5 Ways to Immerse Yourself in English

Learning English can be a whirlwind. You might find yourself moving to a new country to learn English but having very few opportunities to speak it in your daily life. We find sometimes that our students make friends with others from their home country for familiarity and comfort, and between working and studying, they only end up speaking English during class times.

Learning English, however, like learning any new skill requires practise, and learning a new language especially requires immersion. Immersion means being involved in situations where you need to speak English all the time. For this week’s post, we’ve listed 5 new ways that you can immerse yourself in the English Language in your daily life to help you move forward with you’re learning in real-world contexts. On to the tips!

1. Turn off the subtitles.

The first and simplest thing you can do today to practice your English in your everyday life is to turn off the subtitles on your favourite English Language TV shows and movies. This works well for shows with neutral accents that are easy to understand. If you watch shows from your home country, you could also turn on English subtitles for an episode you have already seen and re-watch it focusing on reading and understanding the words. This can be an interesting activity as sometimes the content can have a different tone or different messaging conveyed when it translates into English.

2. Make English-speaking friends

Another thing you can do to practice your English in your daily life is to make English-speaking friends. This is easier said than done, we know, especially after you’ve just moved to a new country. Every little counts here so you could start by striking up a conversation with someone in your language class that doesn’t speak the same language as you. Even if they are not native English speakers you will both have to speak English together as a common language. You can also join Facebook groups for other students learning English in other colleges in the city and meet up socially to practise. There’s actually a group that meets up each week at the Shelbourne bar near the school hosted by Bla Bla Cork that you could join. 

3. Listen to English-speaking music or podcasts

You can listen to some English Language learning podcasts if you like, or you can just listen to podcasts on topics you’re interested in through English. You could also sprinkle some English-speaking songs in your favourite genres into your playlists so that you come across them organically throughout the day. If you’d like to listen to music from the country you’re currently in to get used to the accents of the people there, listening to a playlist of songs by Irish artists like Dermot Kennedy or Hozier is a great way to do that.

4. Situational English: Do everything in English

This one involves taking every opportunity you can in your daily life to use English. Examples of this would be ordering a pint in English at the weekend, ordering a meal in a restaurant in English, sending your friends social media messages in English, asking for your morning coffee in English, writing your Instagram captions in English...the list goes on. Any situation at all that you need to write or speak in is a perfect opportunity to practice. A great tip here if you feel like your morning coffee order doesn’t sound natural to you is to ask the server for a better way to say it. Anyone that you speak to on a daily basis can help you out with your pronunciation.

5. Switch your apps to the English versions

This one is a good idea if you use a lot of social media apps or apps for entertainment on your phone. You can swap the language settings on those apps to English and change the device language to English which will go a long way to curating your digital bubble to be all in English, this will help you to start thinking in English naturally throughout the day. Most open-source Apps will also have the option to change the language to English in the app settings.

If you’re a student of ours, another great way to practise your English is to go on our weekly activities where there will be a mix of students from all different nationalities whose only common language is English. These activities allow you to see Cork and Ireland while you’re here but also to practise your conversational English in many different settings. In any case, these tips should help you to immerse yourself in the English language in your everyday life and grow in your language learning outside of the classroom.