How Did You Learn English? My Story in 7 Practical Steps You Can Follow

Don’t write in English, they mentioned, English is


Not your mom-tongue. Why not leave


Me alone, critics, pals, visiting cousins,


Every certainly one of you? Why not let me converse in


Any language I like? The language I converse,


Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses


All mine, mine alone.

That’s one of my favorite poets, Kamala Das, talking about why she selected to put in writing in English most often, as a substitute of her mom tongue or all the other languages she knew.

I, too, have been requested this question typically.

I’ll answer the question
“how did you learn English?” with
specific, practical steps that you can comply with
.

You don’t necessarily need to turn into an English-language author, but the following pointers could make you a
assured English communicatorand even instill a brand new love for the language studying course of.

Why Did I Choose to Learn English?

The brief reply is: I didn’t have a lot of a alternative.

My nation, India, remained colonized by the British for almost 200 years. When India grew to become unbiased in 1947, most of the institutional constructions that the British had created remained, and still remain to today. Those included colleges like the one I attended where English was the medium of instruction (the language used in classrooms).

Being educated in a non-public, English-medium college was expensive and seen as a marker of privilege, versus going to a public school the place regional languages had been the medium of instruction. Studying in an English-medium faculty didn’t imply that you simply thought the opposite languages have been inferior (
in fact they aren’t, though colonialism did try to ingrain that feeling within the natives) however was a strategic alternative to make sure that you had wider publicity to alternatives sooner or later.

And given the fact that
English has over one billion audio systemand is the language of international business and communication, that’s a reasonably
practical decisionto make—whether or not you’re learning English in class or independently at residence.

But sure,
English is among the easiest and most practical languages for many people to grasp, and figuring out it properly does have its justifiable share of benefits.

I’ll talk about my school days, in regards to the other ways my parents and my academics instilled in me a love for studying, and
how you should use or modify these techniques to study English at your individual tempo.

Feeling excited?

Read on!

1. Drawing Associations Between English and My Native Language

As I said before, my college had some strict guidelines about talking solely in English during courses. This meant that although I knew three languages (my mom tongue, Bengali, my nationwide language, Hindi and naturally, English) I largely spoke in English at college.

I took benefit of this by turning Bengali and Hindi vocabularies into an English learning device. I picked up plenty of English vocabulary by looking for the English equivalents for phrases and phrases I used on a regular basis in Bengali or Hindi.

You can do the identical factor by
finding English equivalents for the commonest words you use in your native language and vice versa. This makes your English vocabulary more meaningful to your daily life, due to this fact easier to recollect. You can even apply translating back and forth between the languages, and that’ll allow you to specific your self in any situation.

Knowing a couple of language additionally helped me see the identical issues from a number of perspectives and encouraged me to have an open thoughts and be curious in regards to the diversity of this world. Cross-cultural communication is changing into increasingly essential in our world, and the more languages you’re fluent in, the better.

And if you’re proficient in two or extra languages, just do not forget that offering translation and transcription companies is usually a full fledged career in its own proper!

2. Making As Many Mistakes As I Could (with Supportive English Teachers)

I was lucky to be blessed with academics who encouraged us to make errors. We took part in elocution competitions, debates, group discussions and class shows in a protected and supportive environment. Our initial makes an attempt at talking in entrance of the class of course didn’t go as planned, but progressively we obtained the hang of it.

Moreover, our lecturers have been there to information us wherever we went mistaken. They helped us select the best phrase for any explicit context, allowed us to participate and ask questions freely and corrected us each time we mispronounced a phrase.

In different words, we revamped a thousand errors once we tried to be taught something, and
those errors became a vital a part of our studying process. We weren’t shamed or punished for being wrong and we all the time got points for trying, as a result of practice is the most important approach to become fluent.

If you’re going to study English, you have to share this attitude.
Be prepared to initially fail and make lots of errors.

Self-learning is nice, but when potential, search for a private language mentor or tutor. You can
simply find one onlineshould you don’t have native options. Teachers can identify and correct your errors a lot sooner than you'll on your own. Direct feedback in your learning progress is essential, and one-on-one interactions will assist you to learn sooner.

Alternatively, if you’re already part of a category or examine group, make the most out of it by taking part in school talks and interacting with everybody. Don’t be afraid of constructing mistakes. Both your language and social expertise will dramatically improve when you let go of inhibitions and immerse your self in learning.

three. Investing in a Good Dictionary

Often whereas studying a guide, I’d come throughout words that I didn’t understand and would ask my father to clarify them to me. Sometimes he would, however often he’d encourage me to consult an English dictionary. He mentioned that it was an important book in the home.

He had a battered
Chambers dictionaryand he confirmed me how the phrases are alphabetically organized and how to seek for a word and find its which means. He defined that a dictionary does more than just explain what completely different phrases imply—there are also pronunciation guides, word histories, synonyms (phrases with comparable meanings), antonyms (words with reverse meanings), example sentences and different further information.

There’s so much one can learn simply by reading a dictionary!

So, investing in Learning English for adults is
some of the useful and sensible things you can do to improve your English. I suggest you retain a dictionary on your bookshelf
andhave
a digital model in your telephonefor fast reference. Refer to it everytime you come throughout any unfamiliar time period.

You can also use it to develop your vocabulary. Choose a random letter and be taught a brand new phrase or simply open to a random web page and choose a word that catches your fancy.

You can even come up with fun workout routines. Choose five random phrases and take a look at writing a narrative or a poem utilizing them. Your aim shouldn’t be to create one thing good, however rather to get words on paper and to put in writing grammatically correct and logical sentences.

four. Finding Fun Ways to Study

In school, we realized grammar and the basics of language, however that wasn’t every little thing. We watched movies to check a text, had lots of quiz sessions, performed games with our classmates and completed plenty of fun workout routines and activities while learning.

