ESL Secrets

Secret #7: REVISE! REVISE! REVISE!

If you revise, you'll improve your learning by 100%.

What does "to revise" mean? It means "to read again".
You should be systematic about this. When you learn
something, you should note it. Then you should *look at
it again*, 3 times:
- after 1 day
- after 1 week
- after 1 month

Each time you revise, test yourself.

Learn, revise, test.
Revise, test.
Revise, test.

NOTE:
revise (BrE): read again to improve one's knowledge
revise (BrE & AmE): read and correct; update

ESL Secrets

Secret #6: 30 MINUTES A DAY BETTER THAN 3.5 HOURS A WEEK

In fact, 30 minutes of English study once a day is
better than 5 *hours* once a week! Study regularly.
Study often.

LITTLE + OFTEN is better than LOT + SOMETIMES.

It's easier, too. You can easily find 30 minutes each
day. How? You can get up 30 minutes earlier. Or have a
shorter lunch break. Fix a particular time every day -
and keep it!

The history of the English language

A Brief History of the English Language

 

English is a member of the Indo-European family of languages. This broad family includes most of the European languages spoken today. The Indo-European family includes several major branches: Latin and the modern Romance languages (French etc.); the Germanic languages (English, German, Swedish etc.); the Indo-Iranian languages (Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit etc.); the Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Czech etc.); the Baltic languages of Latvian and Lithuanian; the Celtic languages (Welsh, Irish Gaelic etc.); Greek.

The influence of the original Indo-European language can be seen today, even though no written record of it exists. The word for father, for example, is vater in German, pater in Latin, and pitr in Sanskrit. These words are all cognates, similar words in different languages that share the same root.

Of these branches of the Indo-European family, two are, as far as the study of the development of English is concerned, of paramount importance, the Germanic and the Romance (called that because the Romance languages derive from Latin, the language of ancient Rome). English is a member of the Germanic group of languages. It is believed that this group began as a common language in the Elbe river region about 3,000 years ago. By the second century BC, this Common Germanic language had split into three distinct sub-groups:

• East Germanic was spoken by peoples who migrated back to southeastern Europe. No East Germanic language is spoken today, and the only written East Germanic language that survives is Gothic.

• North Germanic evolved into the modern Scandinavian languages of Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic (but not Finnish, which is related to Hungarian and Estonian and is not an Indo-European language).

• West Germanic is the ancestor of modern German, Dutch, Flemish, Frisian, and English.

ESL Secrets

Secret #5: IMPROVE YOUR VOCABULARY WITH 5 WORDS A DAY

Vocabulary is easy! How many days in a year are there?
365, normally (on Earth).

If you learn only 5 new words a day, you will learn 5 x
365 = 1,825 new words in a year. ONE THOUSAND, EIGHT
HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE WORDS. That is a lot of new
words. And we are not counting all the other words you
will learn in other ways - reading, conversation etc.
Buy a notebook and write in 5 new words EACH day, EVERY
day. Learn them! You will soon have an excellent
vocabulary.

ESL Secrets

Secret #4: DON'T LISTEN!

In the last secret I said LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN!
Now I say DON'T LISTEN! What do I mean?!

Do you know the difference between the verbs TO LISTEN
and TO HEAR? TO LISTEN is active. TO HEAR is passive.
Sometimes you can LISTEN too hard. Sometimes you can TRY
too hard. Sometimes it is better only to HEAR. Let the
radio play. Let the cassette play. But DON'T listen.
Just HEAR. Your subconscious will listen for you. And
you will still learn. If you listen and try to
understand, you may block on one word and get
frustrated. Don't worry! Just HEAR! Believe me, you will
still be learning. The important thing is to let the
radio or cassette or television or record PLAY. Let it
play. And you - you do nothing. Your brain will HEAR,
your subconscious will LISTEN and you will LEARN!