Learning New Words — tip 5 of 5! #NewWordsWeek The honest test: talk to your voice assistant in English. Try voice commands on devices. Three tasks — set a timer for ten minutes, ask for tomorrow's weather, add "buy coffee" to your list. If the machine understands you, people will. If it mishears a word, that's your homework: write the word down, check the audio in the dictionary (tip 2), try again tomorrow. That's the goal all week, by the way: not a perfect accent. Being understood.