Learning English before and after the Internet

After writing the updated story of how I learned English, I started thinking about the differences between my experience and the situation of today’s learners. I was learning English in the Mid-Nineties — a barbaric time without the Internet, downloadable movies, Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, not to mention mobile phones and DVDs. I only had access to two small bookstores and a library with English books, three English-language channels on cable TV, and limited contact with native speakers. (If I had been learning English 10 years earlier, I would not have had even that, so I’m not complaining.)

How about you? You, my friend, can download thousands of movies and TV shows in English using your broadband connection, with or without English subtitles. You can read websites about any topic that interests you, be it politics, computer games, dieting, Harry Potter or Metallica. You can research your shopping with Google and fill in gaps in your knowledge with Wikipedia. If you are interested in something, you can read and watch things that you’re interested in and use them to improve your English skills. If you have no real interests, that’s not a problem, either. You can just entertain yourself on Digg and YouTube, and still pick up a lot of English.

What am I trying to say, you ask? Simply, that if you live in 2008 and your English is still poor, there is obviously something wrong with you. Good day!

Read more on this topic: How I learned English in the pre-Internet age and why you can do it faster