We are all living in a world full of resources, information, and opportunities. This makes learning English much easier and more accessible than ever. Today, we will see together how to learn English by yourself! In this article, you can find tips, useful techniques and resources which will make all of this possible!

Is learning English on your own possible? My personal story...

Is it actually possible to learn English from home?

Languages are a tool we use primarily to communicate with each other. So, naturally, it would be hard to learn a language without ever using or speaking it. However, you can get quite far in your studies all on your own - you can reach a level of comprehension, both reading and listening, which are almost perfect in the comfort of your own home. You can master the written language and you can reach a good level of speaking thanks to the Internet. By doing so, you can explore the history, geography, and general culture of any country you're interested in!

I'll start off with my personal story - how did I learn two languages, English and French almost all by myself?

It all started when I was 6 or 7 years old. Like any child, I loved watching animated shows on Cartoon Network. However, at the time, all of these cartoons were only available in English. I couldn't watch any program in Bulgarian (my native language). Even though I didn't understand anything, little by little, I started getting the general idea, I learned a few words and phrases, but most importantly, I had immersed myself in the English language - its pronunciation, intonation, usage, etc.

Later on, I started studying English at school and that's quite intensive in Bulgaria (I swear, at one point I had 20 English classes at school per week!). I learned a lot of vocabulary, a lot of grammar, I started being able to use English, understand everything I read or watched and say whatever I wanted.

Speaking a second language opened my eyes - the world is much bigger than our own country. There are so many things to discover, so many people to meet, so much food to try, so much literature to read! Knowing English allowed me to begin to explore all of that.

It also made my interest in foreign languages grow stronger and I didn't want to stop there - at school we had to choose a second language and my choice was French. 🥖 Unfortunately, this wasn't as intensive or exhaustive as English - I only learned the basics and that wasn't enough for me! I wanted to understand songs in French, I wanted to read the classics in their original language, and I wanted to be able to communicate efficiently with French speakers. I bought books, I did a ton of grammar exercises, studied vocabulary every day.

It was hard, frustrating, I often had the impression I wasn't making any progress, but it was also inspiring, fun, and I celebrated each little victory.

And currently, I'm getting a Bachelor's in Scandinavian languages at university, where I study Norwegian and Swedish.

What helped me most in my journey was my motivation - I have always been fascinated by foreign languages and the idea of communicating with people from other countries and cultures who have mentalities and lifestyles which are completely different than mine. Speaking English and French has made me more open-minded; I don't regret a single second I've dedicated to learning foreign languages!

I used anything I could get my hands on - books, manuals, videos, songs, movies, TV shows, online chats, etc. I studied for hours on end, all on my own, and I could never get enough of it - I was determined to learn to speak my target languages fluently.

I believe I've reached a high level in both English and French without ever having lived outside of my own country. I haven't traveled that much either, the only English-speaking country I've visited was Scotland (for a week) and the 5 days I spent in Paris definitely weren't the reason why I learned French. So, I consider myself, for the most part, self-taught!

I can promise you this - if I could do it, then so can you!

Where to start?

Goals and mentality

It's extremely important to be realistic when you set yourself a goal, especially if you want to learn English on your own. It's much better to tell yourself that you'll study for 15 to 20 minutes a day, but really stick to that goal, rather than saying you'll study for 2 hours every day, which is not reasonable. Not to mention that each time you don't reach the 2 hours of practice, you'll feel discouraged, demotivated and you risk abandoning your studies.

So, set S.M.A.R.T. goals:

• Specific: goals which are well defined and clear.
• Measurable: goals which are clear and tangible; you need to clearly see if you've reached them or not.
• Action-oriented: your goals need to be useful once you have reached them. Learning vocabulary which is relevant to your life, or reading books which are interesting to you, for example.
• Realistic: make sure you have enough resources, time, and energy to achieve your goals.
• Time-based: you need to dedicate enough time to reach your goal but not too much because you'll end up wasting your time.

Having S.M.A.R.T. goals and a healthy state of mind is just as important as learning vocabulary and grammar. I recommend reading How to Learn English if you're motivated, but don't know where to start learning English.

Time

How much time does learning English take? Well, a lot!

Learning English is a demanding activity. Any method that promises to teach you English in 30 days is a lie, waste of time and money.

