Are you one of those people who have studied English all their lives and still don’t speak it ? Have you ever wondered why? The same is not that you are bad at English. The same thing happens is that you have been focusing on it all your life. Seriously, if you see that something doesn’t work for you, why do you keep doing it?
We are tired of seeing students who do not focus well on learning English and stumble over the same stone again and again, and another, and another … We have been suffering with them for so many years that we have become experts in detecting the mistakes that students make. students when you start studying English . And in this article we will tell you so that you stop committing them.
1. Learn ONLY to write the words
You have to get used to the idea – and the sooner the better – that every time you find a new word in English you have to do double work to learn it : you don’t just have to know how to write it ; you also have to know how to pronounce it . And surely the latter is much more important.
What is the use of knowing how to write the words if you are later unable to say or understand them? Please don’t forget the phonetics if you don’t want all your effort to be wasted .
2. Study in silence
One thing … do you want to learn to read in English or learn to SPEAK English ? Because if you study in silence you will be a phenomenon reading and writing English, but you will not find out much when an English speaker speaks to you and, of course, you will not be able to say a complete sentence in conditions.
Quit studying silently. Always practice aloud everything you learn and repeat, repeat and repeat until it stays. And if you can do this with a teacher who guides you, much better.
3. Sign up for an English course … and now
English courses are usually a good solution if you want to learn English, hehe. But if you think that going to class is enough, that your teacher is going to do a shamanic magic for you to learn English through infused science, if you think that you are not going to have to do anything else, you are wrong.
Always do your homework, practice every day, get in touch with English as long as possible , watch series, watch movies, watch documentaries, play video games in English, talk to your cat like a guiri cat, what come to mind! But no, by signing up for a course you will not learn English magically . You have to work. Sorry.
4. Spending TOO MUCH effort on grammar
Do not take it badly, but in general the Spanish suffer from grammaticalitis . In some cases, severe grammaticalitis . Yes, now, that grammar is important when it comes to understanding how a language works, but in practice, what difference does it make you say it is a direct complement or a circumstantial complement? Do you think that most guiris even know what a circumstantial complement is? Well, we already tell you: no, they don’t know. And they speak English wonderfully.
Unless you have an incurable philological craving, focus more on learning how each structure is used in each context than on analyzing sentences and looking for logic in the language. More talk and less think .
5. Wanting to be the smartest (or smartest) in the class
There is a very specific type of English learner who likes to dazzle his teacher with each and every new and buoyant expression that is learned. And it is not wrong to want to learn expressions. It’s not even wrong to want to wear them. What is regular is saying things like Don’t bite off more than you can chew and pronounce / dont / y / chéu / instead of / dount / y / chuu / . To give you an idea, imagine a guiri with an accent saying something like “All the fish is already sold . ” It is funny? Yeah ok But squeak, squeak for a while.
Seriously, go step by step and in order . If you still haven’t mastered the simple present, you don’t need to learn idioms. Dedicate your efforts to crush the pronunciation and grammar corresponding to your level and don’t skip anything so that your English is the coolest place. Because if you do that, your English is going to be anything but cool.
6. Not reviewing enough
This is also a classic. The typical student who reads the theory about the present perfect twice or who memorizes a vocabulary list and says: “Hey, I know this.” Well no, sweetie, you don’t know. Learning a language doesn’t work like that .
English learning is 80% review . To give an example, it may seem like a tedious and repetitive activity to say 50 sentences in the present simple with each grammatical person in the affirmative, negative and interrogative at least once a day during your first three months of language study, but it is that if you don’t, you may not master the simple present in your life. So clear.
7. Binge eating
And then, of course, there are the students who believe that by sitting once a week and spending five hours studying English like a parrot, that’s it; everything is done. How easy!
Let’s see, NO. This is not as if you are going to take a Geography exam and you learn all the rivers and their tributaries to forget them right after taking the exam. This is more like going to the gym: it is not enough to train an entire afternoon and then not return in two months . If you want what you learn to stay, you have to be consistent and dedicate every day at least fifteen or twenty minutes of your time to English . We repeat: EVERY DAY .
8. Have a bad time
And last but not least … there are those students who have a terrible time with English. That you know, this is the worst of the 8 things you do wrong when you study English: not enjoying it. If you don’t have a good time learning and practicing, you won’t last long doing it and you won’t be consistent. And if you are not constant or “leave it for a while”, everything will go to hell.
And how to enjoy learning English? Easy: if you are not able to motivate yourself or by yourself, find yourself a teacher who will make you have a good time learning English . And if your teacher does not succeed, change teachers. There’s no more.
