My Top 5 Tips for Learning English More Effectively

Oh, hi there. I'm Alex. Welcome to engVid. And I bet you have often wondered what is

the best way to learn English. Today, I want to give you my top five tips to learn English

more effectively. So I'm going to give you five things you can do, you can start applying

right now, because I'm all about practical knowledge, practical learning when it comes

to English in particular, and all things actually. Hands-on experience, I find, is the best way

to learn most things. And I hope that you find these tips useful, motivating, and you

start applying them today. So let's start with number one, listen to and read in English

regularly. The key word here is "regularly". A lot of students do not get enough target

language input. They think that, okay, I can just, like, you know, read a grammar book

and learn the rules, and I can just learn to speak without any kind of language input.

There's nothing more important to acquiring passive vocabulary, to learning the intonation

and pronunciation of a language, than receiving regular input and immersing yourself in a

language. So in the case of English, does this mean you can learn English or improve

your English by watching movies, listening to music, reading books, watching TV shows?

Yes, absolutely. Now, the thing about this method, the thing about this tip is you should

not expect to understand everything, especially if you're, you know, listening or reading.

Basically, this is input, so listening and reading. Even if you don't understand everything,

it's okay. You are still picking up some common phrases, you're still picking up some of the

common grammatical patterns of English, and you are picking up the intonation and how

the language sounds and the pronunciation of the language in the case of listening.

In the case of reading, you are picking up, again, grammar structure, punctuation when

it comes to writing, which will help you when you start writing in English as well. So again,

number one, listen to and read in English regularly. Full immersion is the key to improve

your passive vocabulary and your listening skills.

My second tip is to read out loud. I know many of you are studying English on your own,

and this is especially effective if you don't have a speaking partner. There is something

about hearing the sound of your own voice, you know, speaking your target language that

builds your confidence. You cannot strengthen your muscles if you don't exercise them. So,

you cannot improve your speaking if you never speak. Now, you're saying, "Wait, but this

is reading. It's different from speaking." Yes and no, okay? It's not, you know, like

a free-flowing conversation. You are reading a text, but you are still using this as an

opportunity to practice your pronunciation, to practice your intonation, and just to practice,

well, decoding the language, reading the language itself. So, again, read out loud to hear yourself

speak the language. I really recommend if you can find online, you know, articles or

websites that have both an audio component and a reading component, because if you're

not sure how to pronounce a word or how the flow of English is supposed to go, you can

listen to it, read it at the same time, and then try reading it on your own, copying the

pronunciation and the intonation that you have heard. So, read out loud, strengthen

those muscles, exercise your speaking and your reading skills at the same time when

you do this.

My third tip is listen and mimic. Let me repeat that. Listen and mimic a lot. So, one of the

best things you can do to learn a language is immerse yourself in it. This goes back

to number one, listening, reading regularly, but also listening and mimicking, and therefore

speaking. So, again, when students ask me, "Alex, what should I learn when I first start

learning English?" You know, maybe they will ask me in a different way than that, but what

is more important, grammar or phrases or punctuation? Well, punctuation is for writing, but pronunciation,

and I say, "Well, the first thing you need to know is pronunciation and intonation and

learning short phrases." So, really, listening to the language and mimicking how it sounds

will allow you to get a feel for the language.

Now, you can find a role model online that you like listening to. So, if there is a particular

actor or a particular singer or a particular YouTube personality whom you enjoy listening

to and whose intonation, whose speaking patterns you want to imitate because you say, "I want

to sound more like that person," or "That person is very clear to me," listen to them,

pause videos, go back, repeat what they say, and try to mimic and sound like them. Now,

of course, you won't sound exactly like them because your voice is your voice, and you

will have some different challenges with your first language that another speaker of another

language will not have, but you will still become more comfortable with the flow of the

language. So, again, this goes back to number one, where a lot of students, they don't spend

enough time getting enough input from English. They don't spend enough time trying to actually

listen to what the language sounds like and moves like when people are speaking. That

intonation goes down at the end of sentences. It goes down at the end of questions, like

open questions, like, "What are you doing?" for example. So, listening and mimicking is

a great way to improve your speaking skills and to exercise those speaking muscles.

