Last week I showed you how to interrupt politely in a conversation. Now I am going to show you how to ask people to repeat themselves. A lot of students feel embarrassed by this but it is important for conversations between natives, natives and non-natives and also conversations between non-natives only speaking English. People often … [Read more…]
Everybody seems to think that interrupting people is rude. Maybe this is something learned when we are children, with our parents telling us, “Don’t interrupt when I’m talking.” Interrupting when it is unnecessary is rude but sometimes you simply must interrupt. Here are the ways to do it. Try to get someone’s attention visually. Sometimes … [Read more…]
You can tell stories easily by using four parts: beginning, main point, reaction and ending. Remember that stories usually stick to the past tense. Beginning It is common to use a past-continuous clause (was/were ~ing) and ‘when‘, followed by a past-tense clause (simple or continuous) for a detail to link to the main point. “I … [Read more…]
Paris Map by Stefano Creative Commons: Attribution Some cities have slightly different names in English to the way their names in other languages. Some of these are different pronunciations of the same spelling, such as Paris; others are wildly different, such as Florence and Prague. This week’s podcast teaches you how to say different city … [Read more…]
Comfort Zone: a place or situation where everything is comfortable and familiar. You can already read English well enough to understand this blog. This blog is not reading practice; it is part of your reading practice. I know that ‘real’ English (as opposed to ESL textbook English) is difficult but life is difficult, too. If … [Read more…]
In this week’s podcast I talk about describing food. This is useful when ordering in restaurants or helping friends know what to order. 12th Feb 2014 – Food Descriptions
These days a lot of people have smartphones. I think maybe only my parents have slim phones that only make calls and receive text messages. Most people use their smartphones for games or internet surfing or email. Some people use them to time their runs and record how many miles they have run. However, there … [Read more…]
When you are speaking English, it can be quite difficult to keep your speech flowing when you need to think about what to say. In this week’s podcast, I’ll show you how to pause like a native to sound more fluent and more confident. Podcast Link: 5th Feb 2014 Remember, if you like the podcast, … [Read more…]
Buying train tickets seems difficult but can be very easy. Sometimes using ticket machines is very easy but sometimes you need to speak to railway staff. Here are some easy words and phrases to help you buy train tickets. Some useful vocabulary to know: ‘single’ (British) or ‘one-way’ (American): travel from your start point to … [Read more…]
English presentations are very common in business and are becoming more common for students of the language too. Whatever the reason, here are some tips to help your presentations. Prepare You need to know what you want to say and the best way to remember it is practice. Prepare short prompts on index cards or … [Read more…]