PhraseMix Articles

Ideas on learning from "Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong"

If you're a good reader in English, try to challenge yourself with this article from Wired magazine:

Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong

The article gives three main suggestions for improving your ability to learn:

1. Interleave your studying. Rather than just focusing on...

What's your favorite phrase?

Out of all the PhraseMix example sentences you've read, what's your favorite one? Why is it your favorite? Because it was new to you? Because it's funny? Because it perfectly fit a situation that you've encountered?

If you need to refresh your memory, here's the index of all the past PhraseMix...

Who would you like to speak like?

If you could sound like one particular English speaker, who would you want to sound like?

For me, I think it would be cool to have this guy's voice:

I've already explained in a past blog entry why you should try to do an impression of someone. So is there anyone special that you would like to...

The 5 levels of incorrect English

What does it mean to say that something is "wrong" in English? Sometimes PhraseMix readers ask me things like "Is this sentence correct?" and I have trouble answering directly. That's because there are actually several different meanings of the words "correct"...

Good English learning habit: carry around a piece of paper

I find that I forget a lot of what I learn. Do you have that problem?

For example, if I watch a movie in a foreign language, I usually hear a few interesting new phrases. If I'm paying attention, I might even think, "Hey, I should remember this for later!". But a few minutes later, it's gone. If...

5 steps to achieving your New Year's resolutions

I'm a big fan of New Year's resolutions. "New Year's resolutions" are yearly goals that you set for yourself at the beginning of a new year. They usually have to do with fitness, saving money, education, etc.

People often make New Year's resoltions at the beginning of...

What would you do if you could speak English perfectly?

Imagine that you were able to speak English perfectly. What would you do with that skill?

Would you give speeches? Negotiate deals? Read great literature? Pick up women? 

Would you make friends? What kind of people would you be friends with? What would you want to talk with them about?

...

8 reasons why your English isn't improving

Do you feel like you're becoming better at speaking English?

I often get emails from PhraseMix readers saying something like this:

"I need help. I've been studying English for a long time, but I don't feel like I'm improving. What do you suggest?"

Here are some of the most common reasons that...

How your brain learns English (and how it doesn't)

I sometimes worry that the lessons I write contain too much information.

"Information" includes anything that can be written as a "rule": grammar rules, explanations of the difference between two words, etc.

It's OK to learn information about English. But it's much, much more...

Listen to the lessons

You might have noticed that there's a new feature on PhraseMix. You can now listen to every key example sentence if you sign up for PhraseMix Premium. 

Learn more deeply by memorizing sentences

I provide explanations of different phrases with every PhraseMix lesson, but that's not really the...