Motivation

Having real goals, a healthy mentality and enough time is important, but the key to success is motivation. if you're not motivated, if you don't have a good reason to learn English, not only will it be extremely hard to learn English in your own country, but it will also be the case in any English-speaking country, too!

Think about it - why do you want to learn English? Is it a hobby? For work? Travel? So you can read classics in the original language? To enjoy movies and TV shows in English without subtitles? The possible reasons are endless! Each time you feel discouraged, remind yourself what your reasons for learning English are in order to find your motivation and inspiration!

Here are a few good reasons to learn English:

• Lingua franca
  English really has become THE universal language in the world. No matter where you go, if you meet a stranger, it's almost certain that they'll automatically speak to you in English.

• Job opportunities
  Regardless of your field, knowing English will always be an advantage for you. Almost all the international companies use English as their internal language of communication.

• Information

  Fun fact - about 25% of sites on the Internet are in English. It's the most popular language online.

Why do you want to learn English?

Tips and tricks

The beginning: pronunciation

Learning about English pronunciation is a must - the sooner the better. A very common mistake learners make is to apply pronunciation rules and patterns from their own language when they speak English. Naturally, that doesn't work very well!

Firstly, it can be hard for English speakers to understand what you're saying if your pronunciation is not correct and, secondly, it will be hard for you to understand spoken English if you're not familiar with the language's sounds.

Every person faces different difficulties with English pronunciation - maybe you find the r sound /ɹ/ or the TH sound /θ/ hard to articulate? Or maybe you struggle with word stress?

Whatever your difficulty may be, you can explore the variety of articles on our blog, which always focus on English pronunciation!

Avoid translating

... or more specifically, avoid word-for-word translations!

One of the most difficult parts of learning a new language is that we need to learn to think in a new way, and English is no exception. You need to learn new idiomatic expressions. The word order is different. We don't use the grammatical tenses the same way. Even jokes which are funny in your language might not work at all in English!

If you are mentally prepared for the fact that there will be things that are different - especially in the beginning - things that you won't understand, things that you’ll just have to accept, then acquiring English will be a simpler task for you.

Accept this new way of seeing things. Get used to the fact that, in English, it sometimes rains "cats and dogs"...

Vocabulary

Learning vocabulary requires a lot of time and energy. So, choose your battles carefully! Don't learn words you won't use often - it's a waste of your time! Think about it - do you talk often about animals? Do you talk about cows, horses or monkeys every day? (Maybe if you work in a zoo or if you are a vet?)

How about household objects? I'm almost certain you won't talk about toothbrushes or ceilings during your next trip to the United States! That's why you need to choose the vocabulary you will learn wisely. Choose what will serve you best in your day-to-day life!

The Click & Speak method applies the 20-80 rule (also known as the Pareto Principle), according to which 20% of words are used 80% of the time! You won't be wasting your time learning words you won't need, but rather focus on authentic and useful vocabulary!

Grammar

Do you know the parts of speech? Do you know what nouns, adjectives or verbs are? If the answer is no, I would advise you to work on that topic, because that will be of enormous help to you in your English studies (and in any language). We're not children anymore, we can't really learn like them, without rules and without grammar. If you have a more analytic approach, you'll understand better.

Thankfully, English grammar isn't too complicated. Nouns don't have a gender (like in Spanish, French or German), nor are there any grammatical cases (like in Russian). We don't make adjectives agree with nouns, which means that for example, blue stays the same, whatever the word it describes may be! (While in, say, French, there are variations - bleu, bleue, bleus, bleues!)

Sometimes English verbs can be grammatically challenging. There are quite a few grammatical tenses in English and some of them are quite rare and don't have equivalents in many languages.

Things like choosing between the Simple Past and the Present Perfect or learning irregular verbs are among the most common difficulties that learners face.

I would advise you to, accept that English grammar is different than the one in your language. It might seem obvious to some, but not for everyone. You need time to get used to a new way of expressing yourself - it'll be hard at first, but super rewarding afterwards!

When you learn a new grammatical tense in English, read all of the ways it can be used and find examples to illustrate each use! It's nice to know about theory, but the way to master the rules is by seeing and using what you've learned in context.

Other tips

Knowing how to learn English on your own is all about knowing how to organize yourself. So...

Knowing what you have to do in order to learn English is important, but knowing what you should NOT do in your studies can be even more beneficial!

Techniques and resources

We're living in a time where we all have access to anything we want, including English speakers! We can enjoy the same content as them and expose ourselves to the language to a maximum extent, and learn English from home, without leaving and without a teacher.