Taking an revolutionary and creative method to language learning may be very essential. Constant grammar drills or essay writing received’t work for most individuals. Everyone wants to break issues up when finding out a difficult topic like English, otherwise it’s too simple to get bored and give up.

Most academics now use some form of audio-visual material in the classroom. Learning one thing new in the type of a game
has been shown to have marvelous effects.

As an unbiased learner,
that is very straightforward to realize due to all of the enjoyable English learning instruments on the market. To begin, play language games by your self or with examine partners. Make it a habit to unravel
English crossword puzzlesor
have a Scrabble sessionwith your family every week. There are also numerous
word video gamesthat you could search for for ideas.

Check out English YouTube channels in areas you’re enthusiastic about. For instance, if you like cooking, follow a chef who speaks in English and the next time you look for a cake recipe, you’ll decide up some new English words as properly.

Want to make sure that you understand any English-language video you watch?

FluentU
takes genuine English movies—like film trailers, music movies, inspiring talks and extra—and transforms them into personalised language lessons.

FluentU takes actual-world movies—like
music movies, film trailers, information and inspiring talks—and turns them into language studying experiences.

There are many different types of videos, as you'll be able to see here:

FluentU makes it easy to observe and understand native English movies with
interactive captions.Tap or click on any phrase to see what it means, discover ways to use it, hear it pronounced and more.

For instance, when you faucet on the phrase “introduced,” you then see this:

You can learn any video’s vocabulary with FluentU’s
fun quizzes.Swipe left or right to see extra examples for the word you’re studying.

The videos are organized by style and degree, so it’s super straightforward to seek out those that work for you. FluentU additionally retains track of your studying, then suggests movies and examples perfect for you.

Start using FluentU on the websiteor download the FluentU app from the
iTunes retaileror
Google Play store.

5. Acting and Writing English Stories

One of my favourite games as a kid involved pretending to be other individuals and speaking to my imaginary friends.

During free intervals at school, my friends and I would take turns to function-play (act out a selected scene) as our favorite fictional characters. Much later, I would even get into role-playing games like
Dungeons & Dragonsas well as collaborative storytelling. Similarly, like many individuals, a few of my favorite childhood recollections contain my parents reading bedtime fairytales to assist me go to sleep.

My love for tales later helped me to write down and even narrate by myself. This not solely improved my creativeness, but also prepared me to face presentations and interviews.

When I train youngsters, I usually encourage them to talk about themselves and the issues they like, they usually’re typically glad for the prospect to let elders hear their point of view. And they’re even happier after they’re allowed to be as dramatic and emphatic (expressive) as they need.

Storytelling and language learning could initially seem a bit far off, but they’re actually not very completely different. To be a fluent speaker of a language, you need to have the ability to categorical yourself and talk effectively. So strive writing your individual tales in English and even act them out. Form a examine group offline or online, and meet up frequently to function-play your tales in English.

Maybe you possibly can even
create a persona (character) of the assured and charismatic speaker you’d prefer to beand apply in front of the mirror.

Take advantage of actions that require teamwork. You may even strive joining an area theater group to enhance your physique language and expressiveness skills.

6. Reading What I Loved in English

I all the time beloved studying and exploring issues by myself. I typically learn chapters earlier than they have been taught at school and I liked doing extra studying to get a greater perspective on the course. In center school and high school, once I critically began to concentrate on my writing, I would learn books about creative and educational writing techniques, as well as vocabulary-constructing books similar to
“30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary.”

Similarly, my love for studying naturally improved my vocabulary and
sentence building. With the dialogue in fiction, I might understand the finer nuances of English dialog. And by reading nonfiction, I realized lots of new and attention-grabbing information and figures, as well as the way to categorical them accurately and appropriately in English.

Of course, not everyone seems to be a bookworm (somebody who loves studying). But
it’s still easy to find English materials that you simply’ll love reading, to spice up your comprehension expertise in an pleasant method like I did.

For instance, you don’t have to begin with large English novels. Try an
English comic bookor
funny English books!

You also can try
English kids’s booksand start from there. If you want something brief but more mature, try
these easy English quick stories.

Whether you’re a newbie or a complicated user of the English language, it isn’t tough to search out
interactive studying materialsabout belongings you’re thinking about. Plenty of academic websites have
comprehension workoutsthat you can try and follow for free.

Looking again on nowadays, I notice
I didn’t do these items to specifically study or improve my English. Rather, the mastery of the language was extra of a by-product that got here from being genuinely curious about the world and being desperate to surround myself with English materials.

English immersion may be simply as simple and effective for you, too.To get you started, both the
BBCand
British Councilhave helpful language studying content material on their websites you could entry at no cost.

Try to
consider English immersion as an organic (naturally growing) process. Don’t consider it as a part-time study exercise. Watch
English language TV revealsor
English moviesin your free time, first with subtitles and later with out. Listen to
songs by English bandswhereas taking note of the lyrics. Discover the wonderful world of
English-language podcasts.

It’s as much as you to figure out which techniques work best for you.

Nothing can cease you from studying should you’re committed sufficient. With the internet at your fingertips, there’s lots of academic materials that’s free and out there to all. So even if you’re dealing with learning difficulties, try your finest to remain optimistic and put in your maximum effort.

It may take time to get there, however when you do, success will all the time follow you around. Soon enough, you’ll have your personal incredible recommendation to offer when folks ask you, “how did you learn English?”

Archita Mittra

is a contract author, journalist, editor and educator. Feel free to check out her
blogor contact her for freelancing/educational inquiries.