Tip number four, don't just learn words, learn phrases and sentences. So, I always say language

without context is cold language. So, you need to warm up those verbs. You need to warm

up those adjectives. Put them in a sentence. So, yes, it's useful to know, okay, "go home",

"not go to home", or "speak", "spoke", "spoken", "speak", "spoke", "spoken". But if you don't

have a context for "speak", "spoke", "spoken", they're just words. If you make a sentence

like "I spoke to my mom", that is much more useful. Or instead of "go home", "not go to

home", and you make a sentence like "I went home after work", you're using the past tense,

you're also using "go home", but in the past, you are creating a real context for yourself,

a real situation that you can remember better instead of just a cold, isolated word. And

when I say phrases, I mean stuff like "in a minute", right? So, "in a minute" is a phrase,

it's a prepositional phrase, and you can, you know, use that in a variety of contexts,

a variety of situations, instead of just, you know, learning the word "minute", which

is a simple example and explanation, but you get what I'm saying. Don't just learn words,

learn phrases, and more importantly, learn actual sentences.

My final tip is write what you hear, then write some more. This is incredibly important

in our modern society, where more people communicate through text, email, messaging, than they

do through speaking. So, be honest. Those of you who have a cell phone, do you use it

more for texting and messaging your friends, or do you use it more to make phone calls?

If you said you make phone calls, fantastic. You are a wonderful human who likes the sound

of other human voices, but most people prefer to text and write.

So, this all goes back, again, to regular immersion, regular input, and simply practicing

and using the language as much as you can. So, when I say write what you hear, then write

some more, let's start with write what you hear. So, you can link this with one of the

other skills, here. So, in terms of, you know, reading and listening at the same time. So,

if you're listening to something, I know dictation is a bit of an older technique, but it is

effective for practicing your listening skills. So, you can practice your listening and your

writing at the same time. So, for example, you can listen to a short presentation or

a short part of a podcast and write what you hear. This will, again, number one, it will

test your listening skills, and number two, it will test your writing skills. Of course,

you will need to pause whatever you are listening to. Even this video, you can go back to the

beginning and you can try to write some of the things that I am saying so that you can

practice your English skills, your English writing skills, and your English listening

skills at the same time. I said then write some more, this is just me encouraging you

to write. So, languages have two types of main skills. You have receptive skills, which

are reading and listening, and you have productive skills, which are speaking and writing. In

these top five tips, I am giving you both. I am giving you speaking, I'm giving you reading,

I'm giving you listening, I'm giving you writing, because language is very rarely just one thing.

It's a combination of all of them. When it comes to writing, you are also practicing

your punctuation, which is very important if you're going to be working, if you'll be writing

essays in school, if you're going to be writing emails or something like that. And you're

also practicing your spelling. And again, put on that American spell checker or British

spell checker, whichever English, you know, you're learning, which one will be more useful

for you. And see, oh, that's not how you spell that word. It's this way. And you'll learn

more that way as well. Okay, so these are my top five tips to learn English more effectively.

I hope you will start implementing them today. The main thing with all of this is regular

exposure to the language. Whether you're listening to something, whether you're reading something,

whether you're watching something, as long as you get regular input, and do something

with it, like practice actively with it, you will improve over time, you will develop a

more passive vocabulary, you'll pick up on common phrases, like in a minute, for example.

And you will improve your English skills overall. So, if you want to test your understanding

of all the tips we have discussed here today, check out the quiz on www.engvid.com and check

out all the other amazing content we have on www.engvid.com. Thousands of videos, listening,

speaking, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, anything you can think of when it comes to

learning English, check it out. I'm sure you're going to like it. And until next time, just

take my tips and let me know if you're already using them. And let me know if these tips

are working for you. Until next time, thanks for clicking, and I'll see you soon.