How can we improve our English Speaking? What are some strategies that we can use to help us speak English more naturally, more fluently and more accurately? Hear from expert English teachers who share their knowledge on how to speak English more effectively.

Our expert guest Jeff teaches us all about the 'ping-pong' teaching method, to help you improve your speaking with ease!

ESL Talk

Speaking Strategies that work!

In this episode of Your Spanish Journey, I'll talk about one of the most difficult grammar points: the subjunctive mood. I'll give you some practical examples and its most common uses so that you start using it correctly. Relax and enjoy!

Your Spanish Journey

¡Espero que aprendas mucho! - The subjunctive mood in the present.

    Nǐ shì lǎoshī ma？
A：你  是   老师   吗？
    Wǒ bú shì lǎoshī, wǒ shì xuéshenɡ.
B：我 不  是   老师，  我  是    学生。


HSK Standard Course Level 1 Audio of the textbook

Lesson 3 text 2

Confest är Australiens största alternativa livsstilsfestival, jag var där över påskdagarna och pratar om det. Min mest transformativa workshop var breathwork och mina olika upplevelser av festivalen. Jag rekommenderar alla att åka dit om de är i Australien och vill uppleva Australien från den mest välkomnande och ögonöppnande sidan. Confest hålls varje påsk. 

Tankar på svenska

Tankar På Svenska : Confest 2024

The Nordic countries of Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden are regularly top scorers in world happiness rankings. These countries have placed in the top 10 of the World Happiness Report (WHR) every year since 2013 — so what's their secret?

These five countries score well in all six of the things considered in the WHR: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.

But the WHR has noted that there might be another thing these countries have more of than others — trust.

Trust is very important, says WHR editor John F. Helliwell, a former professor at the University of British Columbia. And he developed a study to test how community trust is linked to better well-being.

In Helliwell's study, he looked at how likely people thought it would be for a lost wallet to be returned to them, and he compared this to their life satisfaction score from zero to 10.

He found that those who expected their wallet to be returned had a higher life satisfaction score.

"We find people are much, much happier if they feel they're in an environment where people are going to watch their back," Helliwell told Euro News.

In a 2023 experiment by Reader's Digest, wallets were actually left for people to find in cities around the world. And where was a lost wallet most likely to be returned? In Helsinki, the capital of Finland.

The WHR has noted that a high level of trust may be among the things that explain Nordic happiness.

However, as Forbes has suggested, it may not be so much about big-smile "happiness" as quieter "contentment."

Rather than always trying for something better, people in Scandinavian countries are more often content with what they have. As a result, few of them will say they are unhappy — which helps these countries do well in world happiness rankings.

Practice Listening, Reading & Comprehension

What's the Secret to Nordic Countries' Happiness?

Do you find it harder to be nice and cooperative when you're tired? You're not alone — and there's actually science behind that feeling.

Researchers in Italy looked at how being tired affected people's brains and the decisions they made.

They looked at a total of almost 450 people. The participants all started by doing a set of similar tasks for about 45 minutes — but for one group, the tasks were made much more difficult to make the participants mentally tired.

For example, the mentally tired group was given more difficult quiz questions to answer. And while everyone watched funny videos, the mentally tired group was told to try not to smile or laugh.

Participants then played several economic games that asked them to make decisions that would give different benefits to themselves and others, like deciding how to share points in a group.

It was found that mentally tired participants were much less likely to make cooperative decisions in the games. They were also more likely to choose "antisocial" and "spiteful" options — where they could, say, choose to use some of their own points to reduce someone else's points instead of using them to help themselves or the group.

Why did this happen?

Among the mentally tired group, the researchers found a much stronger increase in "slow-wave" activity in parts of the brain used for things like planning, paying attention, controlling emotions and understanding others. These "slow waves" are similar to the ones seen in our brains when we sleep.

The researchers said this increase in slow waves may explain tired participants' less cooperative decisions.

So when you're tired after a long day, you may be less nice because the parts of your brain you need to help you cooperate are actually going to sleep!

Science of Spite: Why We're Meaner when We're Tired

I went on a trip to Idaho and visited an interactive aquarium.

Animals mentioned: stingrays, parakeets, doctor fish, sea stars (starfish)

Learn English with Stories

My Visit to an Aquarium

NASA has given SpaceX an $843 million contract to build the vehicle that will help to destroy the International Space Station (ISS).

Space X, a company that's controlled by Elon Musk, will build the vehicle but the mission will be led by NASA.

The ISS was launched in 1998 and it's likely that it will have to be removed from space in the next few years.

The station is operated by space agencies from the US, Europe, Japan, Canada and Russia. All the countries involved have said they'll operate the station until 2030 except Russia, which has said it will operate it until 2028.

Teams of astronauts have been living in the space station since 2000. During that time, they have done more than 3,300 experiments in space.

It's expected that the SpaceX vehicle will pull the ISS through space before landing it in the sea. Both are likely to break apart as they re-enter Earth's atmosphere.

NASA said that it will be focusing on "commercially owned space destinations closer to home" as life on the ISS comes to an end.

The contract is seen as another vote of confidence for the company that Musk founded in 2002.

But experts say it won't be easy bringing such a large space station back to Earth safely.

Meghan Bartels from Scientific American said it will be a "delicate" challenge.

She said it took 42 different launches to send the ISS into space, where it was put together in orbit.

She added: "The orbiting laboratory contains about as much internal space as a six-bedroom house spread over an area the size of a football field," and that it weighs almost as much as three blue whales.

It's not yet known what the vehicle will look like or exactly when the mission will take place.

SpaceX Given Contract to Destroy Space Station

こんにちは！
Japanese daily life podcast のAtsushiです。
このPodcastは、日本語を楽しく勉強しているみなさんに向けたPodcastです。

今日は、N3の漢字をやります！
未をやります！　

音読み　み
訓読み　いまーだ　送り仮名は、だ

意味は、まだ、いまだに〜しない、とかです。

例えば、

・未成年ーみせいねん　成年じゃない

・未来ーみらい　まだ来ていない時

・未完成ーみかんせい　まだ完成していないこと

・未明ーみめい　ニュースなどでは、0時〜3時のこと

・未遂ーみすい　計画がとげられていないこと

こんな感じですね。
これを使って例文を作っていきましょう！

・未成年はお酒も飲めないし、タバコも吸えません

・未来のことを考えるとワクワクする

・人は未完成であることが楽しいと思います

・11/21未明のできごとでした

・その男は殺人未遂で逮捕されました


こんな感じです。

今回も最後まで聞いていただき、ありがとうございます！
ではまた！
