantly. It makes perfect sense.
The key is that you must involve yourself in the language you are studying. Listen, say, live! If you surround yourself and commit only to English, you will learn it faster and easier. @arbitrarykitten has provided a solution for those of us who still lay in English. To comment on this content I must bother to translate it. Thank's @arbitrarykitten for pointing us out to be good at speaking English.
I am so happy to be helpful <3
Yep English is very important language.
I feel very difficulties in . but steemit give me a platform to write and to learn .
These words touch my heart which is about
How did you learn your native language?
Yes its a problem we want to learn but we dont want to speak .
Practice make the man perfect . at first this will be very difficult but some one understand how we learn our mother languages
Good post
English, like anything else, requires dedication and commitment. If it's important to you, if you really want it, times you must put in the time and effort. And will definitely be rewarded :)
Your methods you mentioned are so effective but I don’t agree with you about one thing. English is not a hard or complicated language in the world. It is maybe the easiest one.. There are a lot of hard languages like Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Arabic etc. They have their own letters. Anyway your grandfather succeeded a big thing to learn a foreign language at that ages. Congratulations to him..
Think so? I have had people from a number of different cultures tell me this. That is good to hear tho.