Top 5 secrets to learn any language

Learning to speak English is perhaps one of the language skills which is considered the most difficult to achieve for a person who wants to learn it. This is due to a series of factors that intervene when this person can express himself in English. One of them, and perhaps the most important, is the excessive and excessive use of grammar as a teaching system for this language, neglecting and thereby limiting the ability to develop good listening (ability to listen and understand what is heard) «Pronunciation» (ability to articulate phonemes with good diction in order to pronounce words) and «speak» (ability to structure expressions and hold conversations fluently); All of which said, here are the top 5 secrets for learning to SPEAK English.

1. Surround yourself with the language.

If your goal is to learn to SPEAK English, you must understand that the longer you are exposed to or interact with this language, the better the results will be, so you should incorporate as many activities that involve this language into your daily routine. Listen to music, and try to sing fragments of the songs you hear, it is advisable to listen to slow-paced music with artists who have a good diction when interpreting their songs, such as FranK Sinatra, Elvis Presley, The beatles, the more romantic the song, the better it will be your understanding of this. On the contrary, it is not at all recommended for those who try to learn to SPEAK English, listening to music at a fast pace, since the vocalization and pronunciation of the singers is sometimes even difficult for native speakers to understand.

Watch tutorials, movies, series, you can do the exercise of seeing them first with subtitles and then watching them again without them, this will help you clearly understand what the visual element you are seeing is about. Collect important phrases from each of these audiovisual elements and review them in your mind and incorporate these phrases into your daily routine. The more you repeat these phrases understanding what they mean, the easier it will be to use them later in a conversation.

If you are a video game lover, try to interact in groups where the participants speak in English. According to Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen, a professor at the University of Helsinki. Strategy games and those where you play online with people from other countries, have a great impact on the oral expression of people whose native language is not English.

2. Speak alone or in your mind

The title will seem implausible, but believe me! It is real. It is scientifically proven that people who try to learn to SPEAK English are 50% more successful if each expression they learn through the senses is used in a real context in their daily life.

Unfortunately if you do not live in an English speaking country, you will not have the opportunity to interact with English speakers, which leaves you at a disadvantage. But cheer up! If you do this exercise daily, believe me, you will start dreaming in English, and when that happens, that is the precise moment when your brain is already incorporating the language into its database.

At home, when you get up, plan your day in English, talk in your mind about the activities you have to do or are doing at that time, when you have a memory of the past use the English language to compile that memory in your mind, yes Are you planning a walk, trip, or some event that you plan to do, try to think about it in English. Consciously talk or think about your family, friends, work, studies, environment, etc ... Ask yourself questions and answer them yourself and you will realize that in a short time expressions will begin to flow naturally

3. Read books in English

You might ask yourself: How reading books can help me learn to SPEAK English? Well, let me tell you that reading will significantly increase your vocabulary, thereby helping you to have a greater and better range of words to use when expressing yourself in English. If you are a regular fan of reading, it is highly recommended that you start incorporating works in English, I recommend you start with simple titles which contain words that are easy to handle. Remember that it is important that every time you read and identify a new word you try more than to translate it, graph it or associate it mentally, by that I mean that it is easier to learn new words by association than by translation. Let me give you an example

If you find a text: "an evil old man" of the phrase cited above, suppose you understand everything except what "evil" means, then you go to the dictionary and you realize that "evil" means: "evil" well, don't try to memorize The meaning of "evil" could be better associated with something like "Montgomery Burns" the ruthless character from the Simpsons.

Learning more number of words by association than by translation will allow you to easily incorporate them into your lexicon,

4. Don't study English, learn it

It has long been proven that the study of the English language does not generate a positive impact on the process of learning to SPEAK the language, so much so that entire countries in Latin America have based their language teaching process on grammar, which has created experts in English grammar with little or no oral communication skills and everything that it encompasses.

If you really want to learn to SPEAK English, stop seeing the language as a school subject, studying English will only bring you more frustration and you will want to begin to understand concepts in greater depth, it will not allow you to advance in the natural process of learning to SPEAK English. it will make you yet another expert on grammar.

Perhaps you may ask yourself: How can you learn to SPEAK English without studying it? Let me answer this question with another: Have you ever seen a 6-year-old who speaks Spanish because I study it?

5. Interact with people who speak the language

Finally and perhaps the best secret of all so that you can learn to SPEAK English. en Interacting with people who speak it, it will be extremely useful to interact with people who speak English regardless of whether they are native or not, since this interaction will allow you to put into practice everything you have learned on your own, In addition to taking a English course where the skills that are related to the SPEAKING process are prioritized is very useful, as it remembers that some elements such as hearing are involved in the acquisition of oral language (The ability to listen to the phonetics of a language) Voice, diction, intonation and vocalization (Ability that will allow you to pronounce words well) and structure, which should not be confused with grammar, since structure is nothing but the sequential order followed by the elements that make up an expression.

Make these tips your daily practice, and your ability to SPEAK English will definitely improve significantly.