Don’t Run Before You Can Walk
I recently got this question from an EFS subscriber:
“Hi Sam. Thank you for English For Study. I want learn phrasal verbs so I speak to more people better. How I learn these?”
We have this saying in English:
“Don’t run before you can walk”.
It basically means that you should be able to walk well before you can run.
Now, when we use this phrase, we don’t mean it literally. What we mean is:
You should be able to do the basics before you move onto the advanced stuff.
It’s like when you see people at the gym doing really strange exercises, when really they should be focusing on the basics.
It’s the same in English learning.
Many people focus on the really ‘cool’ parts of English – like phrasal verbs – before they can even make a sentence.
These people won’t get very far.
When you don’t know how to use the basics well, you won’t be able to use the more advanced parts of English well.
And this becomes really obvious when you’re speaking to people or writing in English. If you don’t know how to use English correctly (with one or two mistakes), then you are not ready to move onto the more advanced stuff.
So, to answer this subscriber’s Q… you learn phrasal verbs just like you’d learn any other part of the English language – through context with meaning and with a lot of practise.
But don’t just jump straight into it.
Make sure you can walk before you can run.
My “Improve Your English in Three Weeks” course teaches you a system which will help you to walk quickly.
And if you follow the steps, you’ll learn the basics, so that you can start running.
But remember, it’s all about patience.
You get the Improve Your English in Three Weeks course for free when you join The Difference.
Join here:
https://englishforstudy.com/join-the-difference/
Sam
English For Study.
Ps. You can start the Improve Your English in Three Weeks course as soon as you join The Difference. It’s actually a really good introduction to the English teaching methods and philosophy that I use.
But that’s not all… you really can improve your English in just three weeks (listening, speaking, writing, reading, grammar and vocabulary) in just 15-30 minutes a day…
Here’s the link again:
https://englishforstudy.com/join-the-difference/
About the Author Sam
Sam is the founder and creator of English For Study. He's also a lecturer in EAP/Academic English. Apart from making Academic English easy, he likes learning languages, lifting weights and eating good food.
