The Two Most Important Things for Learning English

So this English lesson is going to be

a little different than my normal English lessons.

Instead of teaching you some words and phrases, I'm

going to talk about the two most important things

that you need in order to learn English.

And those two things are exactly the same things

you need to be really good at anything.

You need motivation and you need time.

So I'd like to talk about both

of those in this English lesson.

So motivation is when you are excited to

do something, when you want to do something,

you have a desire to do something.

And when you're learning English,

it's important to stay motivated.

It's important that you are excited to learn English.

So I want to give you two tips, two little

things you can do to help you stay motivated.

The first thing you can do, I think I would call this

the picture on the wall or paper on the wall method.

What I would do is this.

If you are learning English because you're going to

go on a trip to an English speaking country,

put a picture on the wall somewhere in your

house of a city in that country so that

whenever you walk by it, you're reminded that in

the future you're going to be speaking English.

If you are going to take an English test

in three months, print out the little confirmation of

that English test and paste that on the wall

somewhere so that every time you walk by it,

you remember that you have that test coming up.

So tip number one for staying motivated, put

something in a highly visible place on a

wall in your house or apartment.

So when you walk by it, you look at

it and think, oh, I'm going to be going

to England, I better practice my English.

Or oh, I've got, I have that test in

a few months, I better practice my English.

So tip number one for staying motivated, put something

on the wall that you see all the time.

The second thing you can do to keep yourself motivated

is something that I call making your future self happy.

If you think about yourself in one year

or in two years, you hopefully think that

you will know a lot more English.

And in order to make your future self happy, you have

to do the work today or this week or this month.

You have to make sure you keep studying so

that someday your future self is really, really happy.

I look at this like giving a gift to yourself,

a gift from the past to you in the future.

When I look at my YouTube channel, there are

days when I don't feel like making a video.

It's rare, but it happens.

And that's what I often think of to stay motivated.

I think I want to make sure my

future self is happy in the future.

I want the Bob a year from now to look back

and be thankful that the Bob on this day, I think

it's March 3rd, actually went outside and made a video.

So that's the second thing you

can do to stay motivated.

Do it because you want to give the gift

to your future self of knowing more English. Study

today so that your future self is happy.

So the second important thing

for learning English is time.

And I have a couple of things that

I want to talk to you about

when it comes to spending time learning English.

The first thing I would suggest is this.

You should probably be spending time

twice a day learning English.

You should probably spend some time in the

early morning when your mind is fresh.

When you first get up, your

mind works really, really well.

Well, maybe you have to have a cup of coffee

first, but generally we are at our best in the

morning. If you've had a good night's sleep,

if you study English in the morning, you

will probably be able to learn more efficiently.

But I would also recommend you study a

little bit at the end of the day.

The bonus or the good thing about the end of the

day is you have had a number of experiences through the

day which you can write about in English or have a

conversation about in English with a speaking partner.

So that's the first thing I would recommend

with time, you should study every day, at least six

days a week, maybe take one day off and then

try to split your studying into two different time slots.

Study in the morning when you're fresh, maybe

about 15 minutes to half an hour.

Study at night when you have lots of

experiences to write about or talk about, and

study for about another 15 to 45 minutes.

So recommendation number one, with time, study every

day at least six days a week and

split that study time in two.

The second recommendation I have when talking

about spending time learning English is to

do two things at once.

We are all really busy people and it's

hard to find time to do things.

It's hard to find time to study English.

But there are times in your day where you're doing

one thing and you could also be studying English.

Here are a few examples.

When you're cooking supper, you could

be listening to an English podcast.

When you're riding the train, you

could be reading an English book.

When you're going somewhere with a friend and you don't

feel like talking, you could write in a journal.

You could do some journaling.

So think about the times in your day when you're

doing one important thing, but you could also be listening

to some English or maybe doing some English reading.

I know some of my viewers re-

listen to my English lessons from Friday.

They re listen to it while they're making supper,

while they're cleaning the house, while they're riding on

the bus, while they're driving in their car.

So think about your week.

Think about all the times where you're doing something

where you could also be learning English and then

learn some English in that time slot.

Well, I'm not sure if you realized it, but

I didn't feel like making an English lesson today.

But I made one anyways because I

want to make my future self happy.

But more importantly, many of you love watching

my videos and you'll just be sad if

I don't put one out on a Tuesday.

So a little bit of a shorter lesson today.

Actually more of just Bob giving you some

advice and hopefully you can take it.

So in order to stay motivated, put something on

the wall that when you see it, it reminds

you to study English, make your future self happy.

Study today so that yourself down

the road is super, super happy.

And then split your day in two.

Study a little bit in the morning

and a little bit at night.

And if you can, try to

learn English while doing something else.

Anyways, thanks for watching this short English lesson.

I hope it helped you a little bit.

If you're not a subscriber, you should click

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And I hope you have a great week learning English. Bye.