My Journey of Learning the English Language

Today I'd like to tell you a little bit about what've helped me the most while learning English. Because lessons at school are just one part of it. Let's face it: you won't learn how to speak a language only by listening about grammar and taking countless vocabulary tests. Of course it's all important but it can't be just that. I have to admit though that I was lucky enough to have some really great English teachers during my school years.

Firstly in elementary school my parents insisted that my sister and I took extra English classes after school. We would go to the house of our tutor two times a week. He was a retired army officer so you can imagine that he was pretty strict and demanding. For example we had to write a text consisting of at least 15 sentences for each lesson. I didn't like that at the time but now I'm grateful because it taught me how to be regular and organized in my process of learning.

Then in junior high I had an English teacher who was also very demanding but I've learned so much from him! Every other week he would have us take vocabulary tests based on our manual. But they weren't just typical tests that you probably think of. Just learning the words from the "word bank" at the end of each unit wasn't enough at all. We had to make our own vocabulary lists by going through the whole unit very carefully and paying attention even to what was written on the T-shirts worn by the people in the photos. We had to put a lot of our time and hard work into that but it paid of because now I rarely find myself lacking the words while speaking English.

Those were some of my best school experiences with English. But even though they were helpful, after graduating high school I didn't feel capable of communicating verbally with native speakers. I knew grammar rules and a lot of useful words but I just couldn't put it into practice.

And then I got obsessed with The Voice. You know, this singing talent show with the four superstar couches sitting in the big red chairs, their backs to the contestants, and if they like the person's singing they can turn around for them and be their vocal couch for the rest of the show.

My first experience with The Voice was with the Polish edition, naturally. I really liked the concept and the whole idea behind the show. And then I realized that the Polish version was only one of many others, almost every country you can think of had their own edition of The Voice, United States included. And when I found out that the lead singer of my favorite band and my biggest celebrity crush of all time - Adam Levine was one of the couches, I knew I would be watching the The Voice U.S. like an addict.

At that time I was like ten seasons behind so I was binge-watching it pretty much every evening. At first I needed subtitles to understand what everyone was saying but then I realized I just didn't need them anymore. Not only did I improve my understanding of the spoken language but I also became an expert of musical terms and phrases:). And I learned so much about music in general.

After The Voice I got interested in American and British talk shows, like The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Ellen Show or The Graham Norton Show. The people on these shows use everyday language, it's not written and directed like it is in the movies or tracks on the CDs attached to English language manuals. Watching these shows you can pick up some really useful phrases and constructions that are not taught at school, at least from my experience.

So, yeah. That's how I learned to understand spoken English. It also helped me to be more brave when I had the opportunity to speak it myself. So I guess the lesson you can take from my story is that even what seems like a stupid talent show can sometimes turn out to be a huge help while learning a foreign language:)

How can you not learn how to speak English when your motivation is to become able to communicate with this gorgeous human? :D
Source: giphy.com