• 12 effective tips to learn English fast and easy

• 1. Start speaking as soon as possible

• 2. Start reading

• 3. Make yourself accountable

• 4. Set more useful targets than “I will become fluent”

• 5. Keep your personal goal in mind

• 6. Try flashcards to boost your vocabulary

• 7. Learn whole sentences

• 8. Sing along

• 9. Watch TV

• 10. Listen to native English speakers (try to!) speak your language

• 11. Change your phone and social media settings to English

• 12. Find a community of language learners

• 5 Indispensable resources to speed up your English learning

• 1. 1-on-1 tutoring

• 2. A dedicated notebook

• 3. YouTube

• 4. Language exchange websites

• 5. Podcasts

• Our 5 favorite apps for learning English fast

• 1. Preply

• 2. Quizlet

• 3. Spotify

• 4. Beelinguapp

• 5. Tandem

• A brief afterword: how to learn English fast and easy

Article by: Miranda Parr

English is the most commonly studied second language in the world. There have
never been more study materials at your fingertips, articles promising secret hacks,
or online communities to support you. But if you need to learn English quickly, which
is the easiest path to results?
In this guide, we have pulled together a step-by-step rundown of the techniques that
have proven to deliver progress fast, why they work and some resources that can
help you follow them.

12 effective tips to learn English fast and easy

1. Start speaking as soon as possible

If you are serious about learning to speak English quickly, the evidence is clear:
having regular conversations with a fluent speaker is pretty much the only way.

The faster you can break the mental barrier of testing out your language skills out
loud, the faster you will be able to speak confidently.

A 2016 study published by the University of Michigan demonstrated that students

learning a language by having conversations over webcam tend to see much faster
results than those using traditional methods. Scientists followed two groups of
students as they began learning a new language:

• Group A was studying using grammar and vocabulary exercises

• Group B was learning by speaking, using video technology

After twelve weeks, it was found that Group A had made no significant improvement,
but Group B had developed their language skills significantly. They had gained more
varied vocabularies, performed better in listening comprehension tests, were better
able to use grammar, and were able to speak more confidently.

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Put simply, even if you study vocabulary exercises, grammar lessons and theory
regularly for weeks, unless you learn English by speaking, you risk not learning how
to draw these skills together. This is an easy mistake to make. How often have you
heard someone say, “I can understand most of what I hear in English, but I am not
very good at speaking it”?

Luckily, it has never been easier to find someone to practice speaking with, even if
you’re learning English from home! Preply has thousands of expert tutors ready to
chat over webcam, and you can adjust our filters to only show those who charge
what you can afford to pay.

Having a native speaker’s undivided attention for regular one hour sessions can feel
intense, but that’s because it is highly effective. You will see real progress fast. We
are so confident that all lessons come with a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

2. Start reading
It has never been easier to find reading materials in English, or quicker to look things
up on Google Translate if you get frustrated. If you aren’t quite ready to tackle the
complete works of Shakespeare, try:

• Browsing celebrity gossip on easy-reading websites like Buzzfeed, Mashable

or Upworthy

• Reading a book you love in your native language in the English translation

• Switching your search browser to show English language results by default

• Following more American/British/Australian public figures on Twitter and

Facebook

If you find yourself stopping and starting a lot, try studying this list of “Fry words”.
They are thought to be the first 1000 words necessary for reading in English, and
make up around 50% of all written text.
3. Make yourself accountable
If you want to learn English fast, regular practice has to become a habit. But it’s no
good just promising you’ll spend extra time working on your language skills. You
have to find some way of guaranteeing you’ll practice even when life gets in the
way.

If you have great willpower, making yourself accountable could be as simple as

setting an alarm on your phone to remind you to do some learning at a certain time
every day, such as when you come home from work. But for most of us, staying
motivated to do anything new is far easier when someone else is depending on us.

In one study, The American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) found that
you have a 65% chance of completing a goal if you commit to someone. Even more
encouragingly: if you have a specific appointment with this person to discuss your
progress, the chance of completing your goal rises to 95%.

You could search for a partner who is also learning English to regularly compare
progress with, or simply find a tutor who you like and respect.

If you decide to try one of Preply’s tutors, watch videos from a few different people
before taking a lesson. Search for someone you think you might connect with,
perhaps a person with similar interests or life experiences to you. It is easy to stick to
your language learning goals when one of our awesome tutors is rooting for you!
Alternatively, try finding a study buddy. Check out our rundown of the 10 best
language exchange apps of 2022 for more on this.

4. Set more useful targets than “I will become fluent”

In the language learning community, there is so much emphasis on “becoming
fluent,” but when you are taking the first steps on your journey to learning English, is
this a helpful goal? Probably not.

