Espresso English Podcast

Today I’m answering a question from a student who asked how to use the phrases “I couldn’t agree more” and “I couldn’t care less” – so today I’ll explain them by using a couple of mini-dialogues. When you’re learning English phrases, it’s so helpful to learn them in context – that way you can see how people use them, and understand the phrases better.   That’s why the lessons in my Everyday English Speaking Courses are based on conversations! First you read/listen to a conversation, and then you learn the phrases that were used. It's fun, fast, and really works well for improving your spoken English  :-)

Today I want to help you avoid a very common mistake that lots of people make – and that is writing the word “grammar” like this: G-R-A-M-M-E-R. There’s actually NO “e” in the word grammar; the correct spelling is G-R-A-M-M-A-R. But when we speak, we pronounce it like “er” – grammer, not gram-MAR – so that’s why people often misspell it with -er. It’s an understandable error. There are actually lots of words in English that end with -ar or -or in an unstressed syllable, and we pronounce them more like -ER. Let’s practice more of these words. If you want to avoid more mistakes that many English learners make, check out my 200 Common Errors in English Course.   I’ll teach you the most common grammar mistakes, vocabulary mistakes, spelling mistakes, pronunciation mistakes, and more – showing you the right way to say things so that you can speak and write more confidently in English!

Today I’m going to teach you 10 English idioms for talking about problems and difficulties. Speaking of problems, idioms like these can be a problem when you’re learning English! When you’re watching TV or listening to a native speaker talk, you’ll often hear idioms and they’re hard to understand because you can’t translate them word-for-word; you have to know the meaning of the whole expression. My course called 300+ idioms in 30 days will teach you tons of common idioms in a way that’s especially effective because it actually helps you figure out idioms from context, and also put them into practice yourself.

Today we have a GREAT question from a student who asked: “Which is correct: if I was… or if I were…?” The answer is that we use BOTH in English, but in different situations! I’ll give you some good examples to make it clear. Try to practice this right away by writing two sentences – one with “if I were” and one with “if I was” – to help you remember when to use each one correctly! Do you sometimes find yourself frustrated by English grammar? The problem might be that nobody has explained it to you very clearly - and when you look for grammar information online, it can just confuse you more...   Inside my Grammar E-Books, each lesson is clearly explained to make it as easy as possible to learn correct grammar and use it confidently. They have 70+ lessons, with quizzes, and also audio for listening practice - and you can get both e-books for the GREAT price of $7!

Today we’re going to learn some very practical phrases that native English speakers use for making invitations and responding to them - whether you want to accept the invitation (say yes) or decline the invitation (say no). When you know the phrases that native English speakers use, then you can use them confidently without worrying if your English sounds strange or wrong. That’s why I created the Everyday English Speaking Courses – to help you learn real phrases and expressions for daily life!   There are actually two levels – Level 1 focuses on more practical English for everyday situations, and Level 2 focuses on more advanced expressions used in conversation.

It's the goal that every English learner dreams of... being FLUENT in English! But what's the fastest way to get there? Today, I'm going to tell you my opinion and response to this question.  

If you're working on improving your spoken English, you might have a problem with pauses.  Maybe you start a sentence, but you hesitate because you're not sure how exactly to express your thought in English. You know how to say it in your native language, but you're just not sure how to translate it. This is really annoying because even though you can speak some English, you feel slow and incomplete - you definitely don't feel like you're fluent. Today you're going to learn how to eliminate pauses and hesitation when you speak.

Yesterday you learned how you can get fluent faster by focusing on learning phrases, NOT on memorizing individual words or grammar rules. But there's another problem that might be holding you back from becoming fluent. That problem is not being confident in your English. Here are three simple ways you can increase your confidence to speak English.

Over the next four days, I'm going to share with you my best tips for improving your English speaking. Let's get started! Here's one reason it can be hard to speak English. You might know a good number of English words... but then it's difficult to put them together into sentences when you speak. First of all, it's a LOT of work to put together an entire sentence word by word. It takes a lot of time, and it makes your speaking slow. Second, a lot of questions come into your mind: Am I using the right words? Is the grammar in this phrase correct? What if I make a mistake? Will the other person laugh at me or not understand what I'm trying to say? These doubts and worries can STOP you from speaking, or make you nervous to try! So my first tip that will help you speak English fluently and confidently is NOT to focus on memorizing words or grammar rules.  Instead, focus on learning phrases.

A collocation is two or more words that go together naturally. Learning collocations is essential for making your English sound fluent and natural! Today we'll learn 50 English collocations with the words big, great, large, deep, strong, and heavy. These words all seem rather similar, but they are used in DIFFERENT combinations of words. WOW, those were a LOT of collocations – are you ready to see how well you learned them? Click here to take a quiz! It’s so important to practice and review what you’re learning, and that’s why every lesson in my 1000 collocations e-book also has a quiz. Each lesson in the e-book only takes about 10 minutes a day, so you can learn a lot of English in little time.

Are you ready to practice your pronunciation with some longer words? The ones we’ll practice today all have 5 syllables – like the word vocabulary: vo-CA-bu-la-ry I’ll say each word twice – once a little more slowly with some separation between the syllables, and then once at normal speed. Repeat after me both times. To improve your pronunciation FAST, join my Pronunciation & Shadowing Courses. My pronunciation course will train you to pronounce all the sounds in the English language clearly and correctly, and then the shadowing course helps you practice saying whole phrases after me. There’s a discount when you join both courses together!

