04/01/2024
10 Rules for Learning English
1. Be consistent. Study regularly/every day. Studying/practicing 20 minutes a day 6 days per week is better than studying 2 hours 1 day per week.
2. Review. Review. Review. Reading/hearing something one time does not guarantee that you will be able to remember or use it in the future. To make sure that you really understand something and can use it well, you need to use it regularly/again and again.
3. Be patient. Learning a language takes time. And "patient" does not mean lazy. It means that you work hard while also understanding that you will not see results immediately.
4. Listen to English every day for as much time as you can. This is how you learn things like correct pronunciation and what is natural to say vs what is not natural to say. Almost everyone can find 30-90 minutes per day to practice listening. Do it in your car, while you're cooking, while you're getting dressed, while you're at the gym, etc.
5. Make mistakes and learn from them. Mistakes are lessons. When you make them, you notice something that you need to learn or improve. So, be comfortable making them, but try to never make the same mistake twice.
6. Don't waste your time worrying about what other people think about your English. The opinions of rude and abusive people are not important. Don't let other people's negativity stop you from succeeding.
7. Don't compare yourself to other people (unless you find that it helps you). If you compare yourself to other people for motivation, that's fine. But if you feel sad/negative when you compare yourself to other people, STOP DOING IT.
8. Learn from everything and everyone. It's best to learn from many different sources. Don't learn from just one teacher or just one book. My explanation of one topic might be really useful, but maybe other teachers do a better job explaining other topics.
9. Learn about all topics, even topics that don't relate to your own life/experiences. Don't say things like "That's not my culture, so I don't want to learn about it." It might be the culture of your neighbor, customer, or employee, and even if it isn't part of your life, you might need to talk about it one day.
10. Don't just study. Practice too. Practicing speaking, listening, etc. is often more important than studying. Using English is a skill, not a subject like science or history. You need to practice USING it, not just learning about it.
