Learning English requires action. You may know all the learning tips, but if you don't start doing things, you will achieve nothing. The fact is, if you want to learn to speak English well, you must change your life. Here are some examples of things you will have to do:

• read a book in English for an hour every day, analyzing the grammar in sentences and looking up words in an English dictionary
• listen to an audiobook or other recording in English, stopping it frequently, trying to understand what is being said, and trying to imitate the speaker's pronunciation
• spend your afternoon practicing the pronunciation of the English "r" sound
• carefully write an e-mail message in English, using a dictionary or a Web search every 20 seconds to make sure every word is correct, and taking 5 minutes to write one sentence
• think about an English sentence you've read, wondering if it could say "a" instead of "the" in the sentence, and trying to find similar sentences on the Web to find out the answer
• walk down the street and build simple English sentences in your head (talking to yourself in English about the things you see around you)

What kind of person would do all these crazy things? Only one kind. The kind of person who enjoys doing them. If you want to learn to speak English well, you're going to have to become that person. You cannot hate doing these things. Have you ever heard of a person who became successful by doing something he hated?

The problem with learning and teaching English as a foreign language is that all English learners want to speak English well; however, most learners don't want to spend time on learning English on their own. (Which is probably why they sign up for English classes and hope their teacher will force knowledge into their heads.)

This lack of motivation means that learners basically don't spend their own time on learning English, and if they do, they don't do it regularly. For example, a typical learner might study English phrasal verbs for 12 hours before an English exam. However, he will not read a book in English for 30 minutes every day. He just doesn't feel that learning English is pleasant enough, so he will only do it if he has to. The problem is that a huge one-time effort gives you nothing, while small, everyday activities will give you a lot.

If you are one of those learners and don't feel like practicing the pronunciation of the "r" sound or thinking about English sentences every day, we have news for you: You're going to have to make yourself want to do these things. In other words, you'll have to work on your motivation. Fortunately, there are proven techniques to help you with that.

Typical learner vs. motivated learner

Paula is a typical learner of English with a generally low level of motivation. She has occasional moments of high motivation — like the day before her English test or that time when she couldn't communicate with a foreign customer who called her at work. These kind of situations make her think "I've got to do something about my English!". However, they happen very rarely — less than once a month. So even if she studies quite intensively (e.g. for two whole days before an exam), the results are poor, because she forgets 90% of the things she learned within a month. This is no surprise: The way human memory works, you need to review things all the time; otherwise you just forget them.

Now let's look at a different English learner: Judy. Judy reads a special novel for English learners (written in simplified English) almost every day for 30 minutes. She bought an English-English dictionary and uses it to look up English words whenever she doesn't understand a sentence in her book. It was hard to study regularly at the beginning: Reading books and using a dictionary were not "normal activities" for her. And every English sentence was a challenge.

But now, after only two weeks, she can read much faster. While reading, she often sees words that she has learned in the past two weeks. When she recognizes such a word, she doesn't have to look it up in a dictionary and she knows she has made good progress. Judy feels she has learned a lot of English recently, and she is eager to learn more. Every day, she looks forward to reading her book. The book gives her the chance to use what she has learned (enjoy her progress) and to learn even more. Because she reads regularly, she forgets little and her vocabulary keeps growing.

Judy is on the right track. She will soon be able to read English-language newspapers and other resources written for native speakers.

Enjoyment leads to better memory

If you enjoy learning English, you will spend more time on it, and you will do it regularly. A high level of motivation will also give you another advantage. It will be easier for you to memorize new words and grammar structures. The reason is that the brain easily remembers information on a subject that you like. (For example, some people like history and know everything about World War II. If you told a "normal person" to memorize all these facts, they could never do it.) So enjoyment of learning gives you double benefits.

If you want to learn English well, of course you can. The key is to study carefully and to speak English as often as you can. With some work, you can discover how to learn English .

English is a difficult language to learn, because you need to learn it in all areas, including listening, speaking, reading and writing. Here are some things that can help you learn English more easily in each area.

Reading

Of course, reading is one area you in how to learn English well, but this is something you can learn on your own quite effectively, outside of the classroom or even around other people. Keep a dictionary with you so that you can look up unfamiliar words. Then, you can write these words down in a notebook and use them in a conversation so that when you try to use them again, they will come to you much more easily.

Newspapers, magazines and books all help you learn English well. If you're just starting out, try reading children's booksto start. This is especially helpful for people just starting to learn English. There are some books specifically written for people just starting to learn English; the words are quite simple and yet effective enough that if you use them, you can learn to speak simple English quite quickly.

If your English is more advanced, you can try reading from magazines books and newspapers. With these sources, English is more difficult, but they will challenge you if your English is advanced enough that you need more interesting things to read.

When you first begin to read English, don't try to understand every word. Instead, simply try to get a general idea of what you are reading; other words in the sentence will help you do this. If you don't understand the first time you read something, you can always go back later and use your dictionary to look up the words you don't quite know.

Writing

Another idea in how to learn English well is with writing. When you write, you can practice your English as effectively as you do when you read, only more so. This is because you reinforce your understanding of the language by writing it, which is a physical movement. For best practice, write something every day in English, even if it's a letter to a friend, or a simple message. You can also keep a diary, and use your English skills to write down what happened to you during your day. Start with simple sentences and as you get better, make sentences longer and more complicated.

You can also use the Internet this way, because the Internet will let you "talk" with other people simply by writing. You can visit chat rooms, or write a blog . All of these things help you learn English through writing. When you write, you can also take another look at words you have learned in the past, and use them in sentences to make sure you know them well.

As you learn, you can also look at a variety of writing topics that help you improve your writing skill with graphics and sound. For those who are advanced, I highly recommend a whole range of tools to help both students and teachers improve their writing skills onlin.This will also help you continue to refine your English and become even more effective in the language.

Speaking

One of the best ways in regard to how to learn English well is to speak. Speak as much as you can in English, even though you may be uncomfortable at first. Pronunciactionwith a whole series of activities to practise individual sounds, minimal pairs, tongue-twisters and dictation is probably the best way to improve your English quickly. You can listen to sample dialogues from everyday situations and get the chance to practise and they can help you improve your language as well. As you practice, your English will improve.

Surround yourself with English- speaking people every day so that you have no choice but to learn the language. This will also help you begin to think in English, which in turn will improve your speaking and other English language skills. As you get better, you will longer have to translate from your language to English or vice versa as you speak. Even if you're not sure, use sentences that sound right to you. These are most often the right ones to use; if your English is not quite right sometimes, you shouldn't worry. Your English-speaking friends will help you and correct you if you ask them to. And you shouldn't worry about being embarrassed; your English-speaking friends will understand that you are doing your best to speak their language, which is quite an accomplishment.

Listening

Of course, listening is one of the most skills you need when we speak about how to learn English well. If you are in a country that speaks mostly English, of course you are going to be listening to it all day long. In turn, this is going to help you learn to speak the language effectively, because you will learn to adapt to the speech and language around you. You can then turn this into written language skills as well; oftentimes, listening to everyday English conversationscategorized from easy to difficult is the best way to learn. If you are a silent listener at first, you can then gain your confidence and begin to speak it when you feel that you understand it well.

Of course, simply watching English-speaking television or listening to music and main news stories in Real Audio format along with well-illustrated text versions in the English language is also going to help you learn. It is really good to listen to a collection of authentic listening passages at three levels .All they will also help you learn English well,get pronunciation correct and speech patterns down the right way as well.