How to Learn English

In this section, we describe the principles of our method for learning English as a foreign language. The Antimoon Method is based on our experiences as English learners. (Read who we are and why you can trust our advice)
When writing about the Antimoon Method, we also write about commercial products that let you follow the method more easily. If you are worried about this, please read "Why we are recommending products".
Motivation: Become a person who likes to learn English.
Dictionary: Get a good English dictionary.
No mistakes: Avoid mistakes. Try to use correct English from the beginning.
Pronunciation: Learn to pronounce English sounds. Learn to understand phonetic transcription and the phonetic alphabet.
Input: Get English into your head by reading and listening to lots of English sentences.
· Reading
· Movies
· Adventure games
SuperMemo is a computer program that you can use to learn English. We have used it for 8 years and it has helped us a lot.

Motivation for learning English
What is necessary to learn English well? You have to change your life a little — do crazy things like talking to yourself in English or spending your evening reading a dictionary. In order to do these things, and do them regularly, you have to enjoy doing them. If you are like most learners and don't feel like doing these things, you will have to work on your motivation.
Improving your motivation for learning English: We share our psychological tricks that helped us enjoy learning English and that you can use to boost your motivation and make a difference in your English.
Articles related to motivation in the "Other articles" section:
· Why learn English
· English makes you feel good
· Three biggest challenges facing an English learner
What is necessary to learn English well?
Learning English requires action. You may know all the learning tips, but if you don't start doing things, you will achieve nothing. The fact is, if you want to learn to speak English well, you must change your life. Here are some examples of things you will have to do:
· read a book in English for an hour every day, analyzing the grammar in sentences and looking up words in an English dictionary
· listen to an audiobook or other recording in English, stopping it frequently, trying to understand what is being said, and trying to imitate the speaker's pronunciation
· spend your afternoon practicing the pronunciation of the English "r" sound
· carefully write an e-mail message in English, using a dictionary or a Web search every 20 seconds to make sure every word is correct, and taking 5 minutes to write one sentence
· think about an English sentence you've read, wondering if it could say "a" instead of "the" in the sentence, and trying to find similar sentences on the Web to find out the answer
· walk down the street and build simple English sentences in your head (talking to yourself in English about the things you see around you)
What kind of person would do all these crazy things? Only one kind. The kind of person who enjoys doing them. If you want to learn to speak English well, you're going to have to become that person. You cannot hate doing these things. Have you ever heard of a person who became successful by doing something he hated?

The problem with learning and teaching English as a foreign language is that all English learners want to speak English well; however, most learners don't want to spend time on learning English on their own. (Which is probably why they sign up for English classes and hope their teacher will force knowledge into their heads.)
This lack of motivation means that learners basically don't spend their own time on learning English, and if they do, they don't do it regularly. For example, a typical learner might study English phrasal verbs for 12 hours before an English exam. However, he will not read a book in English for 30 minutes every day. He just doesn't feel that learning English is pleasant enough, so he will only do it if he has to. The problem is that a huge one-time effort gives you nothing, while small, everyday activities will give you a lot.
If you are one of those learners and don't feel like practicing the pronunciation of the "r" sound or thinking about English sentences every day, we have news for you: You're going to have to make yourself want to do these things. In other words, you'll have to work on your motivation. Fortunately, there are proven techniques to help you with that.
Typical learner vs. motivated learner
Paula is a typical learner of English with a generally low level of motivation. She has occasional moments of high motivation — like the day before her English test or that time when she couldn't communicate with a foreign customer who called her at work. These kind of situations make her think "I've got to do something about my English!". However, they happen very rarely — less than once a month. So even if she studies quite intensively (e.g. for two whole days before an exam), the results are poor, because she forgets 90% of the things she learned within a month. This is no surprise: The way human memory works, you need to review things all the time; otherwise you just forget them.
Now let's look at a different English learner: Judy. Judy reads a special novel for English learners (written in simplified English) almost every day for 30 minutes. She bought an English-English dictionary and uses it to look up English words whenever she doesn't understand a sentence in her book. It was hard to study regularly at the beginning: Reading books and using a dictionary were not "normal activities" for her. And every English sentence was a challenge.
But now, after only two weeks, she can read much faster. While reading, she often sees words that she has learned in the past two weeks. When she recognizes such a word, she doesn't have to look it up in a dictionary and she knows she has made good progress. Judy feels she has learned a lot of English recently, and she is eager to learn more. Every day, she looks forward to reading her book. The book gives her the chance to use what she has learned (enjoy her progress) and to learn even more. Because she reads regularly, she forgets little and her vocabulary keeps growing.
Judy is on the right track. She will soon be able to read English-language newspapers and other resources written for native speakers.
Enjoyment leads to better memory
If you enjoy learning English, you will spend more time on it, and you will do it regularly. A high level of motivation will also give you another advantage. It will be easier for you to memorize new words and grammar structures. The reason is that the brain easily remembers information on a subject that you like. (For example, some people like history and know everything about World War II. If you told a "normal person" to memorize all these facts, they could never do it.) So enjoyment of learning gives you double benefits.

