Learning English tips

Hi, welcome to student thinker blog for English Academy - the place to learn English fast! In this lesson I'm going to give you 7 tips for learning English. Okay, the first tip is to learn vocabulary evenly. A lot of people start learning English by learning nouns like monkey or tree. The problem with that is then you can only say, "Monkey Monkey!" But that's not English. You need to say, "Look! There's a monkey in the tree." You need to say the full sentence. In English we speak in sentences. 

So it's very important that you learn how to speak in sentences. Sentences are made up of different words. There are some nouns, some verbs, some adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and so forth. So you need to learn each of those parts. Now, if you don't know which vocabulary to learn, then that's okay. Go to my Facebook page. Just search for Mark's English Academy on Facebook and there I have a list of all the words that I think you should learn first. That will keep you busy for a while. 

The second tip is to speak English. Speak English at every opportunity you get! People always tell me, "Mark, I'm good at reading English I'm good at writing English but I'm not good at speaking English." That's because you're probably a little bit shy or your confidence isn't that high in speaking because you haven't had that many opportunities to speak. So you should always speak English whenever you can! If you don't know any native English speakers, that's okay. Find someone who is learning English as well and practice with them. Speak English to each other. It doesn't matter if you make mistakes. Don't worry about it. What matters is that you're speaking and the more you speak, the more comfortable you get with English. It's like anything else. Like learning how to play guitar. The first time you play guitar it's really weird. It feels uncomfortable. Your fingers don't know where to go. Maybe there's some pain in your fingertips. But after a few times of playing, then it becomes a lot easier and you get more comfortable with it. It's the same with speaking English. The first time it's really hard but after a few times, you get a lot more comfortable. So try to speak and don't worry about making mistakes. Okay, the third tip is to learn how to ask questions. This is so so important! The best way for your confidence to increase fast is to have a real conversation with a native English speaker. To have a conversation with someone, you need to ask each other questions. That's the basis for any conversation. So learn how to ask questions in English like, "Where are you from?" "Why did you move here?" What are your ambitions in life? The more questions you can ask the other person probably the better conversation you'll have and the longer your conversation will be. 

I remember the first time I had a real conversation in German. I study German and Hindi so I know how challenging it is to learn another language. It's hard. But I remember the first time I had a real conversation with a native German speaker and it felt so good! My confidence increased so much after that conversation. I asked her some questions. She asked me some questions. And our conversation was probably about 25 or 30 minutes. And I left that conversation smiling. I was so happy. So that's the same situation that you'll be in if you learn how to ask questions. The fourth tip is to watch English movies with English subtitles. Sometimes it's a lot easier to understand something if you can hear it and read it at the same time. That way if the person in the movie says a word that you don't understand then you can hit the pause button and you can read it. And if you still don't know what a word means, then you can look it up in a dictionary. And then you say, "Oh ok, that's what it means." Then you can press play and keep watching. That's why I write subtitles for lots of my videos on Youtube. If you want to read what I'm saying right now, then click on the CC button right down there The fifth tip is to learn about things that you already know. That way it saves you time from always having to look up words in a dictionary because you'll know what the word means based on the context. For example, if you love photography like I do, then watch Youtube videos on photography or read articles on the internet about photography. Actually, a good way to do this is to read the news in your language and then read the news in English. That way you already know what the article is going to say. I actually do this a lot in my lessons. I tell you things that I know you know, but you might not know how to describe in English. For example, in my lesson on airport vocabulary I told you that an elevator is a box that takes you up and down. I know you know what an elevator is. You're not stupid! But you might not know how to describe an elevator. That's why I talk about things that I know you already know. Okay, the sixth tip is to listen and copy native English speakers. This is so important! Remember this. Try to copy an English speaker. If you hear an English speaker say something a certain way, then copy them. Don't say your own thing. For example, if you hear me say, "Would you like a cookie?" Then don't say, "You want cookie?" This is so important! I have a friend from Hong Kong who's lived in Canada for 20 years and he still can't speak English properly! Why? Why after 20 years can he not speak English properly? It's because he doesn't listen to native English speakers. Listen very carefully and try to copy them. Okay, those are six tips. The last tip is the most important tip if you want to learn English fast. But first, it's sponsor time. This lesson is brought to you by nobody. Instead of watching me play guitar on a rainy day, you could be watching me promote your product or service. Okay, the most important tip I can give you if you want to learn English fast, is to find a good tutor. This is so important because a good tutor will help you practice and they'll explain things to you that you don't understand and they'll keep you encouraged. That's probably the most important thing. To keep you encouraged. 

It's very easy to get overwhelmed when you're learning a new language because there's so much to learn! But a good tutor will help you focus and teach you one thing at a time until you're an expert. Not every native English speaker is a good tutor. In fact, most native English speakers I know are terrible at teaching English for a few reasons. 1. They don't know anything about English grammar. 2. They talk too fast and you don't understand them. 3. A lot of native English speakers can't understand people who aren't native English speakers. It's very important that you can understand each other. Before you pay someone to teach you before you hire a tutor, ask yourself these three questions: It's important that your tutor has a plan and wants to teach you new things. If I'm your tutor, and you come to me for a lesson and I say, "Okay, what do you want to learn?" And you say, "I don't know. I want to learn English." And I say, "Okay, well...what do you want me to teach you?" Then I'm not a good tutor. I need to have a plan for what I'm going to teach you. I hope you can find a good tutor. If you want to learn English with me personally, go check out my Facebook page. There I list the different courses that I offer. Courses on business or finance or learning how to speak really quickly. You can check all that out on Facebook. If you like learning English, then click on the 'like' button right down there but if you hate learning English, then leave a comment down there and tell me why you hate learning English. Okay, I'll see you over in the next lesson. Take care.