In 2015 I decided I would commit to writing a private no-comments blog everyday.

I got inspired by reading Seth Godin, “The Icarus Deception”, where Seth writes about how important this daily action is.
As a non-english person (I’m italian), this was sure a tough thing to do, mostly because I already know how much difficult is to write good english with no errors.

But there’s one thing that’s helping me improve the way I learn in English, and a few tricks I’d love to share about learning a different language.

These are personal tips, I’m not an english teacher, but thanks to them I am continuosly improving my english skills (I still suck, I know).

If you’re just starting out, read this

If you just want to learn a new language in a fast way you have to read something from Timothy Ferris, the man behind the 4-Hour-Workweek.

Some really good advice is found on his book “The 4 Hour Chef” (don’t judge it by the title), or on his blog like

• 12 Rules for Learning Foreign Languages in Record Time — The Only Post You’ll Ever Need
• How to Learn Any Language in 3 Months

These are great starting point for everyone, plus Tim Ferris is really great at Meta-Learning, so you’ll always discover something you didn’t know before.

WordPress Jetpack to learn english?

What does the Jetpack Plugin made by Automattic has to do with learning a language?

One day I decided to enable the “Spelling & Grammar” feature, and guess what?
Once I publish a new post it gives me some advice on how to improve it, and if you start understanding why it’s telling you that, then you’re on good tracks.

It’s not bomb-proof, and it won’t save you from writing shit, but it’s really a good help for people like me that want to write in new languages

At the time of writing it supports English, Portuguese, German, French, Spanish, so if your plan was to learn Japanese you’re out of luck.

Jetpack won’t teach you how to write in E-Prime (nor will I), but it will give a hand after you did your writing.

Start writing daily and reading consciously

I can’t emphasize this enough, writing daily is one of the best things I’ve ever started.

It helps me crystallize my thoughts and improve my english writing skills.
Together with writing, start reading differently.
Watch out for where verbs are placed in questions and affirmations and if you want to keep track of the responses you like in Reddit or any community/forums.

Writing them down will help you reuse them when you need them.

Do you use a better technique to learn?

If so, share it in the comments and let the discussion start 😉