Speak English Now Podcast: Learn English | Speak English Without Grammar.

Hi, everybody! I am Georgiana, your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. In this episode: – I’m going to talk briefly about how to activate your English vocabulary. – Next, I will comment on the appearance of mysterious islands. Sometimes, on a given day, certain people have seen some structures on the horizon that have caused an element of surprise. What could it be? – Finally, we will practice fluency with a short mini-story of questions and answers—the best exercise to speak without translating mentally. First of all, I want to thank all of you who are writing to me. I read all the emails personally, and I also answer them myself. One question I sometimes get is this: How can I activate my English vocabulary? I’ve covered this topic before, but I think it’s worth remembering. Most of the time, students understand much more than they can talk. That is, they have a lot of passive vocabulary, but no active vocabulary ready to be used in a co

Hi, everybody! I am Georgiana, your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently In this episode: • I’d like to help you to understand how to use words like Gonna, Wanna, Gotta, and similar. • Later, a point of view story to practice your English grammar, and consolidate the information that I’ll be teaching in the first part. Let’s get started! Are you confused about how and when to use the words GONNA, WANNA, and GOTTA? We refer to these kinds of words as contractions. What’s a contraction? A contraction is created when two words in a row come together and become one. For example: I am= I’m It is = It’s Do not = Don’t Will not= Won’t These are some contractions which are accepted as grammatically correct and are taught in all English courses. However, in this lesson, I’ll focus on the informal contractions. These are not taught in grammar books because their use is mostly colloquial. For example: If you say going to really fast, you can shorten it

Hi, everybody! I am Georgiana, your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. In this episode:         I'm going to give you seven ideas you can use when you perform repeated listening. After that, I'm going to read a Point Of View story. It' an excellent technique for improving your grammar. Ok, let's start! As you may know, I always encourage students to listen daily. Listening is the best way to deeply learn the different sounds, words, and expressions you find in English. It's how we learn our mother tongue. Also, it's vital to understand that listening to an audio several times helps you consolidate what you learn. However, some students complain that they get bored. It's normal. Our brain likes new and fresh content. In other words, we like the novelty. Here are some tricks, which will help you to keep your interest while you repeat the same audio material. Try to guess what the speaker will say next: At first, it may seem difficult, bu

Hello, everybody! I am Georgiana founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you to speak English fluently. In this episode: •I'll be discussing some more about some of the most common phrasal verbs. •After that, you'll be able to practice your grammar skills with an interesting Point of View lesson. Ok, let's continue with the phrasal verbs. A phrasal verb is just a verb and a particle. For example, "get in." If you haven't checked out the first episode about phrasal verbs, please do it. Remember, you only need to learn the most frequently used phrasal verbs. Also, instead of learning all the different meanings of each phrasal verb, simply learn one or two common meanings. Ok, let's get started! Today, we'll play a bit with "get." Get along / get on Do you have friends? Then, you'll probably use this phrasal verb. It means to like each other. For example: I'm surprised how well I get along with my mother-in-law. The older and younger members get along well. I get along very well with foreign

Hello, everybody! I am Georgiana founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you to speak English fluently. In this episode, I’m going to talk about the relationship between reading, writing, speaking, and listening. After that, I’m going to tell you a Point of View Story. Ok, let’s get started! As a language student, the main activities to learn a new language are: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. This is what we naturally do in our mother tongue. One key aspect to keep in mind is that we can categorize these activities as input and output. As you may guess, listening and reading are input activities, and writing and speaking are output activities. In other words, when you’re listening or reading, you are being exposed to the language, and when you’re writing and speaking, you are “producing” the language. The traditional approach tells you that the more you write and speak, the better. That’s why language schools insist on writing a lot and “practicing” your speaking with other stude

Hello, everybody! I am Georgiana your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. Speaking English is easier than it seems! You just have to use the right material and techniques. Today I will talk about one of the wealthiest people in the world. His name is Warren Buffett. Born in 1930 in Nebraska, Buffet is a fascinating character because of his inspiring story. As a child, Buffett showed interest in stocks. He was writing stock prices on the board in his father’s office. His father was a stockbroker and future congressman. And while nowadays most children play video games, Warren bought his first stock was at the age of 11 and filed his first taxes at age 13. Because like many children of the Great Depression, Buffett grew up to respect the value of money. He became so frugal that when he moved to New York to attend business school, he lived at the YMCA to save money. “YMCA” is short for the Young Men’s Christian Association. I also used the wor

Listen to a new episode of Speak English Now Podcast, your favorite material for practicing your spoken and heard English. You will also learn about lifestyle and culture, language, vocabulary, and how to improve your English more effectively. Transcript: Hello, everybody! I am Georgiana your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. Speaking English is easier than it seems! You just have to use the right material and techniques. In today’s episode, I’ll give you some tips on how to spend your summer vacation, and you’ll speak English with a mini-story. Before I go any further, I’d like to thank you for listening. I’m also a language learner, and I can identify with you and your goals, so I want to help you. Do you know how you can help me? It would be great if you could share my podcast with your friends or write a review on iTunes, Youtube, or my Facebook page. OK! Let’s start! Time passes so quickly. I can’t believe it’s already August! And sp