Improving your motivation for learning English
In this article, we share our techniques for improving your motivation for learning English as a foreign language. We used them all the time when we were learning English and we still use them when we need to boost our motivation in areas other than English.
Imagine yourself in the future
Imagine you can talk to native speakers just like you talk in your first language. Imagine other people wanting to speak English as well as you do. Imagine the possibility of writing e-mail to people from all over the world.
It is helpful to read an article about the advantages of knowing English well. There are two such articles on Antimoon: Why learn English and English makes you feel good.
You should know that it is possible to learn English really well. Just look at other people who have done it.
Remember that you are already good
You already know some English (you're reading an article in English right now). That's a big success! Now it's time for more successes. Time to start using powerful methods of effective learning. Time to gain an impressive knowledge of English.
Remember there is a lot that you don't know
You are good, but your English probably isn't perfect. You probably can't understand English-language TV, read books in English, talk to native speakers easily, write letters without mistakes, etc.
You should never think your English is perfect. Even if you are the best student in your class, always try to find your weak areas and work on them. When you've learned to speak English well, your problems will be quite small: punctuation, rarely used grammar structures, rare words, understanding "street language". Right now, your problems are probably more basic: mistakes in pronunciation, small vocabulary, grammar problems with the present perfect tense and conditional structures.
Use your English whenever you can
This is very, very important. The more you use English, the more you will want to learn it.
Because English is so popular, you can use it everywhere. You can use Google to find English-language websites with interesting information, you can watch American cartoons, you can play adventure games on your computer, you can read interesting books in English, or you can do other things that we write about.
If you do these things, you will not only have fun and learn English. If you see that a new English word lets you understand your favorite TV show (or communicate with people, or beat a computer game), you will want to learn more words. So you will learn English more, use it more, learn it more, use it more... If you also use effective learning methods, your English will grow faster than you can imagine.
Talk to people about English
This is a very simple method, but it is very effective. Here's how it works:
You usually talk about things which interest you. But the opposite is true, too. If you start talking about a boring subject, you will begin to get interested in it.
Imagine you are studying a subject that you hate. You are bored and tired, but you have to pass the test tomorrow. If there are people near you, you have two options: you can tell everybody how much you are suffering or you can tell those people about the things you've learned. If you choose the first option, you will only feel worse.
If you choose the second option, and start a conversation on the "boring" subject, you will begin to look at it in a totally different way. Suddenly it will become a subject worth talking about — therefore, an interesting subject.
How can you begin such a conversation? If you're studying English, you can surprise another person by talking to him/her in English. Say (in English): Hi, I'm studying English and I hate it. Or you can say (in your first language): Hey, I've learned 50 English words today. Do you know what's the English word for ...? If there are no people near you, you can telephone or send an e-mail message to your friend.
What will your friends say? Probably they won't be very interested, but it doesn't matter! The important thing is this: After talking about English, you will study it with much more passion. Try it.
Find a friend who is learning English
If you can find a friend who is learning English and is on a similar level of skill, you will be in an excellent situation:
· you will have someone to talk about English with. These conversations will increase your interest in English, as explained in the previous section.
· learning English will be easier, because you will be able to discuss your problems with your friend.
· you will study English more, because you will want to be better than your friend. :-)
You should meet your friend regularly. Ideally, he/she should live near you, or go to the same school as you. If you absolutely can't find anybody willing to learn English with you, you can try to find somebody by e-mail. This is a worse solution: your conversations will probably be less frequent, and it is difficult to compete with someone who you don't know well.
Spend some money on learning English
If you spend your money on something, you will want to use it. For example, if you buy an expensive tennis racket, you will probably go out and play tennis every day.
This rule is also true for learning English. If you want to increase your desire to learn English, buy a new dictionary, an interesting English-language book, English-language cable TV, etc. The idea is simple: You paid for it, so you will want to use it, and you will improve your English.
There is a problem with this method. It only works for a short time. You usually lose your desire to learn English after a few days. To keep learning, you would have to buy something every week!
However, this method is helpful, because it gives you an impulse to start learning. For example, if you buy a dictionary of phrasal verbs, you will probably learn some words from it. Then you should try to use them. For example, write an e-mail message with these words. This will increase your motivation (as explained before), and you will learn more.
Read Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins
Anthony Robbins' book Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement gives excellent advice on how to achieve any kind of goal. This book has changed the lives of many people, so you might want to take a look at it.
Remember that learning English requires action
We have said this many times. One small action is more powerful than reading hundreds of articles. Yes, we know it is very hard to do things, even if they are good for us. We humans are lazy creatures. That is why not many people speak English well.
Still, we hope you can do the things we talk about in our English learning method — not only read about them. You will be successful only if you change something about your life.
Don't put it off. Begin now.

