English can be a tough language to learn. Sure, it is spoken all around the world. Many people see it as the most universal language ever. Most media are English spoken, because most of our shows and movies are filmed and acted out by British and American people. Very rarely are foreign movies spoken in a different language a huge hit, because many people just don’t understand any other language than English. It’s for this reason many people wish to speak English, if they can’t speak it already.
With every language that you try to learn, you have to understand that practice really does make perfect. If you want to speak English fluently, you must practice speaking it every single day. It’s okay if you don’t feel comfortable speaking it straight away. You might not be fluent just yet, and your vocabulary is growing everyday… you just have to get it out of your system. The most effective way to practice speaking in English is finding a native speaker of the English language. To do so, you could always resort to the internet. If you’re more dedicated to your English journey, you could always move to an English speaking country. Try making small talk with locals. You’ll find that the more you talk in English, the better your English will become.
When you’re first starting out, you’ll find learning a new language is difficult. It’s like this with any language. English might be really different from the language that you already know. There will be different rules for words, some even unspoken. The grammar of the English language will also most likely be different than your spoken mother tongue. When you’re first starting out, you shouldn’t care too much for the grammar. Of course it is very important later on, but first you must focus on becoming fluent in speaking the language. Writing it is important, but if you can’t pronounce things right nobody is going to understand you. That’s why when you’re first starting out learning English, try pronouncing things and reading the English language.
The way you pronounce things might be completely different than the way English speaking people pronounce things. We’re not talking about an accent here – though you’ll most likely have one. You might mumble or stutter. Now is the time to work on that! Move your mouth when you speak English and pay attention to how native speakers move their mouth. If you can’t figure out how to make a certain sound in English, copy the mouth movements of a native speaker and try to pronounce the word or sound that way.
When you’re well on your way into your English learning journey, you might find you still run into obstacles here and there. You mustn’t forget about sayings. Just like in your native language, there will be sayings in English. Some sayings don’t directly translate from your language to English (or the other way around). It’s important to not forget to learn a few English sayings here and there. To do this, you could either pay attention to a native speaker and conversations on the street, or you could grab a dictionary and start looking things up.
If you have trouble picking up the English language, it might be best for you to start learning English in a different way. Try taking a class or an English course. In this class you will most likely be presented with a structured approach towards learning English. If you join a class with multiple people in it, you might even benefit from practicing English with them and joining in on English group discussions. There’s no shame in taking an English class if you can’t find your way around yourself!
Another good way to pick up on English is by consciously making an effort to listen to English spoken word. Do this by downloading podcasts, watching movies without subtitles, etc. Even if you don’t understand most of the words that are spoken, you should try to pick out words that you do know. If you do this, you will eventually start to associate certain words with other words, thus growing your vocabulary.
We think a lot of thoughts every single day, even if you don’t pay attention to it. Most of these thoughts are spoken by yourself in your mother tongue. Because you are thinking in your native language, when it comes time to speak English… it just becomes exhausting. You might find yourself constantly trying to translate from English to your language and the other way around. This is consuming. In order to fight this, one must try to think in English. You’ve read that right: to become fluent in English, you can’t just learn it (though that’s a great step) … you must think in English, too.
