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   Nobody can learn all of the English language. No need to worry about trying. A useful shortcut to learning is that in English we have lots of words that have the same pronunciation, but a different spelling and meaning. For example, ‘come here’ has the same pronunciation as, ‘I canhear the birds’. You might find it easier to build vocabulary by knowing the different meanings.

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Have you ever learned something? I mean anything.

Are you particularly good at anything?

Then I have good news for you! You can learn English.

You see, everyone is good at something. And whatever you’re good at you probably weren’t born doing it.Something I’ve recently realized is that, for some reason, we think we should learn English differently than everything else we’re good at. And, as strange as it may seem, I recognized this the other day when I tried juggling for the first time.

But what does juggling possibly have in common with learning English?

What Juggling Taught Me About Language Learning

Some new friends recently invited me to come to a “circus” group and learn how to juggle. I’d never tried juggling before, nor had it ever really appealed to me. But I like to try new things and it was an opportunity to meet people.

The juggling teacher showed me some of the basic moves: starting by throwing one ball and just trying to catch it with the other hand and then increasing to two balls, then finally three.

He told me that the most important thing was to get the hang of [understand/get used to] the correct throwing technique, more than actually catching the ball.

Keep it up! If you take a break from speaking English, you will find that your level decreases and all your hard work has been wasted.

So the best way to do this was to keep trying, no matter how many times the balls fell and I had to pick them up. I just had to keep making mistakes until I got the hang of it.

After trying this for a bit, I realized juggling is exactly like learning a language. In fact, I’m sure you can relate learning practically anything to learning a language.

You start out with baby steps (in juggling, one ball at a time). You make a lot of mistakes, and, little by little, and especially with some help, you are sure to get better.

What this Can Teach You About Learning English

Imagine that you want to learn to juggle. But you’re not even going to think about touching the balls–maybe in 6 months or even in a few years you’ll be ready­–but not yet.First, you’re going to study all the rules and techniques. You need to understand exactly how juggling works. So you watch videos on juggling, you read about juggling, you learn how to do all sorts of different tricks, but only in theory.

After you’ve learned everything there is to know about juggling, then you’re finally ready to touch a ball. But now think about how your expectations will be.You’ve been studying for years, you know exactly how the techniques should work and what the tricks should look like, but you’re completely incapable of doing them.
To become a better writer brainstorm as many ideas and thoughts onto paper without worrying about grammar or spelling. Then think about the structure. After that, write your piece using good grammar and spelling. Finally, read it through or give it to someone else to check for mistakes.

So then you think, “Well I’m just not good at juggling. I don’t have any talent for this. These other people I see doing it have something that I don’t have. I should just quit, because I’ll never be able to do this.”Do you see what happened? You got so concerned about the theory and having perfect technique that when you actually tried to juggle and didn’t do it well the first time, you thought that there was some problem with you.

Nobody likes to hear their own voice, but be brave and try it! Record your voice and listen to your pronunciation and intonation. It will help you to identify your problem areas.

But the problem is that when we only study the rules, we focus too much on speaking perfectly, and we fear mistakes. So when we do have the chance to speak, we are scared to open our mouth and embarrassed of making any errors.Just like you can’t expect to become a master juggler without dropping a few balls (or a lot of balls in most people’s case), you can’t expect to get fluent in English without speaking and making a lot of mistakes.

Some people might learn faster. For example, juggling is hard for me because I have bad hand-eye coordination, but that’s no reason not to try. I promise you that if you keep trying, and always aim to correct your mistakes you will improve.

Remember to Be Consistent

If you really want it, and you do this consistently for long enough (even just a few months), you will be fluent.
If you haven’t gotten the results you wanted yet, it’s not because you’re bad at languages, it’s because you haven’t found your own special way of learning yet.
The rules are important, but you don’t need to worry about learning them first. They are here to guide your direct experience learning the language, not to replace it. Learn English like you learned football, basketball, guitar, piano, or anything else.

Start speaking from the first day.

Enjoy it! We learn more when we are having fun!