Transcript: Hi, dear listener! I’m Georgiana, founder of the Speak English Now podcast. My mission is to help you to speak English fluently. Speaking English is way easier when you use the right material and techniques. Do you know the difference between the words “bring,” “carry,” “fetch,” and “take?” If the answer is no, this is going to be a very useful episode for you.  I’ll start by explaining the meaning of each of these terms with some examples. And in the second part of this lesson, you are going to practice your speech with a funny mini-story. If you are new here, visit my website to get the transcript of today’s episode. Go to: speakenglishpodcast.com If you’re already familiar with this podcast, please share it with your friends and family. That would make me very happy! Tell your friends that the show is available everywhere on the internet. It’s available on my website and many podcast apps like Spotify, iTunes, Youtube, Facebook, Soundcloud, etc. Just look for “Speak English Now with Georgiana,”

Hi, everybody! I am Georgiana, your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. Today, in this episode: We're going to continue to see some bad strategies that I don't recommend in conversations. Next, you will practice some grammar in an intuitive way with a point of view lesson. Okay, let's start! If you remember, last week, we saw some unwise ways to interact in a conversation. Today we are going to continue with more things that we should not say or do when you  have a conversation in English. This is what we saw in the previous episode: - Talking about the weather. - Not listening to the other person. - Talking too fast, too softly, not articulating well, or not pausing. Talking about negative things. Talking about boring things. And my favorite: messing up. Remember, I told you how easy it is to mess up? That's why we always have to be careful. If you didn't listen to the previous episode, I suggest you do it along with this one. Cool! Let'

Hi, everybody! I am Georgiana, your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. Today, in this episode Let's look at some bad strategies and attitudes that don't quite work in conversation. I mean, like having awkward conversations. Next, you'll practice your fluency with a mini-story lesson—the best way to learn to speak English without translating mentally. Okay, let's start with an important question: Do you think that you are too old to learn English? I have always thought that it is never too late to learn a language, and I have always had students of all ages using my method successfully. But a few days ago, I received an email from a student in Greece, saying something like this: Dear Georgiana, hello, I'm delighted to see your programs. I think you give your soul to every lesson. My mother tongue is Greek, and I am proud because our language has a positive contribution to the English vocabulary. I'm also proud that I try to improve my Engli

Did you know that there are more than 1 million words in English? I know it's hard to believe, so keep counting, I mean keep listening. :) Hi, everyone! I am Georgiana, your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. Today I will share with you 9 of the most beautiful words in English. And with the point of view story, you will learn grammar only by listening. Ok. Let’s start! In 2010, during a project to search for words in digitized books, researchers estimated a total of 1,000,000 words. Yeah, I was a bit surprized by this, too, but there's an explanation for all this.  First of all, you need to take into account that they have included different forms of the same word. Also, many words are archaic since they are not used in modern English.  Speaking of archaic words, in the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, there are approximately 600,000 defined word forms. But that's because it includes many old-fashioned words. And also, the

Hi, everybody! I am Georgiana, your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. Today I'm gonna keep talking about William Shakespeare. Last week you learned some interesting facts about his life, so I will continue sharing some exciting facts about him. What else do we know about Shakespeare? Well, one thing is for sure. Shakespeare's life was anything but boring. Did you know that we're probably spelling Shakespeare's name wrong? We don't really know exactly how William Shakespeare wrote his name. There are almost 80 different versions of Shakespeare's name that appear in the records and other historical documents. You have to keep in mind that a lot of people were illiterate at that time. Let's learn some more about his life: His parents: His father's name was John Shakespeare, and he was a glove maker and leatherworker. His mother, Mary Arden, was an heiress from a rich family. His parents were probably illiterate, like many other people at th

Hi, everybody! I am Georgiana, your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. Today I’m going to talk about William Shakespeare and with a funny mini-story, you will practice your English speaking. Before I get started, let me thank you for listening to the podcast and for all your amazing comments on iTunes, Facebook, YouTube, and on my website. I also want to say hi to the Speak English Now community. OK. Now let’s get started! So, who was William Shakespeare, and why is he famous? You know, I find it very hard to believe that you've never heard of William Shakespeare, but just in case I'll give you a brief introduction. Although most people believe that William Shakespeare is the most celebrated British writer of all time, only a few know that he was also an actor. And even though it's been over 400 years since he died, people still celebrate his work all over the world.  His plays were the most popular at the time, and I'm sure you've already

