If you’re going to be consistent, you need to know exactly why you want to learn English. Is it so you can travel? Is it for work? Are you dating an English speaker and you want to be able to communicate with their family?
Knowing exactly why you want English will allow you to apply everything you learn to that purpose.
If you need English for travel but you aren’t going to travel until next year, you need to act like it’s going to happen sooner. If you can picture yourself roaming the streets of London, you can picture how exactly you’ll use English.
Act like you’re there and you’ll be able to find more uses for English and in return, you’ll stay more motivated to practice every day.
This one is directly connected to the last two. When your actions are connected to your vision, they become a MUST. There is a strong difference between what we consider a SHOULD and what we consider a MUST. We brush our teeth every single day because we consider it a MUST. We don’t do exercise everyday because we consider it a SHOULD. We consider it a should because we don’t have a clear vision of the results we want and we don’t believe that we can actually be fit.
When you have a clear vision of why you want to learn English and you are convinced that your vision is real, it becomes a MUST and you become more consistent.
This is definitely the most difficult, but it is one of the most important. If learning English is a must, we need to practice every day regardless of how we feel. Even if you only listen to a 5 minute podcast or your favorite English song, it’s better than not doing anything.
Congrats! By reading this article, you have already practiced today! You got it out of the way and if you don’t feel like practicing English later, you don’t need to anymore!
It is totally okay if you don’t understand every word of a podcast, a song, a movie, etc… In fact, it’s good if you don’t have all the answers and don’t understand. It means you challenged yourself, it means you exposed yourself to new words. It means you are LEARNING.
Learning doesn’t happen when we understand everything. Learning happens when we don’t know all of the answers but we continue to listen anyway.
Measurable results and language input are two very different things. Language input is more important than results.
Let me explain. Let’s say you watch a Youtube video in English today and you only understand half of it. You can’t measure the results of having watched the video, but you increased your language input. This means that your brain has noticed new words and language structures that you’re not consciously aware of yet. The next time you hear those words or language structures, you’ve reinforced them. You will eventually get the results, but you have to build the foundation first. You do this by not focusing on the results and simply acting instead.
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