How to Learn English FAST (Ignore Traditional Methods!)
Are you disappointed in the progress that traditional language learning methods have given you?
You’ve memorized all of the words, lists, and rules for speaking English… but you still don’t feel like you’re anywhere close to fluency.
This isn’t your fault. Traditional language learning methods have let you down. They’ve taught you to learn English by rule memorization and rote repetition.
But these just don’t work for most people. Studying endless lists of verbs, idioms, and vocabulary won’t get you to fluency. In fact, these things slow your progress!
Instead, the fastest way to learn English is the same way you learned your FIRST language as a child – through input (getting messages you understand), not output (speaking)!
As an adult, you can greatly speed up this process with a skilled teacher who delivers these understandable messages systematically. The faster that you get this input, the faster you can get fluent.
Below, I’m going to show you how to streamline your road to fluency so that you can learn English FAST.
Table of Contents
- Learn Words and Phrases in Context
- Make Sure You Have a Skilled Teacher
- Listen Actively to Real, Spoken English
- Make Use of Naturally Varied Review
- Practice Pronunciation
- Sign Up for a Fluency Course
- Speak Only When You’re Comfortable
- Use Narratives and Stories to Help Remember Vocabulary
- Learn English Fast and Sound Like a Native Speaker With Fluent For Life
If you KNOW a lot of English, but struggle to SPEAK...
Learn More about Fluent for Life1. Learn Words and Phrases in Context
Traditional language learning methods often have you memorize as many words and phrases as you can but without the necessary context surrounding them.
But learning words and phrases in context is important – it gives the word or phrase greater depth and meaning.
Think about the word “sour.”
It means to have an acidic taste, like lemons or vinegar. Often when we use the word “sour.” it has a negative connotation. If the milk is sour, it means that it’s expired, and no longer tastes good.
But you can also give someone a sour look. This doesn’t mean that your look tastes like lemons, but rather that you’re expressing resentment, disappointment, or anger.
And if you’re a fan of cocktails, you can also order a whiskey sour – a drink made from strong alcohol, lime juice, sugar, and ice.
Understanding the context in which words and phrases are used is crucial to interpreting conversations correctly. Without proper context, you might misunderstand or misinterpret the situation. Context gives us the necessary background information to make sense of the conversations around us. It makes things much easier to understand.
So if I told you that my relationship with my best friend soured, you know that I’m not talking about a cocktail.
By making strong connections between the word in different contexts, I can use it in a new context and you can figure out the meaning more easily. Feels pretty good to learn like a native English speaker, right?
2. Make Sure You Have a Skilled Teacher
Again, the faster you get understandable messages, the faster you get fluent. So a skilled teacher can be the most important tool in your fluency-building toolbox.
They can be an incredible asset on your road to fluency, but they must know how to teach you English as a FIRST language, rather than just give you more word lists and rules to memorize.
If your teacher requires rote repetition and vocabulary memorization, they may not be the best fit for your path to fluency.
Actually, research has shown that this is not the best way to learn a language fast.
Think about how children learn a language – they connect words with situations and receive input from hundreds of people as they grow up.
Hearing many native speakers like this is one example of Naturally Varied Review – a concept I’ll explore in more detail below – and is what I teach at EnglishAnyone. Learning from a teacher who understands this concept is critical to becoming a confident English speaker, fast.
3. Listen Actively to Real, Spoken English
Instead of worrying about what to say next, shift your focus to what the other speaker is saying.
After all, English is learned through input, rather than output. And the best part about conversations is they give you lots of new things to learn.
The more time you spend actively listening, the better the chances are that you’ll be able to understand the context in which the words are being spoken. Context gives you the depth of the language, which in turn helps you speak confidently.
Active listening takes the pressure off of speaking and helps you learn more. Not to mention, everyone appreciates being listened to!
4. Make Use of Naturally Varied Review
Naturally Varied Review, as I mentioned above, is not only one of the best ways to learn English – it’s an essential part of learning a language!
The basic idea of Naturally Varied Review is that you review as much varied content as possible. One example might be hearing different people say the same phrase, which improves your listening and pronunciation.
Another example is hearing different people discuss a particular topic, which quickly develops a native vocabulary and greater fluency. Plus it’s very easy to do!
Start by choosing a topic YOU are interested in – tennis, for example. Next, find several YouTube videos of English speakers discussing the topic of tennis. Watch them a few times and really take in the information. You might then look for blog posts covering tennis, or newspaper articles.
By exposing yourself to several sources of the same topic, you’ll quickly build a native vocabulary. You’ll also improve your listening skills!
5. Practice Pronunciation
One of the big stumbling blocks for students learning English is that they know a lot, but still don’t feel or sound confident.
Working on your pronunciation not only makes you sound more like a native English speaker but also improves your speaking ability and confidence really quickly!
To help you better memorize the sound rules of English and improve your English pronunciation, I created a reading, speaking, and listening app called Frederick.
Frederick will help you learn each letter’s sounds and how they all work together, the same way native English-speaking children learn to read and say English words.
This app uses fun animations, images, and games to make practicing English more enjoyable. It also helps make everything more memorable, and will improve how fast you learn English!
6. Sign Up for a Fluency Course
Of course, if you want the shortest path to speaking success, you need a fluency course designed to deliver fast results. You’ve probably had experiences with fluency courses in the past that didn’t deliver on what they promised. But this is likely because they did things the traditional way.
Many traditional language learning methods rely on rote memorization with very little real-world application. But to speak in the real world, you need to practice with REAL English!
My course, Fluent For Life, is the ONLY course that teaches you English as a first language and gives you all the Naturally Varied Review you need to build fluency all by yourself.
This course uses real speech, visual examples, and simple stories about topics that are of interest to YOU, making it so much easier to improve your speaking ability, and FAST. No more memorizing word lists, translations, or grammar rules!
7. Speak Only When You’re Comfortable
It may be surprising to hear that speaking only when you’re comfortable is a more effective way to learn English than forcing yourself to speak.
But this is because, as I explained earlier, listening should be your first priority. After all, fluency is gained by input, not output. We know from Dr. Stephen Krashen’s work on The Input Hypothesis of Language Acquisition that fluency emerges on its own as you understand more of a language.
By removing the pressure to speak, you end up with more energy to learn, remember, and use your vocabulary fluently.
8. Use Narratives and Stories to Help Remember Vocabulary
Traditional English teaching methods require you to memorize as many words and phrases as possible, but they don’t teach you how to use them in a real-world setting.
This is why we use narratives and stories as a way to remember vocabulary and the context it can be used. The memories created by stories help us remember how to use them. English idioms are a great example of stories being used as a way to remember vocabulary.
Take the phrase “It’s raining cats and dogs!” for example. It means that it is raining heavily, NOT that cats and dogs are falling from the sky. But the image of cats and dogs falling from the sky can help you remember that the rain is coming down heavily.
Learn English Fast and Sound Like a Native Speaker With Fluent For Life
Learning English fast doesn’t have to be hard. Pair the tools we’ve talked about today with the Fluent For Life fluency course, and you’ll fast-track your way to fluency.
Want to learn more about Fluent For Life and its proven roadmap to guaranteed English fluency?
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