When writing letters and e-mails in business English, it's really important to avoid mistakes - which can make your writing look unprofessional. Today you'll learn about 10 common mistakes in business English writing. I'll explain why they are wrong and how to correct them. If you want to learn the phrases that native English speakers use for business English letters, e-mails, interviews, meetings, presentations, negotiations, and more – check out my Business English Course! The 40 lessons inside will teach you hundreds of vocabulary words and useful phrases to help you speak and write in English more confidently at work.

Today we’re going to do a vocabulary with pictures lesson to help you learn 20 words for shapes in English, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional ones. You’ll learn both the noun form (the name of the shape itself) and the adjective form (how to describe something else with this shape) – in some cases those are the same, and in other cases they’re different. Have you ever wanted to say something in English, but you just couldn’t think of the right word? That’s a vocabulary problem, and it can be really frustrating! If you want to expand your vocabulary fast, come join my Vocabulary Builder Courses.   Not only do they have lessons that are full of useful words and pictures, but they also have quizzes and exercises to help you put the new words into practice right away.  

Come along, come across, come off, come on, come out, come over, come up... Phrasal verbs like these can be easy to confuse because they all seem so similar! Today we’re going to learn 10 phrasal verbs with the word “come,” and I’ll give you an example sentence for each one to show you how it’s used in English. I challenge you to try writing your own sentences with each of these phrasal verbs – because when you use them yourself, that’s when you really start to remember them better so that they will come out naturally when you speak English.   Inside my Phrasal Verbs in Conversation Course, each lesson includes questions that help you use the phrasal verbs yourself, and you can send in your sentences for correction and feedback from the Espresso English teaching team. This course is a simple, easy, and natural way to learn more than 500 common phrasal verbs in English!

Right now it’s summer, and it’s hot as blazes! (= the weather is extremely hot). This inspired me to teach you 15 English words and expressions with “hot.” Some of these are idioms – short phrases or expressions that you can’t understand literally, you can’t translate them word for word to get their meaning – instead, you have to know the meaning of the whole phrase. Your own language has idioms, too... and lots of them are probably different from the ones we use in English! That’s why I created a course to help you learn idioms fast – it’s called 300+ English idioms in 30 days. Inside it, you’ll practice understanding common idioms from context, you’ll learn what they mean, and then you’ll try to use them yourself.

If you had to talk with a doctor in English, would you know what to say? In today’s lesson you’ll learn phrases and vocabulary for talking about medical problems. Now you’re a bit better-equipped to talk to a doctor in English if you ever need to someday – but there’s a lot more to learn! In order to be fluent and CONFIDENT in English, you have to be comfortable speaking English in many different situations in day-to-day life. My Everyday English Speaking Course will teach you the phrases you need for these situations! You’ll learn what to say in restaurants, while shopping, on the phone, while traveling, socializing, and much more. This is my most popular course because it’s so practical and useful  :-)  

Today’s lesson will be a challenging one – we’re going to look at 10 more advanced vocabulary words. But I’m not going to just tell you what they mean… instead, you’ve got to try to figure out what they mean based on an example sentence. I’ll show you a sentence with the word and give you three choices for what it means. Try to choose the correct answer, and after a few seconds I'll show you the right one. If you like the higher-level words in this lesson and you want to learn over 1000 more of them, check out my Advanced Vocabulary and Collocations Course. It will teach you sophisticated vocabulary words and how to put them together naturally, so that you can reach a higher level of English fluency. When you join, you'll get 45 lessons that are packed with amazing words! There's also an option to add writing exercises with feedback from our teaching team :-)

The English language has a lot of silent letters that cause difficulties for both native speakers and English learners, because they make the spelling of words different from their pronunciation. You don’t want to make embarrassing mistakes by saying these words wrong, so today let’s practice pronouncing some common English words with silent letters from A to Z!   Thanks for practicing with me! When you practice by repeating out loud, you’re training your mouth to pronounce these English words more clearly, so that other people can understand you even better. My American English Pronunciation Course has tons of listen and repeat exercises – both words and full sentences – so that you can get this essential practice and improve your pronunciation fast. I hope to see you in the course :-)

What's today's date? Can you answer quickly in English? A lot of English learners have doubts about how to say and write dates correctly, and you don’t want to make mistakes with something so common and basic. So let’s make sure you’re doing it the right way, because there are a lot of little details to remember. If you want make less mistakes fewer mistakes in your English, it’s good to learn the most common ones so that you can avoid them! This means your English will be more accurate, and you can also speak and write more confidently since you know you’re saying things correctly. I created a course called 200 Common Errors in English for exactly this reason! The 40 lessons in this course can help you fix any mistakes you might be making in grammar, spelling, pronunciation, and more.

Do you know what it means to: drop someone a line get your wires crossed or beat around the bush? These are all examples of idioms that we’re going to learn today! Idioms and informal expressions like these are used frequently in movies, TV shows, and casual conversations. But a lot of English textbooks don't teach you these expressions! So you might be confused when you hear them in real life. That's why I created the 300+ English Idioms Course - to teach you the most common idiomatic expressions! After you learn the idioms, there are quizzes and writing exercises to help you review and practice the expressions.