Language learning is purely a personal affair. One can never master a second language unless one tries to compare and contrast it with one’s mother tongue. That is the secret of mastering a second language. If approach in the right way, it is extremely easy to learn English. This article is mostly intended for those who have been confused and perplexed by teachers and text book writers, and who are struggling hard to learn English for IELTS and TOEFL.

Before we begin to learn a second language, we must think about how we started learning our mother tongue. From the very moment an infant’s eye and ear start functioning, it begins to record in its memory all the people, animals and things it sees and all the sounds it hears. Gradually the baby understands the relations between picture and sound as it hears the same sound repeatedly used to indicate the same person by elders. The baby always sees its mother and hears the sound ‘Mom’ or whatever sound uttered to indicate mother and understands the relation between picture and sound. That is the starting point of our learning process. Picture comes first and sound follows. Sound is the shadow of the picture. No picture, no shadow.

You have learnt all the words in your mother tongue indicating relatives in the family. Now draw a family tree and try to use the following words.

Husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, parents, children, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, cousin brother, cousin sister, grandfather, grandmother, grandson, granddaughter, grandparents grandchildren, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, (If you have such relatives use these words too.) great grandfather, great grandmother, great grandson, great granddaughter, step father, step mother, step son, step daughter

So, start learning English through pictures.