Q&A for How to Learn English

Practice writing essays as you learn English! Practicing to write essays while learning English at a certain level is extremely important since it teaches you to put together a proper text—plus, it will further help you to write other things, like emails and books.

It is quite typical for someone learning a new language to understand the speech of other people before learning to speak well him/herself. If you understand the words of other people, you are making good progress!

Use the words you just learned every day for a week. Keep practicing as much as you can, and the words will stay in your memory.

Keep practicing your conversation. If you can, talk to a native English speaker. Ask him to correct your mistakes.

If you want to enjoy mastering the English language, watch movies with subtitles. You can start with a light comedy or a sitcom with a very simple language. Keep the subtitles on until you feel that you can make out the words without looking at the subtitles. And finally - read a lot. Preferably, classic authors, such as Mark Twain or Jane Austen. By reading the best written books, you'll enjoy the language and learn to speak it well too.

Grammar is hard to master (as with all languages) and even for native speakers some grammatical points are debated often. As long as you can get your point across, that's the most important thing - grammatical details will come. Learning from mistakes is important - get someone who knows the language to correct you if you go wrong.

There are books, recordings, websites and classes available to help you learn to speak and write English. The best way, however, is to write directly to someone who is fluent in the language and to read a lot of English.

As with other skills, the only way to gain confidence in speaking English is to keep practicing! English is a difficult language to master. Even small children -- who are very good at acquiring language skills -- take five years or more to become fluent in English. Many continue to make errors with the irregular forms of the language.

Try to find an English class taught by a native speaker. If you can't, search online. There are many websites where you can practice talking to English speakers.

You can increase your English vocabulary by thinking in English, practicing with a native speaker, reading newspapers/books/magazines, writing a diary/journal in English, using flashcards or apps with vocabulary on them, watching movies/TV shows and keeping a vocabulary book to help you remember the harder words. Read the dictionary now and then -- just open up to anywhere in the dictionary and read through the words, learning new ones that look interesting to you.

Look for English lessons online or in a book.

A basic sentence consists of a subject and a predicate. A subject consists of one or more nouns or pronouns and any modifying adjectives. A predicate consists of one or more verbs and any modifying adverbs. (Some sentences will be more complicated than this.) The subject is the person, place or thing which performs an action or inhabits a state of being. The predicate describes the action or state of being. A sentence will include at least one independent clause and may include one or more dependent clauses. A sentence typically begins with a capital letter and ends with a form of punctuation such as a period, question mark, exclamation mark or quotation mark.

That is a question that would be better put to your teacher or tutor because they may have a very specific preference. It will also depend on where you're learning and which English you're learning (American, British, Australian, Canadian, etc.), as each region has its own preferred dictionaries. If learning in Britain, the Oxford dictionary is legendary. You should also factor in cost, accessibility and your own preferences. Do an online search for various dictionaries to see what seems good to you.

English is a very difficult language to master. It takes even small children several years to learn English. Expect to take much longer than six months to become fluent. Be patient, and look for help from other people, preferably native English speakers.

To talk like a native speaker, the time will vary depending on your personal ability, your practice, your level of immersion, and how many native speakers you spend time around. Reading books, watching TV, or getting a job where English is spoken will speed up the learning process.It can take months or it can take years, depending on your situation. Few people ever lose their own accent but many people become fluent and comfortable within a year or so of regular immersion.

The best way to do this is to listen to and speak with someone who is fluent in English. If this is not possible, find spoken English online or in a recording. Remember that English is pronounced slightly differently in different parts of the world or even in different parts of the same country.

There are vocabulary games for learning new words. Also, there are "daily word" websites and phone apps for a person to learn one new vocabulary word a day.

Keep practicing. Read out loud what you've written to see if it sounds right. Read it to others and get their feedback.

This depends on how advanced your English is: If you're just starting out, familiarizing yourself with the sound of English and using subtitles in your own language can be useful. But when you're ready to practice conversation, turn off all subtitles, because after a certain point, this won't teach you anything new. Although, it can be helpful to use English subtitles only. This should be used as a step toward watching without any subtitles at all.

Eliminating mistakes is simply a matter of practice. Mistakes are to be expected at first. Have someone else even slightly familiar with English read your essays before you submit them. Don't be embarrassed about mistakes. English is a difficult language to learn! Everyone struggles with it at first.

It takes a child at least ten years to be fluent. Others for whom English is a second language usually take considerably longer.

Neither one is easier to learn than the other.

You can ask, "How much does this cost?"

Write the way you speak. Decide what you want to say in a sentence by saying it out loud. Once it sounds right, write it down.

Read English out loud. Read a sentence orally, then close your eyes and repeat the sentence. Do that with as many sentences as you can.

Just keep reading and writing. Read every English-language book, newspaper, magazine, and website you can find, and note the spelling of every word you see.

"Divine" means of or related to God or a supreme being.

Yes, of course! There are many Skype teachers and tutors, either on their own or on sites such as italki.com.

A great free online site is duolingo.com. It teaches you everything from basics to advanced phrases.

Learning a new language is simply not easy. Anyone will struggle with it. All you can do is keep working. Think about how far you've come already. It may take a long time, but it will get better for you with practice.