Für eine Freudin habe ich zusammengefaßt, was meiner Meinung nach meine Erfolgsgeheimnisse sind, warum ich so gut in English bin.
My 6 English Mastery Secrets
1) Just speak.
The secret of easy access to English is IMHO (in my humble opinion) to just do it and stop feeling silly. Nobody judges you because most people you know are much worse in English or never learned to speak it at all. So you have a tremendous head start. Also you don’t need to feel intimidated by anything or anyone. You are smart. You can do it. You WILL do it! And by the way this is exactly how you learned to speak German. You wanted something. You expressed it. You where not understood. You adjusted. Now you speak German fluently. You can learn ANY language just the same.
2) Make English a necessity to get to the things that you are really interested in.
The second easy step to start feeling comfortable with English is to develop an interest in a topic that the main bridge to is English language material. If you are like me and love good movies, then just go to original language movies (with me) as often as possible. Never turn on Telekabel, but watch only movies that are in English. Be strict and if you don’t understand the dialogue at first just turn on the English subtitles (“for the hearing-impaired”). Soon you will develop a “feel” for the melody of English which will make it much easier for you to understand it. This is actually a way to trick yourself. By focussing on something else you have no brain resources free to worry about whether you say something right or wrong.
3) See your options expanding.
Don’t consider English something that you will only learn to finish school. By learning it naturally (see 1) and using it daily (see 2) it will become a part of your live that increases your options on Earth tremendously!! You can converse without problems with almost half of Earth’s population because these people either speak it natively or because they have English as a second language. By mastering English your options in live will probably be twice as many as without. That’s my personal estimate.
4) Fall in LOVE.
This means two things. As a variant of 2) you could permit yourself to fall in love with a native English guy. That’s probably the most interesting way to learn a language but it works amazingly. But few of us are so lucky. So “falling in love” means that you could learn to love English just like I do. English is a beautiful language that’s easy to learn, very versatile, that has a cool sound to it. As long as a loving emotion is involved you will find that English suddenly comes really easy!
5) Find peers.
Find people who are just like you, wanting to learn and/or perfect English. There is Jenny Simanovitz who is a South-African business consultant who is doing regular meetings with people just like you (only a little bit older). Or you come with us: Dieter and me are frequently going to the movies. For example: tomorrow at 18:15 we’ll go watch “The Incredibles”. You are welcome to join us.
6) Don’t translate, UNDERSTAND.
Beginners try to translate all words to their own language. But this is a terrible way to learn English. The best way (see 1) is to learn to form images in your mind when you hear the words. So you would not translate “house” into “haus”, but when you hear “house” you would instantly see a house before your mind’s eye. This also works the other way around and you will never ever forget a word, because you can link the image of a house to the word “house”. So any time you imagine a house suddenly out pops the word “house”. Like magic! This is a very powerful to remember, because our brain more easily remembers pictures than written words. I don’t have to think of what a translation for any word is. I just imagine what the meaning is that I want to confer and my brain automatically gives me the appropriate words. And because you listen and consume English (see 2) your brain knows the appropriate melody into which to arrange the words.