Have fun while learning
Having fun is very important. If you have fun, it is easier to continue what you are doing.
It is better
not to rely on willpower alone when trying something hard, like learning language.
You have only a
limited amount of willpower you can use every day. It is like a muscle: you can use it only so much every day, then it gets tired. But with good training, it will grow stronger. So start small and create habits with small steps which will help you to get to your goals.
More about willpower
The importance of focus
There is a "law of 80/20": in every effort, you can get 80% of the results if you focus on 20% of the important stuff.
Hard part is to know what is important - but I will help.
Another law says you need to practice something for 10 000 hours to master it.
If we use law of 80/20 on the law of 10 000 hours, you can get 80% mastery in 2000 hours, 64% mastery in 400 hours.
In just 400 hours, if you focus on the right stuff!
So if you focus on important stuff, create habits to learn a little every day and have fun - you
will learn English.
Relax
Don't worry about making mistakes. Embrace it, make mistakes.
One reason why it is easier for children to learn new language is that children are not afraid to make mistakes. Adults are afraid to look foolish or stupid, trying to avoid making mistakes. So it takes them much longer to learn.
Mistakes are fine: It is impossible to start something new and not to do any mistakes. Mistakes are the sign that you are learning to do something
new.
Even better if you are aware of your mistakes and learn from them.
Your own language is likely as hard for foreigners as is English for you, or much harder. You are not making fun of them? Speakers of English will not make fun of you for speaking bad English - they will appreciate your effort. And they are used to foreigners speaking bad English.
English is language with simple grammar, but irregular spelling and pronunciation.
If you compare English with irregular verbs of Spanish language, or Slavic languages with three genders for nouns (which you will have to learn - genders of nouns make no sense) and gender-matching adjectives and 6
grammatical cases - every noun has 6 different endings in singular and 6 in
two plurals (for few and for many), or tonal languages (same syllable with different tone has different meaning) like Chinese and Thai - compared with all that, English is easy.
Good enough, is good enough, it does not have to be perfect.
Do you have other tips and tricks? Please share.
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