My question for you today is: Would you rather have a lot of friends from your country or speak perfect English, increase your earning potential and make a lot of money in your future career? (earning potential = the amount of money you can make in your job) If you answered the second option, then [...]
Are you afraid of writing? Don’t be. Have a little fun. Think of it as a kind of lying (lying=not telling the truth) that you’re allowed to do. For some people, writing anything in English, especially a TOEFL essay, makes them break out in a cold sweat (to break out in a cold sweat = [...]
People ask you about what you did in the past all the time, so it’s important to know how to explain all the details of what happened in the past. Someone might ask you what you did yesterday or what you did last week. Do you know how to answer? Here’s a video lesson on [...]
When I lived and traveled through Mexico and Central America for a year (Note – ‘traveled’ can be spelled as ‘travelled’ if you are not living in the United States), every day I wrote in a spiral notebook, which served as a journal (a spiral notebook – a notebook that has a wire binding…wires that [...]
Are you too pretty or too intelligent? You’d better hope you are NOT too pretty or too intelligent. It’s much better to be so intelligent or very pretty. In this video lesson, I explain the difference between too + an adjective and so/very + an adjective. See the transcript below if you can’t understand. Hello, [...]
What have you done to improve your English? Some of my students have watched a lot of American TV. Some of my students decided they wanted to study five hours a day after going to class for six hours. Some of my students partied with Americans (to party with s.o. = to go out with [...]
Sometimes you really need a caffeine fix (a caffeine fix = caffeine to help your brain work). If you do, you don’t want to be stressed out about (to be stressed out about s.t. = to be worried about s.t.) how to order your java (java = coffee). This is a simple explanation to help [...]
I went to the Getty Center for this video post. I think this museum is thoroughly enjoyable and those of you who come through LA should bathe, put on clean clothes and go. Though you should leave your gothic, moth-eaten clothes along with the Christmas wreaths in your filthy closet. Does this seem like a [...]
Today I want to talk about the value of television (the value of s.t. = the benefit of s.t.) (s.t. = something). But first, I must start with a confession: I’ve always been anti-TV (anti- s.t = you don’t like s.t. or you disagree with s.t. or you think it’s bad in some way). I [...]
Should you swear in English? The answer is NO! Think about when foreigners swear in your language (swear = saying a bad word). Usually, it sounds wrong. They don’t use the word in the right situation or they say it a bit wrong. It’s like when a child swears. It makes you wince (wince = [...]