Learning English the Natural Way

If you’re feeling frustrated by all the complex rules of the English language or the mountains of vocabulary words you think you’re supposed to understand, don’t worry. The truth is that most native English speakers couldn’t explain all those rules to you if they tried, and most of the advanced grammar they learned went out the window after finishing the SAT, ACT or other high school exam. When you’re trying to learn English, stop worrying so much about the rules and focus on learning the natural way.

What do I mean by the natural way? Well, think about the way that a small child learns a language. They don’t sit down with an English language dictionary and start memorizing flash cards as soon as they’re able to speak – instead, they learn naturally through the process of immersion. The process of immersion involves surrounding yourself completely with the new language until you start to pick up the bits and pieces that will eventually form your comprehension of the language.

There are several benefits to learning by immersion. Your sentence structure and pronunciations won’t be as stiff and forced as the people who learn English using traditional home study guides, since you’ll be picking up these elements from real native speakers. In addition, you won’t experience the frustration that many English language students feel trying to work out the language on their own. Consequently, you’ll be less likely to give up, and more likely to reap the benefits of speaking English.

But how do you begin to study language naturally? You don’t need to pack up and go live with a host family like so many college kids do. Instead, all you need to do is to spend time in public places where people speak English. Consider the following locations:

Grocery Store – As you do your weekly grocery shopping, try to listen to the conversations going on around you. In addition to getting a feel for how the language is spoken, you’ll also pick up many helpful words for food and beverage items.
Hair Salon/Barbershop – For some reason, Americans love to talk to the people trimming their hair, so going in for your own haircut can be an educational experience in the number of conversations you’ll hear.
Church/Fitness Centers/Golf Courses – Any of these locations that encourage groups of people to get together can provide you with many opportunities to listen to and participate in conversations on things you already enjoy. Check online or in your local phonebook for places that interest you.

If you aren’t yet comfortable conversing with groups of native English speakers, you can also immerse yourself in English language books and magazines. If you have a favorite book in your native language, pick up an English copy and compare the two. Read everything you can get your hands on and take notes on words or phrases you don’t understand. As you look them up, practice speaking them out loud and try to form sentences using the new words. With time, the process of immersion will improve your comprehension and speaking ability, until you feel fully fluent in the English language.

Some Fun Ways to Practice Reading English

Even if you do not live in a country where English is a primary language, you can take advantage of many opportunities to practice reading in English. As you progress with your studies, you will come to appreciate the richness and variety of styles that individuals will use to express themselves. As with your own language, you are likely to find that you will prefer the way one author writes over others. By taking advantage of a wide variety of sources, you will also gain some insight into the boundaries that define expression of thoughts and concepts.

Reading Classic Books Online

If you have never had a chance to read the works of Dickens, Poe, or other classical English writers, you can find some of their works for free online. Among other things, you can download entire novels from Project Gutenberg. You may also want to browse the internet and look for critical reviews of classical materials. This will help give you some insight into the materials you have just read, and also provide an opportunity to see if others interpret the materials in the same way.

Purchasing Books on Topics of Interest

If you are not interested in classical literature, perhaps it does not make much sense to force yourself to read these materials. Fortunately, there are millions of books written in English. As an example, if you enjoy water color painting, you may want to purchase a book about it written in English. In many cases, you will be able to locate and purchase books for just a few cents per book.

Subscribe to Internet Newsletters

Chances are, if there is a hobby you are interested in, there are authors writing newsletters about it in English. If you search the web, it should be fairly easy to locate websites that sponsor free newsletters. These newsletters are ideal, in part because they provide you with fresh and contemporary reading materials. In addition, because they are about a topic that you already know something about, you will be able to appreciate the information that is shared, as well as practice your reading skills.

Read News Articles in English

Unlike years ago, you can have access to news in English whenever you want. If you are interested in particular area of the world, you may even want to dedicate your reading time to those sections of the news. In most cases, you can find free news resources on the internet. These may also be an excellent place for you to find the names of other websites that have additional information that you might be interested in.

Over the years, the internet has created a tremendous amount of access to materials written in English. If you want to have fun and improve your reading skills at the same time, these can provide you with hours of interesting materials to practice on. In the process, you may even uncover new information about a hobby, or meet people from around the world that share your interests.

Using a Thesaurus to Learn English

As you may be aware, a thesaurus is a tool that provides lists of words that have similar meanings. For example, an entry for the word “happy” might have listings for synonyms like “joyful,” “giddy,” or “gleeful.” Even though many people trying to learn English purchase a thesaurus, they rarely use it to its full potential. Unfortunately, doing so denies you a number of opportunities to improve your English language skills and vocabulary. Read on for more tips about improving your English with a thesaurus:

Improve your vocabulary

Becoming a natural sounding English speaker means using more than simple words in conversation. On the other hand, using large or complicated-sounding words that aren’t used in conversational language by native English speakers won’t help you either. A thesaurus can help you find the right words for every occasion. In addition, if you take note of the words that native speakers use regularly, you may be able to form a pattern of varying synonyms that makes your vocabulary seem more natural.

Work around difficult verbs and phrases

In many cases, you’ll know when a word or phrase isn’t correct. However, you may be unable to formulate a response that conveys your meaning using natural sounding English. This happens to ESL speakers most often when using irregular verbs and verb tenses. If you’re having trouble coming up with a response, look up the word you want to use in a thesaurus and you may find a common equivalent that follows the rules and makes sense. As you develop more of these workarounds, you’ll be able to observe how others use the English language and become a more fluent speaker yourself.

Practice sounding out words with similar meanings

Regardless of how many years you’ve spoken English or how advanced your language skills are, you may always have an accent. Even though there are many dialects of English, you may feel self conscious about pronouncing certain words in front of groups. By looking through a thesaurus, you may be able to finds words similar to ones that you have difficulty verbalizing that you can use instead.

Improve comprehension

As you become more advanced in your English language practice, you can take sentences and try adding new words from a thesaurus. This will help you practice everything from verb tenses to creating a specific style of expression. As you read the new sentence, you’ll gain new insights into possible meanings and see how sentences need to be changed to accommodate different words. This will help you identify stylistic differences as well as subtle changes in meaning. You may even find that you can improve your grammar skills much more quickly this way.

If you are trying to learn English, you’ll probably use the dictionary more than a thesaurus. While a dictionary is a valuable tool, it won’t do as much to help you learn a broad range of words that have similar meanings as a thesaurus will. Once you begin working with a thesaurus, you’ll find that you can convey your meanings more accurately and better distinguish the more subtle elements of the English language.