Are You Too Stressed To Learn English?

Are you getting frustrated because English rules seem illogical or too different from your native language?

Read on for three ways to feel less stressed when you learn English.

One of the biggest problems learning a new language is that – at the beginning at least – it doesn’t make sense.

Here are a couple of things my students have said to me:

“Why aren’t there masculine and feminine nouns in English? We have these in … (Italian)”

“Why can you use two tenses but the sentence means the same thing?”

“Why don’t you have one word which means the same thing as it does in my language?”

Stop fighting the differences!

If you spend all your time getting frustrated about how English is different, you will stop yourself from making progress. At some point you need to accept that it’s a language with its own rules and concepts. When you do that, you can relax and start seeing the patterns.

My advice is to “go with the flow”. Accept that the rules might not always make sense to you – and that there’s often some flexibility. Sometimes, the rules are less strict. Be tolerant about ambiguity so that you can concentrate on studying English and practising it as much as possible.

3 ways to feel less stressed when you learn English

1. Relax
Just accept the rules for now – and try not to translate into your own language.

2. Experiment
Try to use a new grammar rule or new word. Put things together in a sentence. Ask for feedback.

“Does this sound correct to you?”

“Can I use this word in this situation?”

3. Make mistakes
Mistakes help you test your understanding. Make mistakes so that you get to know a new rule or how a new word works.