Learn English effectively - 1. Motivation: Become a person who likes to learn English. 2. Dictionary: Get a good English dictionary. 3. Input: Get English into your head by reading and listening to lots of English sentences. - 1. Motivation: Become a person who likes to learn English. - Motivation for learning English What is necessary to learn English well? You have to change your life a little do crazy things like talking to yourself in English or spending your evening reading a dictionary. In order to do these things, and do them regularly, you have to enjoy doing them. If you are like most learners and dont feel like doing these things, you will have to work on your motivation. Improving your motivation for learning English: We share our psychological tricks that helped us enjoy learning English and that you can use to boost your motivation and make a difference in your English. Articles related to motivation in the “Other articles“ section: Why learn English English makes you feel good Three biggest challenges facing an English learner - What is necessary to learn English well? Learning English requires action. You may know all the learning tips, but if you dont start doing things, you will achieve nothing. The fact is, if you want to learn to speak English well, you must change your life. Here are some examples of things you will have to do: read a book in English for an hour every day, analyzing the grammar in sentences and looking up words in an English dictionary listen to an audiobook or other recording in English, stopping it frequently, trying to understand what is being said, and trying to imitate the speakers pronunciation spend your afternoon practicing the pronunciation of the English “r“ sound carefully write an e-mail message in English, using a dictionary or a Web search every 20 seconds to make sure every word is correct, and taking 5 minutes to write one sentence think about an English sentence youve read, wondering if it could say “a“ instead of “the“ in the sentence, and trying to find similar sentences on the Web to find out the answer walk down the street and build simple English sentences in your head (talking to yourself in English about the things you see around you) What kind of person would do all these crazy things? Only one kind. The kind of person who enjoys doing them. If you want to learn to speak English well, youre going to have to become that person. You cannot hate doing these things. Have you ever heard of a person who became successful by doing something he hated? The problem with learning and teaching English as a foreign language is that all English learners want to speak English well; however, most learners dont want to spend time on learning English on their own. (Which is probably why they sign up for English classes and hope their teacher will force knowledge into their heads.) This lack of motivation means that learners basically dont spend their own time on learning English, and if they do, they dont do it regularly. For example, a typical learner might study English phrasal verbs for 12 hours before an English exam. However, he will not read a book in English for 30 minutes every day. He just doesnt feel that learning English is pleasant enough, so he will only do it if he has to. The problem is that a huge one-time effort gives you nothing, while small, everyday activities will give you a lot. If you are one of those learners and dont feel like practicing the pronunciation of the “r“ sound or thinking about English sentences every day, we have news for you: Youre going to have to make yourself want to do these things. In other words, youll have to work on your motivation. Fortunately, there are proven techniques to help you with that. Typical learner vs. motivated learner Paula is a typical learner of English with a generally low level of motivation. She has occasional moments of high motivation like the day before her English test or that time when she couldnt communicate with a foreign customer who called her at work. These kind of situations make her think “Ive got to do something about my English!“. However, they happen very rarely less than once a month. So even if she studies quite intensively (e.g. for two whole days before an exam), the results are poor, because she forgets 90% of the things she learned within a month. This is no surprise: The way human memory works, you need to review things all the time; otherwise you just forget them. Now lets look at a different English learner: Judy. Judy reads a special novel for English learners (written in simplified English) almost every day for 30 minutes. She bought an English-English dictionary and uses it to look up English words whenever she doesnt understand a senten