Hi, everybody! I am Georgiana, your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. In today's episode, I will talk about an issue that is of great concern to language students. It is the much-feared plateau.  What is a plateau? A plateau happens when you stop your progress despite continuing to do "all the right things."  An interesting expression for this situation is: to hit a plateau.  For example: "It seems I hit a plateau because I can't see any progress with my English, and I'm still studying really hard!" More literally, a plateau is a large flat area of land. This definition makes total sense because if you are walking on a plateau, you are not going up or down. You stay at the same height.   Plateaus are very common not only in learning a new language but in other areas—for example, a very common one is losing weight.  Imagine that you've been on a diet and have lost some weight. But then, after two months, you stop losing weight. You're stil

Hi everyone! I am Georgiana, founder of speakenglishpodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. Today I’ll talk about the most famous band in the world. The Beatles! And you’ll practice your speaking with a funny mini-story. Have you ever listened to The Beatles? Actually, let me rephrase that. When was the first time you listened to a Beatles song? The Beatles are probably the most popular band in the history of music. They are considered by many to be the best band on Earth. The band was undoubtedly the most successful, with global sales exceeding 1.1 billion records. They were initially famous for their light pop music, although their later works achieved a combination of popular and critical acclaim perhaps unprecedented in the 20th century. Beatlemania began in the UK and exploded after The Beatles appeared on a popular TV show in the US in 1964. The band became a worldwide phenomenon with adoring fans and hysterical adulation. The members of the group were John Lennon, Paul McCartney,

Transcript: Hi, everyone! I’m Georgiana, founder of speakenglishpodcast.com. My mission is to help you to speak English fluently. In this episode, I’ll recommend some of my favorite TV shows that will help you with your English. I’ll give you some useful tips on how to use Netflix to improve your English. And later, you’ll practice your English speaking with an exciting mini-story. Alright! Let’s start! Netflix has changed the way we spend our free time. We spend a lot more time watching our favorite shows, so why not use all this time to speed up the way we learn English too? English-language TV shows can quickly introduce you to authentic English and can help keep you motivated and entertained as you learn. In today's episode, I'll let you know how watching TV can help you improve your language skills. You’ll stop feeling guilty about watching TV! The next time your friends ask you what you did all weekend, you can proudly say that you spent all weekend watching TV. Here’s what you can do while you’re watc

Hello, everybody! I am Georgiana your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. Today we'll talk about something festive. Have you noticed that in springtime you go to your local supermarket and you see chocolate bunnies and colorful eggs everywhere? Well, today I'll talk about Easter and how Americans celebrate this holiday. And with a funny mini-story, you’ll practice your speaking while learning new things about the Easter holiday. What exactly are we celebrating at Easter? Each spring, people all over the world, celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This year we celebrate Easter on Sunday, April 21. Whenever Easter comes, everywhere you go, you'll see from colorful eggs to Easter bunny cakes. Also, most people have a week off for Easter, so parties are organized to enjoy the occasion with family and friends. Certainly,  Easter is one of the most celebrated holidays in the United States. And how else do Americans celebrate Easter? Apart

Hi everyone! I am Georgiana, founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. Hi! How are you? Given the circumstances, I'm fine. I hope it's the same with you too. As you know, there is currently a pandemic affecting us globally. And in the previous episode, I talked about the recommendations of the authorities. Today I want to make some personal suggestions on how to spend time during confinement. And with a fun mini-story, you can practice your spoken English. You'll see. It's very effective. By answering many questions, you can practice and improve your speech, just like in a real conversation. If you haven't listened to the last week's episode yet, visit my website speakenglishpodcast.com and search for episode #121. Let's start! How to cope with this situation? What to do during the confinement? While staying informed is very important, it is better to take a break from time to time. It's not a good idea to always be watching the news, and especially on social media

Listen to a new episode of Speak English Now Podcast, your favorite material for practicing your spoken and heard English. You will also learn about lifestyle and culture, language, vocabulary and how to improve your English more effectively. Transcript: Hi everyone! I am Georgiana, founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. Hello, dear students, I hope you're well. I am alright, and I have prepared a special episode for you. - We will practice expressions and vocabulary related to the recommendations of health authorities on how to limit the spread of this global pandemic. We will also practice fluency with a new mini-story by using the term "should," among other structures. As I'm sure you know, a global pandemic is affecting the health of many people and also our daily lives. I had planned to do another topic this week, but I think it's worth talking about this instead so that we can learn and practice relevant vocabulary. I thought it would be a good idea to revi

Transcript: Hi everyone! I am Georgiana, founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently. In today's lesson, I'll talk about baking. I'll teach you how to bake my favorite blueberry muffins. So if you want to enrich your English vocabulary and try out my favorite muffin recipe, I suggest that you continue listening. And with a point of view lesson, you will improve your English grammar intuitively without memorizing any rules.  Unbelievable! Today is episode 120. That means you get over 120 free English lessons. If my podcast helps you, be sure to share it with your friends. That would mean a lot to me. Thank you. Remember! You can get the transcript at speakenglishpodcast.com. Ok, let's start!  I don't know about you, but I love baking. And the easiest recipe I know, and the one my friends like best, is blueberry muffins. People are very used to eating all sorts of pastries that contain an incredible amount of sugar, yet one of the things they love most about my cakes is