English Grammar

To sound more natural try using these in informal situations. Yo Hiya Whatsup? Howdy Hey hey Follow me for more Everyday English.

How people celebrate New Year in Shanghai ? New Year just passed, and Shanghai feels very different during this time. Families get together, streets are quieter than usual, and people say more warm words instead of rushing around. In Shanghainese, one common New Year greeting is: “新年快乐” → Xin-nie khua-lo And a very local way to say “Happy New Year” is: “新年好啊！” Shanghainese sounds quite soft and musical compared to Mandarin. Even simple greetings already feel very “Shanghai”. Do you celebrate New Year differently where you live? 😊

Do you speak English? No. Very Difficult. Can you help me, please?

Si usted es un hablante nativo de español que intenta aprender inglés como segundo idioma, probablemente ya sabe lo diferentes que son los sonidos del inglés y del español. En primer lugar, tenemos MUCHOS sonidos vocálicos que simplemente no existen en español —y sí, importan. Podemos oír la diferencia entre palabras como "hat" (sombrero) y "hot" (caliente), o "teen" (adolescente) y "tin" (hojalata), tan claramente como se oye la diferencia entre "lado" y "lodo" en español. En mi experiencia como profesor de ESL, he notado que aprender una buena pronunciación no es muy difícil—solo necesitas un buen modelo y alguien con quien practicar que te dé indicaciones sobre cómo hacer los sonidos, así como una buena retroalimentación. El problema es que vivimos en una sociedad impaciente; a la gente le gustan los enfoques rápidos y ligeros. Muchos alumnos nuevos tratan de evitar cualquier cosa "pesada". Pero un poco de trabajo extra en el desarrollo de una buena fonología inglesa NO es terriblemente tedioso—solo requiere un poco de atención extra al principio. Después de eso, ¡se vuelve fácil! Pero los alumnos que descuidan aprender a hacer los sonidos del inglés con cuidado siempre lucharán con su pronunciación. Además, después de repetir algo incorrectamente una y otra vez, hasta el punto de la automaticidad, es difícil romper con los arraigados hábitos del habla. Es mucho mejor, desde el principio, dedicar un poco de tiempo a desarrollar una buena fonología; así, la pronunciación correcta se vuelve natural.

Happy New Year. The end of 2025, I spent a lot of time working at my part-time job during the year-end holidays. Because of that, I was quite busy and often felt tired, but I think it was a meaningful way to end the year. On New Year’s Eve, I treated myself to a special meal. I ate soba noodles with two pieces of shrimp tempura, which felt very luxurious and made the moment more memorable. Eating traditional food helped me feel the atmosphere of the New Year and relax after a long period of work. During the New Year holidays, I received New Year’s money from my parents and my grandmother. I was very grateful for their kindness and support. Receiving otoshidama reminded me that I am still supported by my family, and it motivated me to use the money wisely. I also spent time with my relatives. We went bowling together, and although I am not very good at bowling, I really enjoyed playing and laughing with them. After that, we ate eel at a restaurant. The food was delicious, and it was nice to share a meal while talking about our lives. This year, I want to stay healthy and grow more than I did last year. I hope to challenge myself and make this year a meaningful one.

Try to imagine an egg laughing. What would happen to its shell? Confused? Well, then maybe it's best to listen to the episode in full. In this final episode of American Idiom, Mona and I discuss the phrasal verb CRACK UP. Thank you for listening! --- And thank you very much to IqbalStock for the photo

English tutor Alice here to teach you some common ways to say hello in American English. Hi Hey What's up If you're wanting to improve your casual American English speaking skills then check out my tutor profile and book a lesson!

My favorite time of the year is January, when we set goals and dream about what we want to achieve. If one of your 2026 goals is learning a new language, or specifically Spanish, I can help you check that off your list. So what are you waiting for? ¡Vamos a hablar juntos!

I came across a scary article online about an accident with twice as high death rate as traffic one in elderly persons. So, I would like to summarize and share some of the interesting points here. As I mentioned before, Japanese people have a custom of soaking in the bath. So, some of them are looking forward to bath in winter, but there are quite a few people who die in the bath. That often happens to the elderly generation, but sometimes to the young one as well. There have been plenty of unnatural death cases while taking bath at home. That kind of cases are like you saw your parent blacked out sinking his/her head in the water and called an ambulance. One of the causes for elderly generation is the most famous symptom called "Heat Shock". The temperature change causes the drastic change of your blood pressure and leads to losing consciousness due to anemia when you move from a warm room to a cold changing one and soak in thee bath in winter. That leads your elderly parents to die from drowning. In the case of the young one, that happens easily when you are exhausted and are lack of sleep and drink too much. That's why you need to pay attention when elderly persons take a bath in winter. Japanese Consumer Affairs Agency shared countermeasures to prevent accidents while taking a bath as follows, 1)To warm up bathroom and changing room before taking a bath 2)To stay hydrated to prevent being dehydrated 3)To stop taking a bath just after having meals, drinking and taking medicines 4)To keep the temperature of bath water below 41 degrees 5)To lie and soak in the bath for less than 10 minutes 6)To avoid standing up suddenly in the bath I just turned 60 this month. So, this kind of accident is not just about other people for me now.