Getting a good English dictionary
You need a good English dictionary. An English dictionary is the most important thing that you will need when learning English. Successful English learners use their dictionaries all the time — that's how they learn to use new words.
How to buy a good English dictionary?
It has to be an English-English dictionary.
It must give phonetic transcriptions (pronunciations) for every word.
It must give example sentences for every word.
It should be a software dictionary.
Example sentences: more important than definitions: If you want to improve your speaking/writing ability, read the example sentences in your dictionary. They show you how to use a word and they program your brain with correct English.
Reviews of good dictionaries
· Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary (4th edition) — It's very easy to learn English from this dictionary, because it is full of real sentences from English books, newspapers, recordings, etc. Even the definitions are full sentences. Includes the CD-ROM (see below).
· Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary CD-ROM — included with the paper version. Same friendly definitions and great example sentences, but you can look them up much faster than in the huge book. The CD also has a Wordbank with even more example sentences. However, it doesn't include phonetic transcriptions (it only has audio recordings).
· Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary CD-ROM — a very comprehensive dictionary of American English with phonetic transcriptions and American recordings. Complements the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's CD-ROM nicely.
· Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (16th edition) with CD-ROM — a good source of pronunciations that are not included in general English dictionaries, e.g. pronunciations of people's names, geographical names, company names, and inflected forms of words. The CD version has great British recordings, pronunciation exercises, and a Sound Search feature.
· Also read: Why publishers are unable to develop a really good software dictionary in the "Other articles" section.

Why you need a good English dictionary
If you get a good English dictionary, you will be better than 90% of English learners. It's unbelievable, but most people (even people who want to learn English very much) simply go to a bookstore and buy the first dictionary they see.
That is a big mistake! A bad dictionary will give you problems sooner or later — maybe in two months, maybe in one year — and you will have to buy a good one anyway! Isn't it better to buy a good dictionary the first time?
Getting a good English dictionary is important because:
· A good dictionary will be your guide to English. It will teach you new words, how to pronounce them, and how to use them. It will help you understand English texts. Successful English learners use their dictionaries all the time: when reading books, at English classes, when writing e-mail, when doing homework, when surfing the Web.
· It is an easy first step in your English-learning program — you only need to spend a little money (much less than you would pay for an English course). Once you've made the first step, it will be easier for you to do the rest.
· It requires spending money. Yes, this is a good thing. :-) Spending some of your money on learning English will give you an impulse to keep learning and work towards your goal of mastering English.

Learn English without mistakes
You can damage your English by writing and speaking. Your grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation can get worse because of practice. When you speak or write and you make mistakes, you teach yourself bad habits. These bad habits may be difficult to eliminate. The solution is simple: Avoid mistakes! Try to say or write only correct English sentences.

How can you avoid making mistakes?
· Study pronunciation (all the English sounds and at least basic English words) before you open your mouth.
· Get lots of English sentences into your head (by reading and listening) before you open your mouth or write in English. To avoid mistakes, you need to follow good examples.
· When you speak or write, be careful, slow, and use simple language.