Learning English and having fun
All of us eventually grow bored with reading about grammar rules and exceptions from those rules, with studying vocabulary lists and similar. Although this may be necessary for any person striving to have a career in teaching or anything else heavily dependent on your excellence in English, we all love to have fun learning something. And having fun learning English is definitely possible thanks to diverse multimedia today.
We should never underestimate the usefulness of diverse exposure to a language. Almost any kind of exposure to the language you are trying to learn can have various benefits. However, you do need to be aware of your goals, i. e. why you learn a certain language and what you want to achieve. Having your goals in mind you can choose to learn either only from very reliable and trustworthy sites or from any site that offers some fun ways of learning. Whatever you choose if you have any doubts about what you have read you can always double check that information in Oxford, Cambridge, Longman and other dictionaries that are available online for free as well as in various grammar books (published by Oxford, Cambridge or any other publisher of academic books).
When it comes to vocabulary, having fun while learning new words is quite easy. For instance, if you love to play games you can find many word games online. My favourites are hidden object games because you have to look up a word in a dictionary in order to find some hidden object. Since you often look for some objects repeatedly you memorise words more easily - you both see the object (visual memory stimulated) and repeat the word. Some of these games are of educational character as well. They are created with a certain theme about which you get a lot of information as you progress in the game (e.g. about Buckingham Palace). Some, like Hidden Chronicles for example, are available on social networks such as Facebook. There are also scrabble, various anagram games etc.
Another interesting way of learning is by watching videos on language. I have found many interesting videos on BBC learning site. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/theteacher/index.shtml
They have been very helpful to me especially with idioms (under the section Teacher )
Three idioms are explained in every video by a very amusing teacher, which helps memorising them a lot. They also have great videos on pronunciation, some interesting audios, short stories through which you learn phrasals and much more. Some videos on language can also be found on Youtube, including videos for children done by Michael Rosen, who has his own website too:
http://www.michaelrosen.co.uk/
It is also very useful to watch movies or documentaries with subtitles so that you are able to compare the pronunciation and spelling of certain words and also check their meaning if necessary. My personal choice are often history documentaries where many interesting words can be learnt, but that is of course a matter of taste and need.
Audio books can be most helpful to advanced learners of English as they require good listening comprehension. Anyway, they are a very good option when one feels tired and has no will to read and study a lot. Hearing words in context helps their memorising, and in terms of grammar repetitive phrases and grammar constructions are more easily memorised this way too. There are quite a few websites which offer free audiobooks or sell them. It is also very useful to download them on your phone or tablet so you can listen to them when travelling.
http://amblingbooks.com/books/index/free_audio_books
Listening radio, especially some reputable one, like BBC or some other for American accent, is of a great use too. By listening to BBC, for instance, you are being exposed normally to RP accent, the most neutral and also esteemed one, or if you choose to listen to a few different radio stations you may be exposed to various accents. Your choice, of course, will always be dictated by your needs - whether you need to be exposed to the British or American or Australian accent, or you need to learn just one accent, compare several etc. In any case, listening to "live" English will improve your listening comprehension and possibly your pronunciation as well. At the same time you can listen to your favourite music or topic discussed on the radio.
There are also interesting sites which offer language courses which are not so tiring as serious studying can be. On such courses you learn by the help of audio material and visuals. They often feel like games yet one can learn a lot if one is persistent. I myself use Babbel to study Italian. On this site words and concepts are introduced by pictures, and every word is both pronounced and written. They are further incorporated into sentences and then dialogues. There are other sites like this one, for instance Livemocha and Palabea.
http://www.babbel.com/homepage
http://www.livemocha.com/
http://www.palabea.com/
On these sites you can also chat to native speakers of English or any other learner willing to chat. Livemocha also offers reviews of your exercises by native speakers. Some of the courses on these websites are for free, while others have to be paid for.
Podcasts, which can be downloaded from many sites, can also be both useful and fun. You can choose topics according to your liking. They can be on something you always wanted to know more about. They are often fairly short, up to half an hour often, and representing various themes in a lively way. Depending on your interests you can find some very amusing and interesting podcasts, sometimes approaching a well-known topic from a new angle etc.
You can also listen to your favourite songs while trying to memorise their lyrics. Learning lyrics by heart will help you remember words and their use in a certain context. Since we are often emotionally attached to songs we like we tend to remember words in them (and grammar to some extent) better. The worst thing for memory is indifference. If we have some emotional reaction to whatever we are listening to or reading about, whether it is happiness or anger, we memorise it better than when we are completely indifferent to the content.
I have listed everything I could remember that made learning English more fun for me.
If you can remember of any other fun way to learn English, please feel free to comment. Some of these suggestions will strike you as boring, some as fun, but that is again a matter of personal preference.
Finally, I will finish this post with a joke which always makes me smile:
And yes, of course, good jokes and funny pictures help a lot too ;)
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