Favorite Links for Learning English

Listen to me read this post


This audio post is about my favorite websites for learning English. It's really long so I'm putting the transcript and all of the links after the break.  Click on the "Read More" button if you want to read what I'm saying in the audio. 
  




Transcript:
Hi, Today I'd like to talk about some of my favorite websites.  I've mentioned them in other posts but I thought I'd give you one, one post with all of them sort of together.

OK, so, my first recommendation is a website called PhraseMix.com and I'll have all these links in the show notes. Phrase Mix has one phrase every day in English. And it is something that is like an idiom or slang or the way we speak real English and the author explains what it means, how to use it, and how you can use it.  You can also pay for premium service on that site and hear audio of the phrase. But just reading about the meaning of the different sentences is very helpful. 

I find it really fascinating to read. Even though I already speak English, I don't always know why we say what we say.  So, it's very interesting to read these really clear explanations of real English American phrases.

The second site I would like to talk about is EnglishCentral.com. As you've seen on my website, I have lots of videos from EnglishCentral.com.  It is a website produced by Google and it just has tons of different videos grabbed from real life and Google has added captions to them.  So, while you are watching the video and listening to it, you can see the words as they are being spoken. But what's really great about the videos is after they're finished, you can record yourself repeating, line by line, the same speech.  And the English Central site will give you a grade and suggestions on improving your pronunciation.  It's really the only place I know that has a good way to practice pronunciation.  The videos are rated from easy, medium, and hard.  And, like I said, they are on a variety of topics so you are sure to find something that you find interesting.

OK, the next site I would like to talk about is called Antimoon.com.  I don't know what the title means "antimoon" but the site was written by a person in Poland, who taught himself, along with his friend, English and it's all about their thoughts on how to learn English by yourself. So, it's really good for many reasons because it's from a foreigner's perspective, someone who is not fluent in English (not a native English speaker.)  So, it talks about how they were able to overcome the challenges that they faced in learning English.  And also, they talk about doing it on your own. So, outside of class, what you can do to add your own learning experiences and so forth.

The next website that I would like to talk about is called successfulenglish.com.  It's a blog that again just talks about a method for learning English and has differnt ideas.  So, alot of these websites you can just read.  Another one that's a blog that talks about a certain method that the author finds useful is called towerofbabelfish.com.  And so both of these websites are blogs and post regularly with tips and methods for learning English.  Check 'em out.  You may find some of the posts more useful than others and hopeful you'll find some information that you can use.

OK...another blog that I like is called...  Well, it's vickihollett.com.   And like I said I'll have the links to all these websites in the show notes.  The title of her blog is called How to  speak 'merican.  And it's really interesting because she is British and she's an English teacher, who has come to the United States and she's lived here apparently for a long time and now she blogs about learning to speak like an American.  Because even though in England and the United States we both speak English, we do it differently.  We have different sayings.  We use words differently.  So, it's really interesting to read her take on the differences.  And she has lots of nice tips and videos and things that are just fun to read.  So, you can check that out.  

Alright. Now another source for learning English is dictionary websites.  So, one of my favorite ones for people who are not native English speakers is called The Learner's Dictionary  and you find that at learnersdictionary.com.  It's a dictionary for American English and it's for ESL students, and EFL students and for the TOEFL test.  And on the site they have their 3000 words you need to know.  So, they've kind of made a list of the top 3000 words that if you know these words and master them and learn them that your English will be quite good. So, they have that list. 

They also have a word of the day and the thing I like about the word of the day on this website as opposed to other ones you may have seen at other places is that these are everyday words.  They're words that come up quite frequently and they are really good words to know.  Where other websites that have a word-of-the-day, or books that are word-of-the-day, they're usually high, advanced level words.  So, they are really directed at someone who already knows English. A native english speaker to kick up their language to another notch.  So, it's not really, a word-of-the-day calendar or book, really isn't geared towards people who are just learning English.  But the one on The Learner's Dictionary site is and it will be really useful for you.  
 
So, that's my recommendation for you to check out these websites and I hope you find them useful.  If there are any website that you like to use please share them with me and the other readers in the comment section below.  And thank you as usual for listening.  This has been Cassie Brenn for fastfoodenglish.blogspot.com              

Show Notes
www.phrasemix.com
www.englishcentral.com
www.antimoon.com
www.successfulenglish.com
www.towerofbabelfish.com
www.learnersdictionary.com/
www.vickihollett.com/