The stereotype often holds true: learning English can be very hard. Luckily, the rise of the Internet has given aspiring English speakers a number of ways to learn the language quickly and efficiently. While it's always preferable to learn English from real, live speakers, you can do a lot of the necessary work just by jumping on the Web. After a little time using a variety of multimedia resources, you could be speaking English like a native.

Immerse yourself in the English language through streaming video. Sites such as YouTube are full of videos in which people speak English. While many English speakers will be talking too fast for you to really absorb it at first, you will soon find yourself picking up more and more words. If you watch TV series and films on Hulu, many videos allow you to watch with subtitles, so you can learn what the words look like, as well as hearing them.

Listen to as many English speakers as you can. If you have an MP3 player, listen to podcasts specifically devoted to teaching you English as a second language. ESL Podcast features free audio files that will teach you vocabulary as well as proper sentence structure. More importantly, they simulate social situations so you can practice communicating in, say, a fine restaurant before you actually find yourself there.

Study online lessons such as the ones found at EnglishPage.com. These tutorials explain a certain facet of English, such as verb tenses. Then you will complete some pages of exercises to make sure you've learned the lesson and truly assimilated it.

Take online English quizzes once you have enough of a background in the written word. These will test your knowledge of those sometimes-tricky rules that cause so many problems for people learning the language. At UsingEnglish.com, for instance, you can take quizzes that make sure you know when to use "to," "too" and "two."

Contact a tutor who can provide you with help over the Internet once you have developed your skills to the point where you need an expert's help. Services will vary, depending on which site you contact, but one-on-one lessons and proofreading are common offerings. Online tutors will also usually help you with the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), the test that assures English-speaking universities that your language skills are good enough for you to deserve admission.