Dear Ethan

When I was in middle school,I was good at English.Now,it’s poor.It seems I have forgotten how to learn it.Sometimes ,it’s terrible and don’t want to learn it.Maybe,I am not sure how to learn it in a good way.Also,i am too lasy,now. I can hardly understand what others say and don’t speak at all.Writing is so-so,not very well.

Lazy In Life

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Correction:

When I was in middle school I was good at English, now my English level is much lower. It seems I have forgotten how to learn English, sometimes I find English terrible and don’t want to learn it. Maybe I just haven’t found a good way to learn it or maybe I’m just too lazy now. I can hardly understand what other people say and I never speak either. My writing is only so-so, not very good.

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Dead L.I.L.

I get a lot of questions in regards to how to learn English faster or better but sadly there isn’t a lot of secrets that can help speed it up. Anyone who tells you they have a way that will be fun or fast is almost certainly lying. Practice is how you learn. Don’t get me wrong, there are ways to make practice more fun but it’s still going to be work and work is never that fun.

I would guarantee that your biggest problem is just lack of motivation which leads to laziness. Motivation is a problem for everyone but there are a couple of things you can do to help a little.

First off try to write down the reasons you want to learn English, put them on the wall where you study so you can see them clearly when you start to feel like quitting.

Set goals for yourself and reward yourself for meeting them. Things like “If I can learn 100 words this week I will buy myself a new Shirt/CD/Icecream or whatever you like”. Rewards are important as it makes studying more interesting and is great for motivation.

Find a partner who also wants to study and make bets on who will be lazy first. When I wanted to exercise in Nanjing I had a friend who agreed to exercise with me. We had a deal, whoever missed a day of exercise had to buy the other person a watermelon. We never missed a day because neither of us wanted to lose!

Study using things you enjoy or think are fun, don’t just sit at your desk repeating words three hours a day, it’s very boring and you will quickly lose all motivation. If you want to learn English words about Medicine, don’t sit and read a boring article about it. Find a TV show that is funny and also about medicine, watch a movie where they use lots of Medical terms, Read articles about very strange or interesting medical procedures. Any time you can make your material interesting and fun.

If you really can’t find the motivation, hire a tutor. A tutor or private teacher is good for two reasons, first off they are creating the lesson plans so they might have ideas on how to learn and what to talk about that you didn’t think of! Secondly, and probably most useful, is that a tutor ensures you do the work. It’s very easy to become unmotivated and stop studying but a tutor comes to your house or talks to you online and makes you work. Plus you pay a tutor and people work much harder if they have paid for it. This is why having a study partner is not always the best option becuase often you end up just playing and having fun instead of studying, but if you paid your partner they will feel obligated to actually teach you and make you work.

There are plenty of ways to try and add some more fun into your studies, as I said it will never be really fun but it doesn’t have to be really boring either!