As we all know, learning English can oftentimes be a tedious task that it seems almost impossible to find the time for.
Most of us have extremely busy lives and we are constantly trying to squeeze extra activities into our hectic schedules.
One thing we can all agree on is the importance of learning and speaking English, so it is without a doubt something we need to make time for, no matter how complex our timetables may be.
Although learning English takes time, the truth is that there are many ways we can learn and go over our English without needing a whole lot of spare hours.
Today I am going to share with you four very simple things that you can do to practice your English each and every day!
Read the information around you in English
As you know, most gadgets that you buy, no matter what they may be, come with instructions and manuals normally in many different languages, English being one of them!
Have you ever tried reading an instruction manual in English? These could be the instructions of use for the latest smartwatch you have just bought yourself, or the step by step process of putting together the new chair you purchased for the living room.
Most things come with some sort of manual or instructions to teach you everything you need to know about whatever item you buy, so make sure you don’t just throw them into the trash!
Reading instruction manuals is a great way to learn new, useful vocabulary and also test yourself to see if you understand the different indications. Plus, most instructions come in many different languages, so why not test yourself in English first, and then check if you understood by reading the version in your own language?
Another great way to learn useful vocabulary is by reading food labels!
Most of the time the ingredients list and the nutritional information will be in English, so there’s another great way to go over some vocabulary while you are cooking your lunch!
Both of these methods are awesome ways to multitask and make some time for learning, even if you don’t have any!
Learn and play
One thing that can’t be missing from your English journey is a language-learning app!
Of course there are hundreds of apps to choose from, but there are always going to be certain boxes you need to make sure that your chosen app ticks:
- It needs to be fun, if not you’ll never find the time to use it!
- The app has to be able to teach in a way that is entertaining to you
- It has to be able to teach you real, spoken English that real English people actually use!
- It needs to be intuitive and test you as you play
Of course our FREE wannalisn app ticks all of these boxes! So make sure that you check it out if you want to learn English with your favourite movies, series and songs!
Wannalisn extracts short clips and focuses on teaching you different expressions, grammar and vocabulary.
It’s the perfect way to learn common expressions (so important!), to practice listening to REAL English, and to actually have fun and learn without even realizing it!
You can click here to download the app and give it a try for free!
Background noise
Every single day we all have those time-consuming tasks that we just have to do.
Most of these tasks we basically do on autopilot. Things like doing the laundry, preparing lunch, tidying the house, working out, getting ready for the day, taking a shower, doing the dishes, etc.
The bad thing about these types of tasks is that there’s no escaping them. The good thing? They are tasks that don’t require too much of our attention or brain power, meaning that we could easily make the most of the time spent on these chores to learn English!
But how? you may ask. Easy-peasy!
Find a podcast about a topic you enjoy listening to or learning about and listen to it in the background as you do your chores.
Find some English YouTube channels that talk about something you like and put those videos on while you get on with your tasks.
Switch the language of your favorite movie or series into English, preferably something that you already know almost all the words to! That’ll make it a lot easier to understand.
There are so many ways to make the most of this time in the day that is otherwise spent in silence or with the same re-run of that same old show on in the background.
Test yourself with daily descriptions
This is one of my favorite tips ever! and it’s a really great way to test yourself daily, without taking up too much of your time in the process.
So, how does this work? well, whenever you have a spare 5 minutes (maybe on the bus on the way home, walking to work, waiting for Instagram to load, etc) test yourself and see if you can talk about the different things around you in English. This internal monologue can include descriptions, qualities, uses and anything more you want to add about the things that you can see.
Try to talk about everything and anything as much as you can, all in English of course!
When you get to a word that you don’t know, something that you don’t have the vocabulary to describe or that you aren’t sure how to say in English, write the word down in a notepad or in your notes app on your phone in your own native language.
Slowly, you’ll create a daily list of different words that you don’t know how to say in English. Then spend around 10 minutes at the end of your day translating these words that you didn’t know, and test yourself on them again the next day. Do this as many times as you need to until you start to learn these new words.
This is a great way to learn useful vocabulary that you can actually apply in your everyday English, rather than random vocabulary that you’ll probably never use!