Here are some ways to practice English at home:

Movies and TV shows

American movies and British comedies are without a doubt the best in the world! I would advise you not to watch any dubbed version, but rather expose yourself as much as possible to the original language. There are several reasons to do this - you will get used to the pronunciation and intonation of native speakers, you will practice your listening comprehension, you'll work on your vocabulary and, of course, you'll be enjoying the original version of movies!

You can watch sitcoms in English! The original version is always funnier because a lot of the jokes are not translatable.

When you choose to learn English with TV shows and movies in the original version, it can be hard to understand. A way to face this difficulty, is to watch with subtitles. Little by little, you'll get used to spoken English and at one point, you won't even need them!

Listening comprehension

How can you improve your listening comprehension on your own? Here are some techniques you can use:

Songs

You can go far in your studies by singing and having fun! English-speaking countries produce some of the best music, so you can learn with your favorite songs' lyrics and by singing out loud. This will help you tremendously in improving your pronunciation!

Audio

English is not a phonetic language. This means that you can never know how to pronounce a word just by seeing the way it's spelled. That why it's essential to hear the new words and phrases you learn, especially if you're learning on your own, isolated from native speakers.

A good way to do get used to English pronunciation is to do dictations in English or by listening to audio recordings in online dictionaries like Wiktionary, for example.

Movies without subtitles

Watching original version movies is the best way to practice listening comprehension, but of course that can be hard at first! Especially at the beginning, you'll understand very little. That's why I would recommend watching movies with subtitles in English! It'll still going to be difficult, but I can assure you that you'll quickly get used to it! Be patient and consistent and there's no way you'll fail!

The lack of Bulgarian subtitles for my favorite movies and TV shows was the reason why I got used to spoken English. It was annoying and almost painful at the time, but now, I don't regret that that was the case, it was a blessing in disguise!

Read and listen simultaneously

The spoken language is quite different from the written one, that's sure. But what should you do if you understand the written language well, but have trouble understanding the spoken one? You can, for example, listen to audio books in English while reading them at the same time. By doing so, you'll quickly get used to the way native speakers talk by seeing the words you hear - little by little, you will stop needing the written support!

Reading and comprehension

How can you massively enrich your vocabulary and improve your spelling in English? By reading a lot.

That can be novels and poems, but also recipes, short stories, articles and even... Internet memes!

It doesn't matter where you are, reading is reading!

Maybe you would like to read more in English but don't know where to start? Luckily, we've already taken care of that! Discover where to find books in English!

Speaking and writing

I know, I know, you're reading this article because you want to learn English alone! But, is it really possible? At the end of the day, languages exist as a tool to communicate with others. You need to use it in order to make progress!

Some excellent ways to practice written English are keeping a diary in English, where you can write every day in English, or maybe finding an English-speaking pen-pal. If you already have a good level of English and you want to practice your conversation skills, you can do that without even leaving your city! English speakers are everywhere and you can definitely find a community close to you. If you really live in the middle of nowhere, there's always Skype.

Talk to yourself!

... or think in English.

This can seem weird at first, but it will definitely help you in the long run! Even if you haven't learned anything new, you'll get used to using English - expressing your thoughts and forming your sentences faster. Maybe you think you don't speak English well enough to do that, but if you think about it, most of our thoughts are quite basic. "I have to buy bread", "I wonder what my friend's doing...", etc. You don't really need to be an expert to convert these thoughts in English! And you can do it on your own, at home or while you're on the go!

By doing so, you'll notice which words you're still missing and you can look them up in a dictionary. This is a great method because it shows what your gaps in English are and thus, you'll learn what you really need to do in order to speak English.

It's hard to achieve a high level in English without speaking to anyone, but you can get very far by using the first method for learning English with a focus on phonetics in the world: Click & Speak.

This method will help you find your words, memorize all of the essential vocabulary with the correct pronunciation and acquire grammar in an intuitive way, all from the comfort of your home.

If you're still feeling lost and don't know where to start your English journey from, I would recommend reading the book How to Learn English. This guide will help you understand how to learn a language, find out what works and how to apply that to your specific case.

Obviously, it's impossible to say everything there is on this topic in a single article. Don't hesitate to share with us your own stories, resources, techniques and tips for learning English at home! What did you do to learn English on your own?