How to Improve Your English Easily: 10 Simple and Effective Tips

Discover 10 simple but effective tips to improve your English. Boost your English language skills with these easy-to-follow tips.

People want to improve their English for many different reasons—for career or personal development, for studying or living in an English speaking country, for pleaser or learning English as a hobby. You can find lots of instructions on the web that will help to improve your English. But in our busy life not all tips are suitable for all learners. Here are some simple tips that might be suitable for almost all learners who want to improve their English.

1. Keep a bedtime book handy – It is now proved that reading a book before bed can give you awesome health benefits. It can help you fall asleep faster and enjoy a higher quality of sleep. So start reading before bed. Choose a children’s book as they are easier than adult books, also are often interesting and fun. If possible, read a book that you’ve already read in your own language. Another effective way is to read a book with lots of dialogues, because dialogues are much easier than descriptive parts of a book. Any books by Brian and Murphy like Intermediate English Grammar can be ideal, because the books are self-study and consisted lot of example dialogues. You can find here 10 best and easy books to improve your English. The book should be in print version, because passing long time with smartphone, kindle or laptop before bed can lead to sleeping disorders.

2. Read newspaper in English rather than in your own language – On your smartphone, read a newspaper of your own country. Use Google Translate just in case of any cool words that you’d like to learn, don’t use it for full sentences. Reading English newspaper is a magical way to enhance your vocabulary. You will find different types of events in newspaper described with different types of words, phrases and pattern of sentences.

3. Read aloud and record your own voice – I am sure, you hate listening your own voice. Many people hate to hear the sound of their own voices. But it’s a surefire way of learning pronunciation. Turn on the recorder on your smartphone, read aloud some section from a book or newspaper and record it. You may know how it should sound, but don’t know how does it sound with your own mouth. So record yourself and listen to it. Surely this will strengthen your pronunciation skill and your confidence.

4. Think in English and stop translating from you own language – If you want to learn English, you have to think in English, dream in English, drink in English, walk in English. This means, always think in mind the things directly in English. When you imagine about an apple, try to think directly the word ”apple”, not the word of apple from your own language. Speak to yourself directly in English describing what you are doing. You are washing up the dishes, so try to say ”I’m washing up the dishes”. Do not ever translate the things from your own language to English. This will never take you any further of your learning.

5. Write your emails, notes, blogs or status on social media in English – Write something every day, even if it’s only a few sentences. Writing is a great tool of learning how to organize words and sentences. Write your emails, notes, task list, even your shopping list in English. Don’t write status or comments on social media in your own language, always write it in English. Another great way is to write a blog in English, about topics that you love. Do these things in English and make it habit, you’ll feel the progress soon.

6. Be Tipsy while you are speaking – Speak slowly like a tipsy (slightly drunk). This is an effective trick. If you are shy, this is not only an effective way of speaking English confidently, but also an effective tool to be confident at any time. In this way you will get more time to think.

There are some certain things you must keep in mind— don’t be afraid, don’t be shy and don’t worry about making mistakes. These stupid things are not only enemies of your learning English; but the enemies of your whole life. A common thing is— if you feel shy you won’t be able to be confident.

7. Be smart in speaking English with mistakes – There is no denying that you will make mistakes, because making mistakes is natural. But surely there are some irritating people around you who laugh at you if you go wrong. Just think— I don’t care. Positive people and native English speakers are always happy to help you. And most of all, people can understand what you’re trying to say, even with making mistakes. So keep speaking anyway, even if you think you’re making mistakes.

8. Listen news channel more than watching movies or listening songs – Many people emphasize on watching English movies and songs for improving English. But these are not very much effective in all times. English is much more regional than any other languages. While listening songs or watching movies, in most cases, you won’t be able to understand the variation of regional accents of English speakers. Moreover, they use many words that you don’t know and don’t need to know too.

You may have the habit of watching TV after coming back from work. Try to watch any English news channel like BBC, CNN or Al Jazeera, listen at least 15 to 20 minutes every day. News is always free from regional accents that will help you improving the basic pronunciation and accent.

9. Listen audio books or learning materials on BBC’s Learning English – Listening audio books is one of the great ways of listening practice. In this way, you can read and listen in same time, so you can listen clearly with reading. Download audio books on your smartphone and listen whenever you will have spare-time.

Listening to English learning materials from BBC’s Learning English website is another fantastic way of listening practice. BBC Learning English helps to keep update on very latest English words and phrases, useful words in the news and videos to show how to pronounce the sounds of English through their features.

10. There is nothing like practice – Nothing will be effective if you don’t practice regularly. So spend at least a few minutes practicing every day. Whenever you will have spare-time, use it with learning. When you are alone, speak to yourself. Try to speak at least one sentence in a day.

Some other important tips:

• Learn the pronunciation of V, F, P, Z and T. We often make mistakes to pronounce these letters. While you are listening English news, notice the pronunciation of them.
• Know what is dated. We often use some words or phrases that are dated, and are not using in modern English. You can understand which is dated and which is not, with regular practice.
• Take your English learning as your favorite hobby.
• While you are speaking, don’t be serious about American or British accent, firstly try to learn correct English.
• Learn the categorized words, as much as you can, e.g.: animal words.
• Learn most useful verbs, as much as you can, that we use in our daily life.

Final Thoughts

The above tips are attempted to cover all areas of reading, writing, speaking and listening, focused on new technologies. You can find many traditional tips on the web which are sometimes boring. In our busy life we don’t have much time to be busy all day long with learning English. So the tips are organized specially for busy people. You can learn English with ”learning by doing” approach.