Fixating on fluency suggests that there is an endpoint to learning English, a point

that is always out of reach. The truth is that everyone who speaks any language at
all is still learning. Research has shown that most people continue to learn an extra
word in their native language every day until middle age.

You will learn faster if you set targets relevant to your individual context. Better
targets are ones that allow you to track your progress in relation to your own life.
They are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound, or “SMART.”
These are some great examples:

• Within six months, I want to be able to speak with my business partners and
email them in English quickly without using a dictionary.

• Within three months, I want to be able to make small talk on common topics
(weather, tourism, sports, etc.) with native English speakers.

• After nine months of learning English online, I want to score 100 points in the
TOEFL exam, so I can apply and get accepted to Columbia University.
5. Keep your personal goal in mind
There is no easy way around it: learning English fast will take serious energy. In
order to stick with it, you have to have a motivation that sets your heart on fire.

When you have identified your goal, you can make sure that all of your efforts take
you another step towards it. For instance, someone learning English to take a
degree at an English language university might focus on specialist words and
phrases relevant to their course. If you’re learning English for work, you might like to
focus on words and phrases relevant to the office. Many people also choose to learn
for a partner, or someone they love, and spend the most time on informal language.

This step will save you from a common frustration: following a textbook that
encourages you to learn content which you will not need to use anytime soon. Don’t
spend hours memorizing words for all the animals in the zoo, if it won’t be helpful for
presenting at that board meeting!

This is another benefit of working with one of Preply’s tutors. You can discuss your
personal reasons for learning English and work with them to create a scheme of
learning tailored to you. That way, you can learn the vocabulary you need a lot
faster.

Learning English for work? Why not look for a tutor who specializes in Business
English.
6. Try flashcards to boost your vocabulary
A word of warning: flashcards can be a false friend when learning English, causing
you to spend too much time learning words without their context.

When combined with plenty of speaking practice, however, they are an easy way to
absorb a lot of new vocabulary relatively quickly, and from home. Luckily, there are
plenty of great, free apps out there so you can start memorizing words wherever you
go! Some of our favorites include:

• Tinycards

• Memrise

• Word Power Lite

• Quizlet

The good news? A professor at the University of Western Ontario has found that you
only need about 800 of the most-frequently-used words to understand 75% of the
language as it is spoken in normal life. That’s definitely an achievable number of
flashcards! For more on this, check out our article on How to memorize English
vocabulary.

7. Learn whole sentences

Flashcards are useful, but studies show that learning whole sentences might be
even more useful. Language nerds call this technique ‘sentence mining’. Do a quick
internet search for ‘sentence mining’, and you will find an enthusiastic online
community who swear that this is the quickest route to learning English at home.

Certainly, learning whole sentences off by heart can help you to learn words in
context, and teach you how their meaning takes on subtle changes in different
contexts. Check out this video for a fuller explanation.

Not sure about which sentences to start with? Try this free list complete with audio
recordings.

This technique works particularly well if you are learning with one of Preply’s lovely
tutors. Ask your tutor to help you come up with sentences relevant to your personal
learning goals.

8. Sing along
Music is the great universal language! It can also be a powerful tool for making a
second language feel more natural.

Listening to music with English lyrics can help you gain a better understanding of
pronunciation, vocabulary and sentence structure, without feeling like study at all.
An interesting study even showed that listening to music in a new language can help
you pick up grammatical rules more easily, in a similar way that you do when first
learning to speak as a child.

There is no shortage of great, free English-language music on the web. YouTube

has an almost unlimited supply of music with lyric videos so you can read along
without missing a word. Aside from that:

• Lyrics Training app allows you to practice your listening skills by creating “fill
in the gaps” exercises from your favorite song lyrics.

• Radio Garden is a great, free tool to listen to radio stations around the world.

• If you don’t mind feeling a little silly, the British Council has a free collection of
English songs made for children.

9. Watch TV
Watching TV series is one of the best ways to learn English, but which are the best
shows? According to a 2012 study by Kaplan, the top 5 most popular shows that
their students chose to help them learn English were:

• Friends (the top most-watched show, with a huge 26% of all their students
tuning in!)
 • How I Met Your Mother

• CSI

• House

• The Big Bang Theory

Of course, you will get more out of your learning if you are more engaged than by
passively watching. Try the Language Learning with Netflix extension for Chrome,
which allows you to watch Netflix with subtitles in English and your native language
at the same time. This great free tool even allows you to save new words that you
come across.

Watching TV and movies can also help you discover new accents, and try to
understand them. Try the accent challenge on Preply’s YouTube show to test your
knowledge of English accents: