How To Learn English By Yourself in 2024

You want to learn English in 2024. You have been thinking of ways to do that. You have searched for articles on the internet to help you achieve your dream of speaking advanced English but nothing seems to work well. If this is the case, you can thank Speak English by yourself by sharing this post on your social media. You have finally come to a place where you are going to learn everything you need to learn English by yourself. Keep reading!

You have decided you are ready to learn (or develop your) English. Congratulations! It will be a wonderful journey. But you need to know two very important things: the first one is that learning a language requires commitment; the second one is that this process takes time. Many people think that studying 1 hour a week for 3 months will make them speak advanced English. That is an illusion. That will definitely not happen.

So, if you are really interested in speaking advanced English, prepare yourself for a journey in which you will invest considerable time in doing as many activities as you can… in English. But don’t worry. You will find out how to learn English with things you will love doing. You will find out how to make this journey a pleasurable one. Keep reading!

Planning

Now that you know are aware of how serious (and joyful) this journey will be, the very first thing that you need is a schedule – a study plan. No matter how much time you have a day to invest in it. You just need to be realistic and decide if you have 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, or more a day to study English. After deciding that, you should create your schedule. It can be on a piece of paper that you will stick on your notice board; it can be on your computer; on your cell phone; wherever you can see it every day! Adapt it according to your reality. Are you going to study always in the morning? Are you going to study in different periods, because your routine varies according to the day of the week? Think about everything and design your schedule. It may look like this:

PERIOD/DAY OF THE WEEK	MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY	SATURDAY	SUNDAY
MORNING	8am-9am: Study English (listening and speaking)	8am-9am: Study English (reading and writing)			8am-9am: Study English (listening and speaking)		REST
AFTERNOON			2pm-3pm: Study English (listening and speaking)			4am-5am: Study English (reading and writing)	REST
EVENING				7am-8am: Study English (reading and writing)			REST

When we think of learning a language, we often think about four different skills: reading, listening, writing, and speaking (of course, grammar is essential for all of them, if you want to master every aspect of English grammar, take a look at our awesome article on the best books to learn English grammar). Of course, they are not always separated from one another, but to be more didactic, we separate them in this way. As you may have noticed, the above schedule specifies what you are going to study on a specific day of the week. This is important: you need to balance the amount of time that you invest in studying to practice all four skills if you really want to learn English by yourself (unless you have a very specific purpose, for example, “I only want to learn how to read”). So be sure to distribute them equally in your schedule.

Reading

Simply put, reading is the ability to decipher the written language that you see.

You can practice reading by:

reading stories for children that you can easily find on Google
reading graded readers – books that are written in basic English, specially designed for English learners
reading blogs on topics that you like (technology, science, literature, cooking, gardening, health etc.)
reading the news on websites, such as BBC, CNN, The Guardian, The New York Times etc.
reading online magazines, such as TIME, Vogue, National Geographic, Reader’s Digest etc.
watching tv series/movies with closed captions (the transcription of the audio), which helps you with listening too
reading books
using language exchange websites/apps that connect you with foreign people, so you can text them (for example, HelloTalk or Tandem etc.)
using WhatsApp or WeChat (or any other similar app) to text your friends (see this article on how to use a WhatsApp group to learn English)

Listening

Listening is basically the ability to understand what you hear or listen to.

You can practice listening by:

listening to stories for children that you can easily find on Google, which often have audio recordings that read the story for you
listening to music
listening to podcasts
watching YouTube videos on topics that you like (technology, science, literature, cooking, gardening, health etc.)
watching tv series/movies with closed captions (the transcription of the audio)
watching tv in English
using language exchange websites/apps that connect you with foreign people, so that you can talk to them (for example, HelloTalk or Tandem etc.)
using WhatsApp or WeChat (or any other similar app) to talk to your friends (see this article on how to use a WhatsApp group to learn English)

Writing

Simply put, writing is the ability to transform your ideas or speech into written words on a piece of paper (or on a computer/cellphone etc.).

You can practice writing by:

using WhatsApp or WeChat (or any other similar app) to text your friends (see this article on how to use a WhatsApp group to learn English)
writing a diary telling it everything you have done in your day, the things that you are thinking about, your most private secrets etc.
using language exchange websites/apps that connect you with foreign people, so that you can text them (for example, HelloTalk or Tandem etc.)
writing a letter (or an e-mail, of course) to a pen pal
using your creativity to write fictional stories

Speaking

Speaking is basically the ability to express yourself in spoken words.

You can practice speaking by:

recording a voice diary telling it everything you have done in your day, the things that you are thinking about, your most private secrets etc.
talking to your friends or family members in English
using language exchange websites/apps that connect you with foreign people, so that you can talk to them (for example, HelloTalk or Tandem etc.)
using WhatsApp or WeChat (or any other similar app) to talk to your friends (see this article on how to use a WhatsApp group to learn English)
using free websites to talk to other English learners around the world, such as Free4Talk etc.

Always improving

If you got to this point, congratulations! You are very serious about learning (or developing your) English. Now, I have to talk a little bit about another very important thing when you decide to learn English by yourself: self-assessment. What does that mean? That means that you need to evaluate the efficiency of the activities you chose to do. Are they really helping you? For example, if you chose ‘watching tv series’ in order to improve your listening, but you have noticed that you cannot really understand (a great part of) what you hear, it is not working well for you! So, you will have to re-think and replace this activity with another, an easier one, for example, listening to the audio that comes along with a lot of stories for children that you can find on the internet. It is important to adapt your activities to the language proficiency level you are at.

This is self-assessment. It is the ability you have to, periodically, check what is working for you and what is not. You will keep what is, and replace what is not. Eventually, you will move on to more complex, difficult tasks. This is how you will go from a beginner level to an advanced one. So, our previous example also works vice-versa: if you are listening to stories for children and you are thinking they are too easy for you, leave them behind and replace them with a more complex activity. That is it. Self-assessment means being critical and exercising the perception of what works and what does not, and, of course, take action to change anything, if it has not been beneficial for you.

Learn English by yourself in 2024!

Now that you know everything you need to learn English by yourself, there is only one more thing I want you to keep in your mind: practice makes perfect. This is an idiom in English that reminds you that even if you are not good at something today if you keep practicing you will be tomorrow. So, do not waste your precious time on useless things anymore; invest it in the things you want the most, such as speaking English by yourself!

If you want more tips on how to learn English, click here!