The greatest stumbling block that each of us encounters while learning a foreign language is the initial lack of real motivation behind the studies. Of course we all start studying for some reason, but those reasons can be so vague that we can't muster up enough strength to knuckle down to learning the necessary "boring" stuff like Grammar and irregular verbs lists.
When you study the language not simply because you might need it later in your life, but because you like the process and the beauty of learning itself everything goes much faster. Learn English or any other language with the help of the music and films you like, through live communication and speaking and you'll see how fast you make progress.
For a rewarding learning process you should choose the type of music you like and find performers whose songs really tell stories that you would like to understand with all the nuances. This will make you understand phrasal verbs and look up the idioms and proverbs. It might be harder with the films and cartoons at first, but using subtitled (not with a translation, but in the language of the original) versions can help you understand what is being said much faster. This way you'll also learn the live modern speech that you can freely incorporate into your speaking routine (unless it is heavily explicit, of course). (more...)

