10 Best Ways to Learn English by Yourself
Written by Kurt Walker
February 19, 2021
Learning another language other than the one you were born speaking is not an easy feat, but it’s not a particularly difficult task. It could be easier if you learn with a personal tutor or at a language school. However, it’s not a new thing that people have learnt a new language by themselves. This is why I’m sure you can do it, if you’re ready to discipline yourself.
Here are ten of the best ways to learn English by yourself:
Set specific goals
One good way to actually learn anything is to set specific goals with a deadline. If you can’t do this, then you’re only fooling yourself. If you set specific goals, you would be more determined to meet them with a specific timeline, so that you can make progress. However, you can’t afford to write goals like, “I want to learn how to speak English fluently in 6 months”. Even though this goal has deadlines, it’s not specific enough.
Examples of specific goals are:
- I want to learn how to write, read and deal with all English verbs and nouns in the next month.
- I must be able to have a conversation introducing myself, asking a native speaker about themselves while answering their questions in one month’s time.
- I want to score 90 points in my TOEFL exam in the next three months.
Make English a part of your everyday life
You may not live in an English-speaking country, but there are many ways to make English a part of your everyday life. Here are a few things you can do:
- You can switch the language on your smartphone to English.
- You can paste English labels on things around your house.
- You can listen to English radio stations and watch English TV channels.
- Read English books for entertainment.
- Write notes in English.
Even if you have no access to an English speaker, you can find another person or group of people like you, who you can study with and speak English to. You can also join a club of people trying to learn English, so you can motivate each other, learn from and correct each other.
Read other English materials
Apart from your English textbooks, you need to read other English materials, especially for fun. One way to do this is by reading English novels, magazines, books, news and even blog posts about various topics. This way, you can understand ambiguous words and understand the contextual meaning of words which people use in various ways.
Practice makes perfect
You can’t learn how to speak, read and write another language without practicing it. English is a universal language, so finding clubs or people learning English or even English-speaking foreigners around you shouldn't be a difficult thing.
If you can’t find anyone online who you can practice with, platforms like mylanguageexchange.com can connect you with native English speakers worldwide whom you can speak English with.
Don’t forget the culture
People learn other languages because they want to know how to communicate in such languages. But some people ignore the cultural aspect. While you’re learning a language like English, which is a commonly spoken language, you also need to learn the culture of the English-speaking country you wish to visit or live in.
Write summaries or transcripts
If you listen to English podcasts or audios, you’re improving your speaking and listening skills. You can also improve your reading and writing skills by transcribing or summarizing what you’ve heard. If you transcribe, you have the opportunity to compare and contrast your transcription with a transcript of the podcast and correct your mistakes.
Learn online
One of the best places that can help you learn any language is the internet. There are a lot of resources for different levels of English learners. You can also contact English speakers all over the world via the internet, particularly social media. You can also join chat rooms and forums about different topics and try out a writing service or two.
Find others who have learnt English by themselves
Many people have learnt different languages by themselves. If you want to get extra tips and secrets about how to learn English by yourself, you can simply find someone else who has. You don’t need to speak to them personally, what you need is tips, secrets and personal techniques that helped them learn the language themselves.
Make learning fun and interesting
If you want to learn English, there’s no need to make it boring. You can make it fun. You can fuse learning English with your hobbies. For example, if you love reading, sit down with non-academic interesting English novels and read them.
Conclusion
Learning English is not the most difficult thing in the world. Although, learning English by yourself may be difficult, it’s not something that has never been achieved before. Many people have learnt how to speak English on their own and using the tips above, you should be able to learn English by yourself.
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