How to immerse in English?
If you don’t have a possibility to move to another country to improve you language skills, nothing is lost yet. You can immerse in English in many different ways, pretty much effortlessly in your everyday life. How to get started?
1. English in your mobile phone
Do you panic when your mobile phone is out of your sight? Let’s face the painful truth. We cannot live without our phones any more. If this is the case, we can at least make use of them. Mobile phones give us plenty of educational possibilities.
- Change language in your mobile to English. You probably touch your phone more often than your partner, let’s at least be glued to an English-dominated screen.
- Similarly, change the language on your social media to English. You will be surprised how many new words you can learn unwittingly.
- Install applications for learning English (Quizlet, Duolingo, Memrise).
2. Reading in english
- Morning news
If you have a habit of reading or watching news in the morning over a cup of coffee, that’s a good start. What you need to do is to get familiar with a few English websites. Make BBC News your home page! Even if you don’t click on any of the articles, you can’t look past the newest headlines. Anyway, I bet that you will not resist those shocking and titillating news.
Some more recommendations:
- Evening news
A lot of things happen during the course of a day. That’s why you cannot miss out on evening news. CNN news and BBC again come with help and give you the review of the most important events from the world. You probably will not find any news about Poland but for the sake of you education, you can either ask your friends later or just click here.
3. Listening to English
- Radio allows you to listen to the latest news and enjoy the music.
- Listen to podcasts on a bus, train, metro… wherever you are. Don’t waste time when you’re waiting for something, prepare a list of your favourite podcasts and always have headphones with you. You can make the best of the two worlds – practice your listening skills and learn something practical. Podcasts are often really educational!
4. Don't be afraid to talk
- Find a friend who is also keen on learning English. You can exchange text messages throughout the day or write messages on Facebook for free. Motivation and competition is an extra bonus. If you write/ speak with somebody in English, you want to use proper grammar and fancy vocabulary. You will learn a bunch of new words just to impress your friends. :]
- If you feel confident enough and are a good mixer, you can look for native speakers. There are plenty of websites which provide you with opportunities to talk with people who either learn English or want to learn Polish. You can engage in language exchange and save money on private lessons. It will not be possible to switch to Polish during the course of the conversation, so you will definitely challenge yourself.
- We all need a piece of professional advice from time to time, don’t we? This is a great reason to talk to…. Yourself! Yeas! You will not overcome you language barrier if you do not get used to thinking in English. Talk to yourself about your plans, ideas, shopping.. everything. And don’t be shy! It’s the best way to get used to speaking English and work a little bit on pronunciation.
5. Everyday products
- Read labels in English. Thanks God English is so popular around the world that almost every product has a label written in English. Check ingredients, practice English and make sure that food in your trolley is nutritious.
- The same with cosmetics, read labels and instructions while… taking a bath 😉
I hope that you find some of the tips useful! What are your ideas to immerse in English?
Cheers!