How to start learning English on your own: a complete guide

"Each new language expands the consciousness of man and his world. It's like one more eye and
one more ear, "says Daniel Stein, the hero of Lyudmila Ulitskaya's book. And would you like to
expand your picture of the world and find a common language with more than a billion people?
For those who answered in the affirmative, we will tell you where to begin to learn English. We
hope that our guide will help to make the first steps to beginners and will prompt the right path for
those who continue to study the language.

1. Introduction: When and how best to start learning English

Some adults believe that starting to learn English from scratch can only children. Someone thinks
that an adult is ashamed to start from scratch and learn elementary rules and words, someone
believes that only children can successfully learn foreign languages, because they have a wonderful
memory and the ability to learn. Both the first and second opinion are mistaken. There is nothing
shameful in that you begin to learn the language, being an adult, even on the contrary: the craving for
knowledge always causes respect. According to the statistics of our school, people start to learn the
language from the first step and at 20, and 50 and even 80 (!) Years. And they do not just begin, but
successfully study and reach high levels of knowledge of English. So no matter how old you are, your
desire to learn and your readiness to improve your knowledge is important.

Many people ask the question: "How is it better to start learning English?". First, you should choose
the method of learning convenient for you: in a group, individually with a teacher or independently.
The pros and cons of each of them can be read in the article "The best ways to learn English, which
you should try."

The most optimal option for those who are going to learn the language "from scratch" - this is a class
with a teacher. You need a mentor who will explain how the language works and help lay a solid
foundation for your knowledge. The instructor is your interlocutor who:

help you start speaking in English;

explain the grammar in simple words;

learn to read texts in English;

and also help you develop the skill of understanding English speech by ear.

For some reason, you do not have the desire or the opportunity to study with a teacher? Then study
our step-by-step guide on self-study English for beginners.

2. General tips on how best to learn English from scratch

To begin with, we want to give you some tips on how best to organize your studies so that efforts are
not wasted. We recommend:

Do at least 2-3 times a week for 1 hour. Ideally, you should practice English every day for at least
20-30 minutes. However, if you want to arrange a weekend, do it in a day, but in a double volume
- 40-60 minutes.

Work on speech skills. Write short texts, read simple articles and news, listen to podcasts for
beginners and try to find yourself an interlocutor to practice the skill of speaking.

Immediately apply the knowledge gained in practice. Use in spoken and written speech learned words
and grammatical constructions. A simple cramming will not give the desired effect: knowledge will fly
out of your head if you do not use it. Have learned a dozen words - make a short story using all these
words, speak it out loud. Have learned the time of Past Simple - write a short text in which all the
sentences will be in this time.

Do not "spray". The main mistake of beginners is an attempt to take as much material as possible and
work with them all at the same time. As a result, the study turns out to be haphazard, you get
confused in the abundance of information and do not see progress.

Repeat the passed. Do not forget to repeat the material. Even if it seems to you that you know by
heart the words on the topic "Weather", go back to them in a month and check yourself: do you all
remember whether there were any difficulties. Repetition of the passed is never superfluous. In our
blog, we have already written about how to repeat to forget nothing. Familiarize yourself with the
techniques and try to apply them in practice.

3. Guidance: How to start learning English from scratch yourself

Since the English language for you so far is terra incognita, we tried to choose for you only the most
necessary materials. It turned out to be quite a voluminous list, from which you will learn how to start
learning English and how to do it right. Immediately say, the work is not easy, but interesting. Let's get
started.

1. Learn the rules of reading English

The theater starts with a hanger, and English - with reading rules. This is the basic part of knowledge,
through which you can learn to read English and pronounce sounds and words correctly. We
recommend using a simple table from the Internet and learn the rules by heart, as well as get
acquainted with the transcription of the English language. You can do this, for example, on the site
Translate.ru.

2. Specify how the words are pronounced

Even if you know the rules of reading by heart, when learning new words, check how they are
correctly pronounced. Sly English words do not want to be read as they are written. And some of
them completely refuse to obey any rules of reading. Therefore, we recommend that you specify the
pronunciation of each new word in the online dictionary. Listen to the sound of the word several times,
and try to pronounce it in the same way. At the same time you will practice the correct pronunciation.

3. Start forming the vocabulary

Take on the arsenal of visual dictionaries, for example, use the site Studyfun.ru. Bright pictures,
voiced by the speakers of the word and translated into Russian, will facilitate the process of learning
and memorizing new vocabulary.

When do you start learning English? Start with simple words of a common theme, remember which
words you use most often in your speech in Russian. In addition, we advise you to spend more time
studying the verbs of the English language. It is the verb that makes the speech dynamic and natural.

4. Learn the grammar

If you imagine a speech in the form of a beautiful necklace, then the grammar is a thread on which
you have bead-words, in order to get a beautiful decoration. Violation of the "rules of the game" of
English grammar is punished by a misunderstanding of the interlocutor. And to learn these rules is
not so difficult, it's enough to study a good textbook. We recommend that you take the first book from
the Grammarway series of benefits translated into Russian. More in detail about this book we wrote in
our review of the 6 best textbooks on grammar of the English language. In addition, we recommend
that you read our article "English Language Tutorials for Beginners: What Benefits to Take a Beginner",
from which you will learn which books you will need at the initial stage of learning English.

Do you consider textbooks to be boring? Do not worry, pay attention to our series of articles
"English grammar for beginners." In it we simply state the rules, give many examples and tests for
testing knowledge. In addition, our teachers have compiled for you a simple and high-quality online
tutorial of English grammar. And we also recommend reading the article "English without textbooks:
pros and cons," you will find 8 good reasons to take up benefits, and also learn when it is possible to
do without textbooks in the study of the language.

5. Listen to your podcasts of your level

As soon as you started to take the first steps, you just need to accustom yourself to the sound of
foreign speech. Start with simple podcasts lasting from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. And to get the most
benefit from listening, read our article "How to learn English in podcasts."

6. See the news in English

After you form the initial vocabulary in English, it's time to start watching the news. We recommend
the resource Newsinlevels.com. News texts for the first level are simple. For each news there is an
audio recording, so be sure to listen to how the new words sound for you, try to repeat them for the
announcer.

7. Read simple texts

During the reading, you activate visual memory: new words and phrases will be easily remembered.
And if you want to not just read, but also learn new words, improve pronunciation, listen to texts voiced
by native speakers, and then read them. Simple short texts can be found in textbooks of your level,
for example New English File Elementary.

8. Install useful applications

How to start learning English from scratch on your own, if you have a smartphone or tablet at hand?
Applications for learning English are mini-self-instruction books that will always be in your pocket.
The well-known Lingualeo application is ideal for learning new words: thanks to the technique of
interval repetition, the new vocabulary will not erode from your memory in a month. And to study the
structure, the principle of "work" language, we recommend installing Duolingo. This application will
allow you, in addition to learning new words, to practice grammar and learn how to build sentences in
English, and also help you to develop good pronunciation. Also, check out our selection of the best
English language applications and choose the most interesting programs from there.

9. Make Money Online

If you ask Google how to start learning English on your own, a caring search engine will immediately
give you a couple of hundred sites with different lessons, online exercises, articles about learning the
language. An inexperienced student immediately has a temptation to make himself 83 bookmarks
"well, very necessary sites, on which I will be engaged every day." We want to warn you against this:
in the abundance of bookmarks, you will quickly get confused, and you need to deal with it
systematically, without jumping from one topic to another. Add 2-3 really good resources to bookmarks
on which you will be engaged. This is more than enough.

But, nevertheless, we recommend learning English or another language together
with https://linguatrip.com/en. Why? Because with the help of this service, you
can really feel the real language, their carriers, so it will be much easier for you
to master it, and even more interesting.