What's the FASTEST way to learn English

My students often ask me, "Debra, what's the FASTEST way to learn English?" While the most obvious answer is to live or study in an English-speaking country, that's not always an option.

After teaching ESL for more than 20 years, my opinion is being fluent in a language isn't about WHAT you say but HOW you say it.

I should know, I speak 5 languages myself :)

What do I mean by this?

Fluency isn't about using the right words in the right order and stringing sentences along. Fluency is how a language sounds to native speakers of that language. Is it easy for others to understand you?

That's the key.

Even if you don't have a lot of English vocabulary, but the English that you do speak is easy for others to understand, you have learned the key to speaking English fluently.

This usually means you've learned some collocations and idiomatic expressions.  

Let's take an easy example. An English native would never say: I have small money in my wallet.

Instead, you'd say "I only have a little money in my wallet."  Or, "I hardly have any money (on me)".

You might be asking why 'a little' is correct, but 'small' isn't. That's because we use 'a little' for AMOUNTS. 'Small' is used for SIZE.

I could list hundreds of examples like this. It's why learning English from a dictionary doesn't make you FLUENT. It doesn't show you which words go together.

Another key to fluency is CONTEXT. This means learning how to say something in a certain circumstance in a way that is culturally appropriate. Context is learned through culture.

Here's an example.  Let's say you want to give someone advice. Depending on the culture of the country you're in, you'd go about that in a different way. In English-speaking countries, the more INDIRECT you are, the more polite you sound.

When I lived in Germany, it took me a while to get used to how direct everyone spoke. When I made a mistake, the Germans would tell me. They'd say "No, you're wrong."  In Canada or the UK, you'd never say that to someone. Instead you'd say "I'm not sure about that" or even, "Are you sure?"

When you're giving advice in English, you can say "If I were you..." or "Maybe you could..." These are very indirect ways of offering to help someone with your opinion. But how would you know this unless you grew up in the culture? Many of my German students have said that the English talk in a 'kind of code'.  They're right.

That's why I say the best way to learn English is to live in an English-speaking country or hang out with English-speaking friends (or teachers). It's the most natural way to learn a language because it mimics how we learned to speak when we were infants. We listened to the people around us, and we copied them. That's how we learned to speak our mother tongue fluently. In other words, the way others speak it. 

But what to do if you can't just up and move to an English-speaking country? Here are some suggestions:

• watch youtube videos or short clips of English TV shows with subtitles and pay attention to HOW they say what they say
• find a "meetup" (www.meetup.com) group with native English speakers in your country
• study song lyrics and listen to them   
• find a language exchange partner
• join a free Facebook ESL group
• take a (cooking/ surfing/ painting) class in English language, with a native speaker
• learn collocations and idioms from the internet 

Can you recognize the correct collocations in the following examples? Let me know in the comments!

1. Was it a little speech or a short speech?
2. Did you get a big opportunity or large opportunity?
3. Do they make business or do business together?
4. Did she take a break or make a break?
5. Did he tell you the truth or say you the truth?