One of the problems with earthquakes is that they tend to appear very suddenly. There are some warning signs, but they only appear quite shortly before the event and many can only be detected if you have specialist equipment.

It's easier to predict where an earthquake is likely to occur than when, since areas on fault lines are more vulnerable, and if there has been seismic activity in a place before, it may well happen again. As for predicting individual quakes, it turns out there is a lot of truth in the old story about animals being able to sense them. Dogs and other animals will often get upset in the hours before a quake, as they can sense a shift in the atmosphere. There may also be detectable movement in nearby rocks and disturbances in spring water, but to detect these you would need measuring equipment.

some people also seem to sense the tremors earlier than others, though this is hard to prove. You can learn more about earthquake prediction here.