Why We Are Not Good at English

Why we are not good at English?

We use English in our daily life. If we say any sentence, some word in that sentence is English. Or we listen music, some word in the lyrics also can be English.

We just don't realize the truth, but we use a lot of English in our life. But we're not good at English(at least me). Why aren't we good at English?

First, we use English words, but not "English", for example if we say "phone", we don't think that we are using English. We think "phone" in Korean.
Second, we don't use full English sentence. Just some of word replaces our Korean words. So we can't make full English sentences.
And there are many other reasons.

English.. Is it necessary?

Some people say learning English isn't necessary anymore. Because translators and AI are so much more advanced than before, so we don't have to translate English ourselves.

But I think there's still a need to learn English. The translators aren't perfect yet. And if you be familiar with English, it will enable you to do many things than before.

How I study English?

There's only one way to be good at English. Let me tell you what it is.

Use English
Literally we must use English, that's the most important thing. No one can improve your English, but yourself.
Use English in daily life. That's all. It's the only way to be good at English.

From now on I'll talk about how I use English in my daily life.

How I use English in my daily life?

Study English
This is very straightforward, just study English. Memorize words, check pronounciation. No one can be good at something without effort.
If you want to be good at something, you need to spend time on it.

I usually study English in short breaks - commute time, waiting time and other spare moments. You don't need to sit at your desk or open a book, there's no need to set aside time for English. Just use your free moments, it'll improve your English skill.

Watch, Listen, Read English
If we study English, but don't use it our daily life, it won't stick in our heads. So we should use English in our daily life.

How can we do that? It's easy, just do what you want to do in English. In my case, I love music and movies. So I listen to music in English, watch movies in English.

I like Billie Eilish, Post Malone, Olivia Rodrigo and other artists.

Here's one of my favorite English songs. I hope you guys love this song.

Take me to the rooftop
I wanna see the world when I stop breathing
Turnin' blue

listen before i go - Billie Eilish

And I watch movie over and over, so I know the lines by heart.
It helps us to understand what expressions to use in specific situations. And we can see characters' faces and pick up many visual cues.

These are my steps to watch movie without subtitles.

1. Watch with Korean subtitles
2. Watch with English subtitles
3. Watch without subtitles

First, watch it with Korean subtitles and just enjoy it. Second, watch it again with English subtitles to be familiar with the dialogues. Finally, watch it without subtitles. Can you understand it? Good, you truly love that movie.

English is a language, and language isn't just words or letters. It has a lot of cultural or non-verbal elements.
It will be much more helpful than just studying English with textbooks.

It's one of my favorite dialogues. If you haven't watched this moive yet, I hope you'll watch it.

This is the end of the movie, if you don't want to know it. Don't play it.

Neil: What's happened's happened. Which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world. It's not an excuse to do nothing.
Protagonist: Fate?
Neil: Call it what you want.
Protagonist: What do you call it?
Neil: Reality. Now let me go.

Tenet - Christopher Nolan

Study in English
English is a language. Not a subject to study.
So I think it can be helpful to learn something in English.
A lot of content's made in English, about programming, math and many other topics.

I read some papers to study LLM and Transformers, most papers are written in English. Also most technical blog posts are written in English too.

If you are familiar with English. It'll help you to extend your sight.

More than 50% of content is made in English. Now you can utilize them. Well done, you can read posts by Indian geniuses, papers by American Ph.Ds. Also can listen to lectures of the professor at Harvard or MIT.

Chat in English
I think it's the best way to learn English. Just chat in English with someone. In my case, I have a colleague who lived in the US for almost 10 years. Thankfully, he helps me use English in my life. He usually chats with me in English.

I know many people are afraid to speak English in front of someone else. But you should know this. We are not native speakers. So we don't have to be embarrassed if we use English incorrectly.
There's no Korean who laughs at a foreigner using wrong Korean. It's the same with English. No one cares about your grammar or pronunciation.

If you speaks English in front of others, they will probably think "This guy speak English well, even though he's not a native speaker.", so don't be shy, just spit it out.

Now, it's your turn!

So far, I've shared my opinion about English and the ways I learn it.

There are many people who want to be good at English, so now it's your turn.
Use English, speak it, listen to it, read it.

If you do that for 3 months, you'll realize your English has gotten much better.

Go for it!

후기

최근 영어 공부를 하면서 느낀 것과 내 공부 방법을 공유해 보았다. 그런데 이번에는 내용 자체를 영어로 작성해보았다.
그동안 영어로 글을 쓸 때는, 한국어로 작문을 한 다음 영어로 번역하는 방식으로 작성했지만, 이번에는 그냥 처음부터 영어로 작성해 보는 과정을 거쳤다.
물론 어색한 부분이나 잘못된 문법 같은 것들은 생성형 AI의 도움을 받았지만, 어쨌든 번역기 없이 내가 직접 처음부터 영어로 글을 썼다는 것에서 이전보다 실력이 많이 늘었다고 느껴진다.