PhraseMix Articles

What do you do in English, other than study it?

When students ask me how to improve their English ability, here's what I always tell them:

Don't just study English; do something in English.

I say that because language isn't something that you can learn just by studying it. It's not a subject like History or Economics....

How do YOU study a PhraseMix lesson?

When you read a PhraseMix lesson, which part do you spend the most time reading and thinking about?

At the top of each lesson, I describe a specific situation and then give an example of something you can say, write, think, read, or hear. Below that, I break the example down into words and ...

How to improve your English listening comprehension

Why spoken English is difficult to understand

A lot of English learners have trouble understanding what native English speakers say.

One reason that real English is difficult to understand is that the English in classrooms and textbooks is very different from how people really speak. Some...

Use the site comments to increase your English learning.

I want to encourage more PhraseMix readers to use the comments feature of the site because I think you can get a lot out of it. Leaving a comment is helpful because:

1. It gives you practice with writing in English.
2. It lets me know when there are points that readers are unclear on.
3. It provides...

What is the best way to learn English grammar?

Here's a question that I answered on the Q&A site Quora about learning grammar. It's a topic that I've written about before, but that was a long time ago. I think it's a point that should be repeated.:

Question: What is the best fun way to learn English grammar?

I...

Look for common English metaphors to help you understand new phrases

In the last phrase this week, "The video's pretty choppy on my end," I explain that English speakers think of a telephone or online conversation as an imaginary string between two people. So you can talk about "my end" or "your end" of a conversation, just like you can talk about the two "ends"...

A Skype conversation: "flipping a coin"

Here's a Skype conversation I had this morning with an English learner:

Shinichi: Hi, can i ask you a question?
PhraseMix: Hi
PhraseMix: Good morning.
PhraseMix: Sure, ask away.
Shinichi: first question: how do you say コインをひっくり返すin english?
PhraseMix: "flip a coin" (but I had to look it up)
Shinichi:...

Learn proper English, and then make mistakes on purpose!

I have a confession to make: I love saying things the wrong way.

In the morning, when people at work say "How are you?" I usually answer "Wonderful!" instead of "Fine" or "Good". When I call an old friend, I don't say "Hey man, how's it going?". Instead I try to think of some new funny way to say...

Should we forget about PhraseMix and just go make international friends?

Yesterday I read a post at the Fluent in 3 Months blog. The author, Benny, says:

If you want to speak a language well, the amount of money or quantity of course material or choosing the “best” one to invest in, or how much you study, will not determine your success. It’s how...

Don't try to learn similar phrases together (or you might make a dumb mistake like I almost did)!

Should you learn similar words and phrases at the same time, or words and phrases that are different from each other?

The first instinct for most language teachers and learners is to group similar vocabulary together. When I first began learning Japanese, I had a list of animal names to study, a...