I need to learn English. What to do?

To begin with, it is better to honestly answer the question of why you need English and whether you will use it every day. Even a simple phrasebook is suitable for finding your way around an English-speaking country. Watching TV series and movies in the original may be an additional bonus, but it is unlikely to be the main motivator for learning a language. The head of the Middlebury College language school (one of the best in the USA), Michael Geisler, believes that four things are needed to learn a language. The first is to use it. The second is to use it for a specific purpose. The third and fourth is to use it in context and in communication with people. Research shows that doing something while you're learning a language, whether it's preparing a project or directing a play, will help you learn it faster because you'll be forced to go beyond the instructional limits of using the language. Do you need English to communicate with foreign colleagues? Do you want to get a second degree abroad? Are you annoyed by the latest translation of the Harry Potter book? Then let's get started.

Most likely you don't know. There are too many myths around learning English. Those who learn a language correctly are those who first of all study a lot and regularly themselves. The same lessons with a tutor will help you spend money, but will not help you learn the language quickly. No teacher can make you a master joker if you don’t spend N number of minutes a day honing the art of making jokes in English. It’s also not possible to learn English forever: it won’t lie in the subcortex of your brain in a state of constant readiness for business negotiations, translation and the British sense of humor, you’ll simply forget it. It takes constant practice. Watching TV series or films in the original will also not teach you to speak English fluently, except that it will train you to perceive the language by ear. You shouldn’t count on the fact that reading texts in English will sooner or later help you learn the language - this, alas, is not true. The text itself has no value if you do not learn how to work with it correctly.

Determine your level. According to the European CEFR system, there are six of them: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, where A1 is the most basic, and C2 is super advanced. According to the system that is most often used in Russia, there are seven: they are better known to you as Beginner, Elementary, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper-Intermediate, Advanced and Proficiency. There are many sites and services on the Internet for a trial language test, which are absolutely free and test all areas of knowledge, from reading and speaking to the ability to perceive text solely by ear.

Now you need to choose exactly how you want or are ready to learn the language - via Skype with a teacher, in a group, with a tutor, on your own using tutorials or online. All methods have pros and cons. Disadvantage of group classes: you cannot choose a time and place convenient for you. Pros: you learn from other people's mistakes and pay less money. The tutor will guide you in the right direction and devote 100% of his time to you - this is a plus, but the high price of private personal lessons is a minus. Alternatively, you can study with a tutor via Skype - it’s a little cheaper. You can also do it yourself. Plus: only you decide where, when and what program to study. Minus: you will also have to motivate yourself and monitor the regularity of your classes. In general, no matter what option you choose, you will still have to study on your own most of the time - you can’t do without it.

You know how, you just did it wrong. At school, English was compulsory, and this did not add to my enthusiasm. Now it's your personal decision - which means there's a high chance you'll have more fun. Where to start? From the area that interests you. Let it be, for example, cooking, reading the news or watching a movie. As a rule, both cooks and presenters use live language, and words are better remembered in context. What you have heard, read or seen must be constantly imitated, just as children do when they learn something new. Next, you need to choose the intensity of your studies, but not for four hours at a time, especially at first: spending a few hours a day on your tongue will cause you to burn out and lose all your enthusiasm in two weeks. In language universities, you can study without overheating for about an hour and a half a day; for everyone else, a regular 20–30 minutes will do.

Eat. The main thing is not to forget that you need to learn a language systematically, that is, work in all areas at once - from grammar to listening comprehension. Listening and understanding are good for texts and videos in the original language. Grammar will progress well if you do 1000 exercises on the same rule. This is a pattern technique that is used to create grammar training simulators at Lingualeo , an online platform for learning languages ​​in a playful way, with which we made these cards. That’s how, by the way, the intelligence officers were taught. Spaced repetition will help you remember more new words: you spend time not on cramming, but on repeating words at intervals of time that are constantly increasing. There are also online trainers that develop fluent reading skills and language guessing - this is when you, without knowing a word, still understand its meaning. This process is difficult to organize offline, and it is not taught in school.

You can learn English online almost anywhere. For example, Lingualeo offers to learn a language comprehensively, without routine and while improving basic skills at the same time. How it works: you take a language test, mark the topics that interest you, from travel and TV series to finance and venture capital, the time you are willing to spend on daily classes, and receive an individual program with tasks in grammar, vocabulary, listening, reading and comprehension. If you are uncomfortable doing the program, you can not do the assignments, but choose the machines and exercises that you prefer. Even in the process of studying, it is important to see the result - it is very motivating. So you can periodically look at your progress log to see how far you've come or where you're struggling the most. The competitive element helps to increase efficiency even further (by as much as 3.5 times): invite friends and compare each other’s results.

You can, but you didn’t. To improve your self-study skills, you need to start somewhere, and it’s better to pay once than rely entirely on your willpower - this will force you to sit down for lessons and not quit. However, you can learn English on Lingualeo for free, you’ll just be a little limited in functionality. Expanded paid features will make it possible to learn a language faster, more efficiently and more interestingly due to access to more diverse training sessions, sets of words, and so on. In addition, a subscription for a whole year costs about the same as one lesson with a tutor (1,690 rubles versus a minimum of 1,500). You can study without any interruptions if you install a special browser extension - it instantly translates unfamiliar words, which are automatically added to the dictionary. Lingualeo has developed and relies on working gaming techniques so that any person who has been saying all his life that he is not capable of languages ​​will lose faith in this. By the way, using the promotional code “ MEDUZA03” from February 27 to March 12 you can get a 35% discount on paid Lingualeo programs. To activate the code, you need to log in or register on Lingualeo , and then enter the code on this page .

It's not a problem. Now there are a bunch of mobile applications that allow you to learn and improve English, wherever you are and whatever you do. In Lingualeo, in general, the main emphasis is on the mobile application: in addition to the usual functionality (grammar and vocabulary), there you can now learn to read fluently and understand what you read at absolutely any level of complexity, without wasting the time of “War and Peace” on it. Phones are always at hand, and all progress is automatically saved. To study without the Internet at all, you will have to download dictionaries to your phone; they are, of course, heavy, but they are dictionaries!

No. The most important thing you need to realize is that the language needs to be learned systematically and constantly. No matter how much time you spend studying - half an hour every day or three times a week, they should be conscious, purposeful and without interruptions. Train your skills in all sorts of ways. Pretty soon you will be able to read not only simple texts, but also scientific ones, and feature films will be replaced by BBC documentaries. Learning a language is like having a job you love, where instead of a salary, you have a skill that is constantly improving and for which you can eventually even get a promotion.