These days no matter where you go you can find advertisements for English books, academies, camps, and other programs. Each one claims to have the “secret” to learn to speak better, faster, or more like a native speaker. But there is always a cost. No book company or academy will tell you that the key to success actually costs no money at all.

Let me share two of my language learning experiences as an example. From middle school all the way into my later years of university, I had to take second language classes to fulfill graduation requirements. Although we had a few choices of languages, most of the students studied Spanish. I decided to do the same. So, starting in middle school, I took Beginner Spanish 1 and 2. I did all the reading, writing, listening and speaking activities in class, but when I went home each day I never thought about what I had learned. I did it just because I had to. So when I got to high school, I decided to start back in the beginner 1 class.

Again, I worked hard for the grade, studying grammar, practicing a little bit of the four skills, and doing only what I needed to get the passing grade. I had many friends from Mexico who spoke Spanish as their first language, but I was too embarrassed to practice with them or ask them for help.

At the end of high school I reached the 3 level of Spanish, but I felt so far behind the other students. So as you can probably guess, I went back to the beginner level when I started university.

All in all, I spent about eight or nine years studying Spanish. Today, however, I can speak almost nothing in Spanish, and it takes me a very long time to remember word meanings if I listen to someone speaking and am lucky enough to hear a familiar word. Eight years of class time, money and studying is a huge cost to learn nothing. Unfortunately I can never recover those wasted years.

My Korean learning experience, on the other hand, was much more productive. One year in college, I happened to have a Korean roommate. Later, he and I moved from the dorms to an apartment with one of his Korean friends. From that time on, my two roommates spoke Korean around me all the time. I decided I wanted to learn what they were saying. I started learning very short phrases like “Let’s eat.” Or “Let’s go.” It wasn’t much, but I used the phrases all the time. Mokja! Gaja! Gaseo, mokja! In the beginning it was just for fun, but later I realized I was actually learning and saying more and more. Today I can speak and interact comfortably using Korean in almost any situation.

I never took a class to learn Korean, but in just a few years of using it I learned more than I know from eight years of Spanish lessons. So what was the difference? With Spanish my time was spent trying to fill my brain with knowledge of grammatical forms and vocabulary. I overloaded my mind with information about the language, but since I never tried to communicate in the language all the information was useless. In Korean, however, I had very little knowledge of the language. But I used the few parts that I knew until it became more natural to tease my roommate with a Gaja than a Let’s go.

As one last example, imagine a man who has never played piano before wants to learn to play the piano well. He wants to play Mozart pieces, so he borrows books on the life and works of Mozart. After studying all the history of Mozart’s life, he buys a collection of music. All day long he listens to Mozart. Finally, song by song he analyses the patterns of notes, the rhythms, and the melodies.

Can the man play Mozart on the piano now? Because he has not used a piano to learn and practice, he most probably cannot play.
So here is the secret no book company will tell you: if you want to improve, all you need to do is use the language you already know and use it a lot. Knowing about a language does not necessarily help with using it; using a language will, however, lead to better use and greater knowledge.

Here are some tips: 1) use your English classes as time for practice—ask lots of questions, give your ideas and do not be shy; 2) find a friend or two who also want to improve their English and set up an “English only” time—it may be uncomfortable at first, but later it will be fun; 3) avoid overloading your brain with complicated grammar structures and needless vocabulary—use what you already know every chance you get; 4) always keep a positive attitude—it is harder to learn when you hate what you are learning.

All the best to you and your success in English!