Students often wonder, “what should I do to improve my English?” and “how much time should I spend studying?”.

When you are a language student, you will have a serious desire to improve your skills. However we are normally, balancing this with a job, school, housework, hobies, family, friends, and more!

It is easy to feel like we are not reading enough, or speaking enough, or any other kind of study. When you are practicing any skill, you will reach a point where you are no longer noticing big changes in your ability. This point is a crucial moment in your learning journey. Some people might lose motivation. Some might give up. Some people might use this point as a moment to celebrate how much work they have done.

If you are reading this blog post and thinking to yourself, “I feel like my progress has slowed down” or “I wish I had more time to study”… You should take a moment to appreciate just how far you have come in your language learning journey. At one point, you didn’t know a single word in English!

Thinking about how you can improve is fine, but if you start to think negatively about how much time you are spending then just remember that every moment you spend studying is valuable. Whether you are studying for 5 minutes a day, or 5 hours a day, it is all fantastic. When you feel like you have the time to study more, do it. If you have other things in your life to focus on, focus on them. Whatever you are doing - remember that it is all great.

If you can fit in another 5 minutes of studying (or more) in your day, then why not listen to some music in English, or read a news article, or watch a YouTube video, or try to connect with native speakers through social media. 5 minutes might not seem like a lot, but everything you do is valuable. If you can’t find another 5 minutes, that is ok too. You have done amazing work to get to this point in your learning journey, so keep up the good work!