Espresso English Podcast

Today I’d like you to consider this question: Is your English unbalanced? If something is unbalanced, it means it is not equal, it is not even. There is more in one part, and less in another part. What does it mean for your English to be unbalanced? Learning a language has many different aspects: Reading Writing Listening Speaking Grammar Vocabulary If you are strong in some areas, but weak in others, your English is unbalanced. Some students read a lot - even advanced texts - but they can't understand much when they listen. Some students have a large vocabulary... but they can't put the words they know into phrases. Some students are great at grammar, and can write very well... but have very bad pronunciation, and it's difficult to understand their accent. This is what it means for your English to be unbalanced. And in a moment, I'll give you some tips for solving this problem. But first, look at those six aspects of the English language and think about which area you are strongest in, and whic

Let’s talk about goals! The English word "goal" has both a sports meaning and a non-sports meaning – and today we’ll learn 20 common collocations (combinations of words) with "goal." I want to help you reach your goal of becoming fluent in English! That’s why I created a Complete Program of courses and e-books that will help you improve all your skills - from speaking and listening to grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and much more. January is the best time to join because you get the best price available all year. Sometimes other English teachers tell me... "Shayna, you're CRAZY for offering 50% off your Complete Program!" Why do I give such a big discount? Because I want to reward dedicated students who are serious about reaching their English fluency goals! And it's even easier to get the Complete Program with a payment plan to divide the total amount into smaller payments over time. Usually we only offer 3-month and 6-month payment plans, but if you join in January you can spread the payments out

In today’s lesson you’ll learn the sentence structures we use for talking about plans and goals, hopes and dreams – with lots of examples. But first let me ask you: Do you have a plan for improving your English this year? If you DON'T have a plan... ❌ you won't know what to study ❌ you won't feel like you're making progress ❌ you'll lose motivation But if you DO have a plan for your English learning... ✔️ it's easier to study consistently ✔️ you'll know exactly what to learn next ✔️ you'll be confident that your English is improving day by day When you join my Complete Program, you'll get a suggested study plan that takes you from the easier lessons up through the more advanced ones. Now is the perfect time to sign up at the special January price!

Many people make special plans and goals at this time of year, and we call these "new year’s resolutions." In today’s lesson we’ll learn lots of different phrases for them. Now is the time to set your English-learning goals! If you’re looking for a step-by-step program that will help you make real progress towards fluency all year long, come join the Complete Espresso English Program. In the month of January, you can get ALL the courses and e-books in the program for the best possible monthly price. All right, are you ready to learn some phrases for the top new year’s resolutions? Here we go! How does the Espresso English Complete Program compare to other English learning options? 1 year in a local English school = $1,000+ 1 year of daily private lessons = $5,000+ 1 year of intensive classes in an English-speaking country = $10,000+ (plus travel and living expenses) But you can get 600+ of our best Espresso English lessons in the Complete Program - not for $600 (that's the normal total price)... but fo

When learning another language, it's easy to make the mistake of being a little bit rude, since you might not be aware of the phrases that are considered "polite" or "impolite" by native speakers. I’m sure you already know to say “Please”, “Thank you,” and “Excuse me” – but today I’ll teach you 15 more ways to make your English sound more polite. Polite English is especially important if you're learning English for your job or career. You want to have good relationships with coworkers, make a positive impression on clients, and sound pleasant during interviews. If you'd like to learn English phrases that are perfect for professional situations, check out my Business English Course! You'll find out specifically what to say in interviews, meetings, negotiations, and conversations with customers and co-workers.

Do you ever notice that we use the word “said” a lot? He said this, she said that, then I said something else. Now there’s nothing wrong with the word “said,” it’s perfectly fine – but the English language has TONS of other options. Today we’re going to learn 40 words you can use instead of “said” – and as you will see, each one adds some extra meaning. If you want to expand your vocabulary even further beyond basic words, then you’ll love my Advanced Vocabulary and Collocations Course! The lessons inside teach you more than 1,000 high-level words to help take your English vocabulary from “simple” to “sophisticated.” One student described it as “like a gold mine for my vocabulary.”  Check it out and join so you can sound more well-educated and fluent in English!

Today I’m going to explain why we never say “more better.” English learners sometimes say things like, “My English is getting more better” – but it’s ALWAYS incorrect. Take the lesson to learn the right way to express comparatives! I hope this helps make things clear! If you already understand this well and you’re ready for a more advanced study of grammar, come join my Advanced English Grammar Course, where we go into much more detail on grammar topics that will help you master the English language.   We cover all the verb tenses, prepositions and connecting words, and more complex sentence structures – and what’s great about it is that there’s lots of practice, so that you’re not just “memorizing rules” but instead you’re actually using the grammar yourself, which helps you remember it much better.

Once I asked my students, “What are the most difficult English words for you to pronounce?” and I got a lot of great answers! Today we’re going to practice 15 words that English learners often find hard to say. I’ll say each one once slowly, once at normal speed, and then I’ll say an example sentence – so listen and repeat after me each time. Did you know that you can improve your pronunciation a LOT in the next 30 days when you join my American English Pronunciation Course? By doing a lesson a day, you’ll practice all the sounds of American English, so that your spoken English becomes clearer and clearer.

The verb “be” is one of the most common words in the English language – but it has different forms, like be, being, and been. Do you know when to use each one correctly? I’ll explain it today, with plenty of examples! If you’re looking for simple, clear, step-by-step grammar lessons, check out my Basic & Intermediate Grammar E-Books. They’ll teach you essential English grammar so that you can use it confidently without mistakes. Each lesson in the e-books also has a quiz for practice, and they also come with audio for listening practice.

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!