If you want to join a global remote team, your technical skills won't matter if your English isn't good enough. You have to communicate efficiently, both in verbal and written forms.
There are a few traditional ways to learn English. They're either very expensive (private tutoring, studying abroad) or inefficient (language schools, Duolingo-type apps).
Even if you choose to invest in the more expensive options, there's no guarantee you'll learn. My mom has been studying with a private tutor for years, and she's constantly frustrated with her progress. I have a Brazilian friend who lived in London for a year, but kept hanging out with other Brazilians there, and got very little return on his investment.
Learning depends much more on the student's dedication than on a method or teacher. According to the prolific author Louis L'Amour, "All education is self-education. If you don't take charge of your learning, no one else will."
This is a guide for taking charge of your language learning until you're ready to join a distributed team. It makes a few assumptions:
- You're not starting from scratch. Maybe you had English classes at school, or your parents made you take lessons in your teens, and you begrudgingly obeyed. If you can understand this article, even if you have to look up a few words, you're ready to start.
- You don't want to spend years learning. This method certainly requires dedication, but returns are much quicker.
- You don't have a ton of money to invest. And even though investing money helps you get returns faster, most things I describe here can be done with an internet connection and a Netflix subscription.
Let's jump into it.
Vocabulary
Words are the very basic building blocks of any language. You have to know them to speak or write, so growing your vocabulary is essential to improve.
You might have heard we build our vocabulary by reading more. That's not wrong, but it's not the whole story. You learn new words by reading, but you also have to remember them later.
That's where spaced repetition comes in. In a nutshell, spaced repetition is a technique that allows you to recall information in increasingly longer intervals, which is analogous to the way your brain naturally retains information. I use a spaced repetition app called Anki. There are probably others, but Anki has been around since forever, and it's free.
Here's my method for building vocabulary:
- Read books, articles, tweets, the news, whatever. Make sure your reading material relates to your profession, so you learn work-related vocabulary. But also read things for fun. Deriving pleasure from your studies makes the whole process a lot more efficient.
- When you stumble upon a word you don't know and can't figure out what it means from the context, look it up.
- If you think the word is important, or you've seen it a few times already, add it to your spaced repetition app. Don't worry too much about what "important" means, go with your intuition. You can always refine your deck later.
- Review your spaced repetition app once a day.
It's tempting to translate words during this process. Don't. You should only translate a word if you couldn't figure out what it means otherwise. Always look things up in an English-English dictionary.
You won’t learn to think in English if you keep translating things.
That means your spaced repetition deck shouldn't have translations either. Most of my Anki cards contain an image on the front and a word or expression in the back.
Let's say I just learned the word jump. I'll do a Google image search for jump and choose an image like the one below.
The image goes in the front of the card, the word “jump” in the back.
For words that are too abstract to be visually represented, I use a short sentence that defines it. For example, for the word representation, the front of the card could say "speaking or acting on behalf of someone (noun)."
"This sounds like a hassle, could you just share your deck with me?"
No. I mean, I could, but it wouldn't help because what works for me won't work for you. Shane Parrish wrote that "effective learning requires building your own understanding." Building your deck is building your understanding. So do yourself a favour and make your own deck.
Listening
The oral comprehension (a.k.a. "listening") skill is the easiest and most enjoyable to build. Here's what you do:
Go to Netflix
Pick a movie or TV Show in English
Set subtitles to English
Watch it
I bet you're already doing that almost every day, maybe except for step 3.
I got most of my listening skills from watching Friends on DVD over and over again. But I didn't do that with the intent of learning English, I did it because I enjoyed the show.
So pick something fun, set subtitles to English, sit back, and enjoy!
Then, watch Youtube videos (no subtitles - automated Youtube subtitles suck) and listen to podcasts. Don't wait until you're "comfortable" to do it. You have to start while it's uncomfortable because that's how it becomes comfortable.
Writing
Writing is an essential skill on its own, but it also builds the skills you need to speak fluently.
You don't have to write boring high school essays with a minimum word count. You can write anything. Write about your day in a journal. Write tweets. Write a summary of the things you learned. Write documentation for open source projects.
If you're not comfortable about publishing your writing, you don't have to. The point is to get grammatically correct sentences on a page so you'll become familiar with the language structure.
Writing is expressing yourself, and so is speaking. But in writing, you're doing it in easy mode. You can choose words carefully, look up grammar structures, and go back and edit yourself as much as you want.
Run your writing through a checker like Grammarly to ensure your grammar is correct. Learn from your mistakes. Don't just blindly accept corrections, understand what you did wrong and what right looks like.
