And the most frequent question I get asked.

And while it has many layers to it, I'll share with you the system that I believe a language should be learned by.

This is what I think is the most effective and natural way.

And this is how in my opinion, any language should be learned and approached,

because this way helped me to finally become fluent in my twenties after a year spent in vain in school and courses trying to become fluent in English.

Even if you're not a beginner, I still suggest that you try this system, especially if you're stuck because simply changing what you do will help.

This is the approach I took and the one that changed everything for me and also is the most natural because this is how we learned our first language.

So I always suggest starting with listening.

For complete beginners, I'd say that you should start by watching the simplest videos.

The ones where they show you an object and name it;

the ones where they ask you simple questions like "What is your name?" and tell you how to answer.

And then you gradually move on to more complicated things.

It will be very much like kids learn a language.

They listen a lot.

In fact, they only listen for a year, give or take, and only then start to speak.

They listen to their parents speak and explain things to them, and this is how they pick up the language.

As we are not kids and there's no adult to explain things to us, we will Google words and everything else.

Yes, self education. But believe me, it's worth it.

This knowledge will stick with you for sure.

One of the best methods to improve your listening is to watch and listen to something in English that you've watched in your native language a lot

Like some TV show, for example, like Friends. Most people I know have watched it on repeat.

Or you know anything you like because you will already know what it is about and you'll be able to figure out the meanings of words.

First, watch it with subtitles and then without them.

And again, watch it on repeat because repetition is key to learning.

Then we move on to speaking.

Mark my word. If you spend enough of hours working on your listening, speaking will come to you a lot easier. It will come to you naturally.

Shadowing, copying and repetition will be your go-to things and we will start by simply repeating.

Repeat after native speakers. Start with some simple sentences and then something more complicated, but make sure that you're repeating the right thing.

Turn on subtitles for starters because oftentimes we drop the words we can't quite make out or say something completely different.

But if you worked on your listening thoroughly, this shouldn't be a problem.

Next start shadowing.

Shadowing is more about focusing on the accuracy

Repeating everything exactly the way another person says it, including the stresses and words and the intonation in words and sentences.

This will also give you the opportunity to pick up phrases, sentences, idioms and even grammar naturally.

I would also add to this step working on your pronunciation.

Yep, right away, if you want to, of course, but this would be so beneficial for you.

You can work on it by yourself or with a teacher, coach or you can take a course. There's lots of options these days.

I had a conversation about this with my American accent coach and with another language coach; the links will be right here.

And I also have a lot of videos on my channel on how to improve your speaking skills and pronunciation on your own.

And of course, practice your speaking with a speaking partner or in a speaking club or with a teacher.

When we feel more or less comfortable with speaking English, we add reading.

I think that reading in general, but especially at the beginning should be more about quality and not about quantity.

Read slowly, but make sure that you understand what you're reading about.

There's no need to look up every word as long as you understand the context.

It would be awesome if you did look up every word, but this might be too tiring.

And of course, make sure that you're reading something according to your interests and something simple.

Again, at the beginning and then move forward from there.

The next step would be working on and improving your writing in English for those who want or need to learn to write in English.

Like if you need English because you want to study in an English speaking country or prepare for IELTS.

In school, they kind of teach us backwards and you end up knowing how to read and write but not how to speak.

And you can't understand anything when you hear natural native English speech.

Now again, I have a video on how to improve your writing on your own, which I think is worth watching for sure.

And I'll include all the links in the description because if I stop at each step to explain everything in detail, this video will take me forever.

And I already have this information on my channel.

However, the easiest thing you can start with is to copy texts.

You don't need to come up with your own sentences or think of grammar when you don't even know how to spell words.

Plus, such an exercise will help you with grammar.

At the very least, your brain will pick up on the word order in a sentence.

I'm sure that there will be people who will be wondering, "But how about vocabulary? How will I increase it?"

You don't need to learn words separately.

So there is not a separate step for increasing your vocabulary.

It's going to be happening naturally as a by-product of all those other steps because it's impossible not to look up the meanings of new words you come across to understand the context.

Over time, you will be able to understand the meanings of words based on the context and what you already know.

And this way to expand your vocabulary is a lot more effective and gives long lasting results compared to just learning ten random words every day.

And just as a side note, try to look up the meanings of words in English and not their translation.

There are words that you just need to translate to fully understand them, but just try.

Grammar.

Honestly, you'll be learning and improving your grammar all along while you're on those other steps because it's only natural for people to make associations and analyze.

If you are curious about the structure and all the whys you'll read about them, you'll be learning grammar as you go along.

However, after doing all these steps, you'll probably still have questions because let's be honest, even after years and years of learning English, some of us still have problems with grammar.

But after you've done all the steps and mind you, it's not like you've done a step and can just stop doing it.

Learning a language, or should I say, maintaining language is a lifelong process.

And we all know that skills deteriorate when we're not using them.

If you knew how to play an instrument and then just ditched it, you'd notice that over time, your skills got worse, like you've regressed.

Our brain disposes of the things we don't use to make storage for the things we do use thus need.

The way it should go is you start with listening, you listen at least for a month, I suggest two.

Then you include not substitute with, but include in this process speaking and now you're working on your listening and speaking, and then you add next steps, one by one.

The duration of each step will vary from person to person because some of us learn more quickly and some more slowly, you know yourself best. So you'll figure it out.

So as I was saying, after you've gone through all the steps, but still continue doing them,

understanding grammar structures and rules and using them will become a lot easier as opposed to if you were to start learning a language by learning grammar rules.

If you are a complete beginner and you start reading rules about tenses in English and prepositions,

it will be very hard to remember them, not to mention use them as you won't have any idea how because you have no context.

If you live in an English-speaking country, it's going to be a lot easier to do all of this and maintain your results.

Because whether you want it or not, you are surrounded by English.

If you don't, after doing all of this, you'll build a strong enough habit to keep going and continue learning on your own nonetheless.

Nowadays, you, you can surround yourself with English by yourself.

You can create this environment.

Yeah, it won't be perfect, but it will be something and it's better than waiting for the perfect situation or opportunity and wasting your time and you don't have to be doing all this by yourself.

You can always get help, work with teachers or coaches and it would be even better if you add it to such a learning process, working with a teacher or vice versa.

If you take courses or attend classes, add these steps to your routine.

This is just my recommendation and it's just scratching the surface to give you a general idea because there's so many methods to improve each of these steps.

You can skip a step, writing for instance, if it's not of big importance for you, but I highly recommend insist even that you don't skip listening or speaking.

These are the skills that we need the most to communicate and these are the skills that are either overlooked at schools or are the hardest to learn.

That's why the sooner you start and the more consistent you are the better results you'll get.

Ok, guys, that'll do it for this video.

I hope it was useful for you.

Give this video a like and I'll see you in the next one.

Bye.