Hi everyone! It's Abbe, your English teacher at MosaLingua.
Some of you have already seen my videos in English,
but I thought I might get through to you better
if I made the effort to talk to you in French for once.
So, today I'm doing you a favor and letting you in on
my 6 best tips (in French) for anyone who wants to learn my native language, English.
First of all, a little bonus tip: go subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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So, here are my tips for learning English:
1) Forget everything you learned in school.
OK, OK, maybe not everything... or maybe you already have...
I'm not judging you! In any case, forget about grades, test stress,
and those long lists of irregular verbs.
The French school system isn't right for all types of learners.
First of all, students are under way too much stress at school.
If you take away the stress of being graded, I think you'll find that you can actually enjoy learning English.
I'll come back to that a little later.
And second, students are often taught rote memorization,
not practical applications. But in "real life," it doesn't really matter if you can recite
"do, did, done," "sleep, slept, slept," "begin, began, begun"...
What does matter is whether you can understand people and whether other people can understand you.
It's pretty useless to memorize those lists,
if you can't put them to use when you communicate.
2) Focus on learning vocabulary and speaking.
Careful: I'm not saying that
grammar isn't an important part of learning English,
but I recommend focusing instead on learning useful vocabulary
and developing your speaking skills, especially at the beginning.
Because it's easier, for one. You won't get discouraged from the very start,
like you might if you try to learn the
most complicated aspect of the language first.
Also, because you'll be able to put the
words and expressions you learn to use right away, to express your thoughts.
Using very simple sentence structures,
you can start speaking in English using only the present tense, for example!
When you are more comfortable with the language, when you have reached a more advanced level,
you will start to feel the need
to understand more complex aspects of English grammar.
3) Go for it; don't be afraid to make mistakes.
This is also related to my first tip.
In school, your teachers may have traumatized you with their red pens, and as a result
you may have developed negative feelings about the English language.
But remember: there are no grades in real life.
If you make a mistake when talking to an English speaker,
one of two things will happen: either they don't understand you
and you reformulate until they do, or they do understand you despite the mistake
and teach you the correct way to say it.
It's not a matter of life and death! At least, not usually...
Embarrassment, self-doubt, shame: these are all
mental obstacles that you have to overcome.
"But I really suck at English..."
If I had a euro for every time a French person said that to me,
I would almost be able to afford a month of rent in Paris.
Have a little self-confidence!
Making mistakes is one of the best ways to learn
and the people you talk to will usually be quite understanding of them
since you're make the effort to speak their language.
Which leads me to my next tip:
4) Make English-speaking friends, or at least acquaintances.
We're nice! We're open-minded! We won't judge you!
If you stick to your comfort zone, even if you speak English with other French speakers,
you won't make progress very quickly.
It's best to speak with native English speakers,
because they can correct your pronunciation mistakes,
help you work on your listening comprehension, teach you
idioms and slang,
share their culture with you, and support you.
In 2016, over 17 million English-speaking tourists
from the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. traveled to France.
Mirari, from our team, made a video about how to find
people who speak your target language online and in your city.
Watch it next if you're having trouble
finding an English-speaking conversation partner.
The link is in the description of this video.
5) Try to adopt an authentic accent.
Even if your friends make fun of you for it, I really recommend
trying to improve your pronunciation in English.
We've posted lots of videos and articles on that topic,
and we even have an entire course for people who want to improve their spoken English.
If you have a great accent, you'll be more confident.
Usually, when English speakers have trouble understanding you
it's not because you conjugated a verb wrong,
it's because your pronunciation is heavily influenced by French.
When you work on your accent, you show people that you want to communicate.
Plus, accent training can actually be pretty fun!
If you like theater, you might enjoy an exercise like shadowing,
in which you imitate English intonation and sounds,
usually using movies or TV shows.
You are so lucky to be learning English,
because you have billions of resources available to you
and lots of opportunities to practice the language.
We are no longer limited to the exercises in our language textbooks.
With the internet, the world is at your fingertips. I recommend finding activities you like,
and adapting them so that you can learn English while you do them.
Don't give up your hobbies. Just do them in English.
You probably already watch some American TV shows,
so turn off the French dubbing and turn on your brain instead!
If you're a soccer fan, join forums and post about your favorite English teams.
If your dream is to go to the U.S., why not plan a trip?
Even if you won't be able to actually go anytime soon.
Look up places you'd like to visit,
find hotels, etc... all in English.
Those are just a few ideas. You can use any of your favorite activities
to practice English.
Well, I got in my French practice for the day,
so now it's your turn.
Leave us a comment if you have any questions or thoughts
about what I just talked about, and don't forget to subscribe
to our channel for more tips about
learning English and other languages.
See you again soon for another video!