This is a point where it helps to work with a tutor if you can afford one. A human can give you feedback that is way more meaningful than a machine. It doesn't necessarily have to be a paid tutor. Have a friend look over your writing and give you feedback. Or use an online English learning forum - people are always providing feedback to each other's writings on these forums.
You can also use Youtube to proactively take lessons on language constructs you're not familiar with. There are a lot of high-quality channels with great content for learning English.
Once I learn new grammar structures, I add them to my spaced repetition software in whatever form it makes sense. Let's say I just learned about the past perfect. I'd make a few "fill in the blank" type of cards to remind me of the structure, such as:
Front:
"I ___ just ___ at the cabin when my phone buzzed. (arrive)"
Back:
"I had just arrived at the cabin when my phone buzzed."
Again, use whatever format that works for you.
Speaking
We've now arrived in the meat of the matter. Oral expression (a.k.a. "Speaking") is the most challenging part of learning a foreign language. The reason is, the only way to learn to speak a foreign language is to speak it. And that's when all of our inhibitions get in the way. We're afraid to make mistakes and sound stupid.
This internal barrier is probably the most difficult to overcome. The more we feel like we should get everything right, the more difficult it is to learn.
And all we can do is push through, unfortunately. Know this: when speaking, you'll make mistakes, no matter what. If you worry too much about it, you'll still make mistakes, AND it'll hinder your learning. Listening to yourself talking, making mistakes and learning from them is what skill-building is all about.
Writing also helps. As I mentioned, writing is a form of expressing yourself just as speaking, but at a much slower pace. The more you write, the more the language structures will be ingrained in your brain, and you can draw upon them when you speak. However, as much as it helps with speaking, writing isn't a substitute. You still have to practice speaking.
COVID-19 side note: I realize how impractical some of the following advice can be at these times, given the travel industry is currently on a coronavirus-induced hibernation. I decided to still include it because I like to make my writing timeless, and I have faith we’ll soon be munching again on cold, questionable $15 sandwiches, 30 thousand ft above.
Immersion is the most effective practice for speaking. But it can be costly to take time off work and travel to a foreign country. Fortunately, there is a much cheaper way to immerse yourself: hostels. They're a lot closer, full of people who don't speak your language that are willing to have a conversation.
Going to a hostel in a touristy city somewhere near where you live is a lot more affordable. You might need to travel still, but at least you won't have to leave the country. And if you already live in a touristy city, it's perfect.
Check yourself in a hostel and hang out in the common areas. Talk to people who don't speak your language. Go visit tourist attractions with them. If you're in your own city, take them on tour. This is immersion on the cheap.
I had a considerable boost in my speaking skills when I moved to Florianopolis, Brazil. The city is on an island off the country's southern coast, surrounded by beautiful beaches. The town received lots of visitors from abroad, and hostels were plenty. I checked myself in a hostel a few times and made friends with the owner. He was happy having me over, so I didn't have to check in anymore. I could just hang out and talk to people (he was also happy with me buying overpriced beer from the hostel bar).
If alcohol is your thing, a couple of doses certainly help to disable your inhibitions. More than that will impair your abilities and make learning a lot harder.
There are also free language learning meetups such as Mundolingo. In these meetups, some people speak the language you want to learn and want to learn the language you speak. So you pair up with one of those people and have a conversation. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, these meetups have also gone online, making it a lot easier for anyone to join.
The more you put yourself in situations where you have to speak English and switching back to your native language isn't an option, the faster you'll learn.
How do I know if I'm ready?
The easiest way is to ask someone. Speak to a friend who already works remotely, let them assess you and give you pointers.
You should also start interviewing. Apply to a position you're less interested in and see how it goes. You won't get very language-specific feedback there, but you can gauge yourself based on how the interview goes. Needless to say, if you get an offer, it probably means you're ready.
Interviewing is a skill too, and needs training even when you're comfortable with the language. Put in some practice before you apply to your dream job.
Be deliberate on your learning. "You enhance your skills the most when you stretch yourself to the limits of your abilities," Shane Parrish said. Stretching our limits can make us genuinely uncomfortable, but the process is a lot more bearable if it's fun. Remember to do things you enjoy. Learning is supposed to be challenging, but that doesn't mean it can't be fun.
If you'd like my feedback on your English or interviewing skills, shoot me an email at andre@dre.is. I love receiving emails and meeting like-minded people.
Special thanks to Bob Barnard, Yi-Chen Lu, Sylvain Reiter, David Vargas, and Gwyn Wansbrough for reading and giving feedback on drafts of this article.