NerdyJill

Hi everyone!

Today, I’m back with an article that I hope will be helpful to anyone trying to learn any language: how I learnt English.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am French. As I said in a previous post , I have always been fond of foreign languages, and have been working hard on my English for ten years now. 

If you’re interested on how I did it, keep reading!

You don’t have to be great at languages to learn them. You don’t just arrive in this world with amazing language skills. Like everything else, at least that’s how I see life in general, if you want something, you have to work at it. It might take a long time, but in the end, it is so worth it.

Did you have mediocre/bad grades in school? Well, if you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re motivated. That is what truly matters.

                                                     AT SCHOOL

Clearly, if you want to learn a new language and speak it fluently, you can’t expect school to grant you that. Like anything else, you have to work at it. But that doesn’t mean you can afford to not pay attention in class. You are very likely to learn a lot of vocabulary and grammar there.

As to me, I’ve had my ups and downs. The problem with school is that the teacher you have can influence what you think of the subject. I had been fond of English for 4 years already when I had teachers I hated who made me hate the language even more, so I quit for two years. Then I had an amazing teacher who made me fall in love with the English language again.

Long story short, listen to your teachers, do your homework, and you should already have some really good basic knowledge.

                                                   AT HOME

Now, this is where it gets serious. There are plenty of things you can do to improve your language skills.

Culture is, in my opinion, what helped me the most in my journey to learning English.

> Movies

Movies are great to improve your comprehension skills. I started very young, at the age of seven, with Titanic.

I don’t know if doing this having never even heard English before was a great idea, but I did it anyway, with French subtitles. I think subtitles in your language are a good way to start if you’re intimidated, but don’t do it so often. If you do, you will read the subtitles rather than listen to the movie. And that is not what we want, right?

Once you feel confident, switch the subtitles to the language you’re learning. I did this for years, and let me tell you why it is so helpful: not only does it help with your comprehension skills because you actually see the word you’re hearing, it also helps remembering the spelling of that word. That’s how I remembered how to spell enough, I know I had a hard time doing so.

Then, when you’re ready, turn off the subtitles. Once you can do that, you’ll probably have a great level already.

> Books

Yes, I know, not everyone likes reading.

The thing is, it helps you so much with the grammar. My first book in English was Harry Potter. Reading the series, not only did I learn lots of vocabulary (part of it being made-up words, but hey, who cares?), I also learnt lots of complex grammar, such as the ‘had had’ case. Which they studied in class... Two years later. I felt pretty amazing, knowing that already ;)

What I also like to do when reading is to read the dialogues out loud. It helps with the accent...

> Songs

If you read my previous articles, you probably know by now that one of my biggest passions in the world is music, especially singing.

As French music isn’t at its best nowadays (what a nice euphemism...), I like to sing in English, which allows me a very wide range of songs, as it is the language that rules the jungle that is the music industry.

It helps with the accent, but mostly the pronunciation, as that is a tricky thing to learn in English (can we talk about tough, though and through not rhyming?!)

> Apps

There are a lot of apps that can help you learn a language.

My favourite ones are: (they’re free)

* Anki, a system of flashcards

* Memrise, a great way to learn with little quizzes

* Duolingo, a bit similar to Memrise

* Yabla, which allows you to watch videos and slow down the way the person talks (Spanish or German learners will know the struggle)

> Websites

There are some websites which inspire me to learn languages.

My favourite, by far, is Fluent in 3 Months. Benny Lewis is an Irish polyglot (I had to say he was Irish, because I envy him for that), who helps you be fluent in 3 months! If that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what that is. 

He has a lot of amazing tips, and if you want more on how to learn a language, do check his website.

My favourite part is the forum. A great community of language-learners that answer your questions, give you some more tips...

That is how I basically learnt English. Of course, it didn’t take me ten years to be fluent. But you don’t learn the same way at 7 than you do at 17. And my goal is not to just be fluent anymore.

That’s it for today’s article, I hope you liked it! As always, if you have a request or anything you’d like to tell me, make sure to message me either on Tumblr or with the ‘Contact’ page on my blog. You can also talk to me via my Facebook page. (The link is at the top of my Tumblr blog or on the top right on my blogspot.)

See you next Saturday! Don’t forget that I will now be posting videos every Monday here.

Hugs,

Jill. x