So, it's one year passed since I've launched this blog. The purposes of this blog were – and are – to learn English and write about it in order to help others. True be said – only 16 posts for the whole year isn't good at all. I hope I can change things to the better. At least I'll try.
Here is how I've learning English for the whole past year. The main idea was not to study English but to use it. Yep, I'm too lazy to study so I decided to add more fun to the process.
Animated TV-series
First of all, I began to watch tv-series in English without a subtitles. Everyday, 1-5 series per day. For now, I've already watched “Daria”, “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law”, “MTV Downtown”, “Death Note”, “12 oz. Mouse”, “Archer”, “God, the Devil and Bob”, “Clerks: The Animated Series”, “Soul Music from Terry Pratchett's Discworld”, “Pope town”, “Home Movies”, “ATHF”, “American Dad”, “Stripperella”, “King of the Hill”, “Family Guy”, “Futurama”, “Naruto”, “The Simpsons”, “South Park” and some others.
Why just series and not movies? It's because it's a series. It's easier to accustom to the characters' voices when you watch the same tv-series day-to-day. And, of course, movies requires too much time and it's really hard to watch them everyday.
Why just only animated TV-series? It's much, much easier to understand than, say, “The Sopranos” or “Lost”. For beginners it's a great advantage because when you can't understand a single word it's not interesting at all. And when it's not interesting it's practically impossible to make yourself to do it.
So, as you can see, there is no big effort to watch something in English everyday. On the contrary, it's just a fun. And the main point here is to consider watching tv-series not as studying but as an interesting and favourite pastime or hobby.
One pretty good tip: you should watch tv-series in English which you've already watched in your native language first. It really helps to understand what are they talking about and it'll be much less stress such as “it's too hard... I just can't understand a single world...” because you already knew the plot.
Don't expect results right away. It's a long way. But I can surely promise – with every tv-series you've watched your understanding of spoken English will become better and better.
Audio books and radio
I make a habit – every time I'm outside I'm wearing headphones with some audio book (not music!). And quite often when I'm at home I'm listening to some audio book too, or a radio station (and again not music but some talk show).
Once again – no effort, no studying. Just a habit and fun.
Reading books
I'm sure it's quite impossible to master your English without reading books, not news or articles, the whole books. That's why I decided to read some everyday. And as I mentioned before, the main point is “not study but use”. So all the books I've already read (something about 10 books, not so much but not bad too) were on topics I'm fond of: web developing, web design, marketing, poker, etc. I wanted to read them anyway and in case I'm learning English – why not to read them in English? Moreover, English gives your a big opportunity – there are much more books in English than in any other language.
I need to say it was really hard to start reading whole books in English. But with each further book it becomes much easier to read. Yep, the first book is the hardest one.
The main point: you should not use a dictionary frequently. You should find a word definition in only one case – you can't understand the meaning or idea of the certain sentence or paragraph. Otherwise be free to go ahead without translating new words.
Why so? It's because of three reasons:
- If you will try to find all unfamiliar words' definitions it'll take ages to read one single book. Moreover, it'll be too hard to read. It'll be more studying than fun what we obviously don't want to happen.
- If you can understand the meaning of the most sentences without understanding the meaning of some words – who cares? You read, you understand what you read, it's interesting to you and fun... So it really doesn't matter that you don't know a translation for several words. In your native language you don't know all words too (try to read some medical or jurisprudence books – I'm sure you will find dozens of unknown words) but you can understand general meaning. So that's the point: read books in English and try to understand general meaning, not the meaning of each and every word.
- If you're reading a lot, some words which are unfamiliar to you will appear over and over again and you'll begin to understand its meaning through the context! It's how we learn our native language – not through a great dictionary but through the context and regularly usage.
Some other stuff
Besides the ways I've mentioned above I use other ones too - read blogs and forums, use social networks, watch some educational programs, learn grammar and new words through the textbooks, dictionaries and web sites and so on. But it's all some kind an additional ways. The main ones are to read and watch in English everyday so the English become not a something foreign and hard but an ordinary and simple.
One year's results
It's a pity but my English is still rather bad than good. I clearly understand that even right now I have several spelling, punctuational or grammar mistakes practically in every sentence. I guess it's ok as far as I understand and assume that and want to learn English even more than one year before.
Of course, for the last year my English has become much, much better. I can easily read blogs, forums and books in English, watch tv-series and movies, even write articles (such as this one) and have conversations on social networks. But it isn't quite enough for me, I want to become fluent in English.
So in this year I'll try to do all I can to master my English and, of course, to help master your English too.
