English Idiomatic Expression & Phrasal Verb: “Come up With”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Deyxf1Kj4zI Hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers! When learning English idiomatic expressions with me, you should bear in mind that I’m mixing them all together – idioms, phrases, collocations and also phrasal verbs. Today’s idiomatic expression happens to be a phrasal verb – ‘to come up with’ – and it’s a very popular one and it’s being used by both native and foreign English speakers worldwide. You can use it when describing how you invented a new, faster way of doing monthly sales reports using your company’s stock management software. (I came up with another way of doing sales reports which is much faster!) (more…)
30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course- Day 1- Sports
Don’t Judge Other People’s English Because of Lack of Vocabulary
We’re All Capable of Correcting Our English Speech Ourselves!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RrJefZhX8g One of the biggest misconceptions I’ve ever come across over the years is the following: You can’t engage in spoken English self-practice because there’s no-one to correct your mistakes! I’ve received feedback of such nature from quite a few of my fellow foreign English speakers, and it clearly goes to show that the average foreigner is so afraid of making mistakes and letting them go unnoticed, that they’d rather remain unable to speak fluently! In today’s video I’ve debunked this myth, and here’s exactly what you’ll find out if you watch the video above: (more…)
Speaking English is Just Like Playing With Lego Bricks!
A few days ago I received the following comment on the English Harmony Facebook page: Your method, learning English through idioms, phrases, proverbs, etc. is so much fun! It’s like playing with Lego bricks! Really! You see, you took most of the grammar (which for most is a party-breaker) out and made it so much less intimidating. You completely changed my view on English. Now I don't see sentences as complex structures (teeming with grammar lawfulness) but rather as different ready-to-go pieces (that is idioms, phrasal verbs, etc.) put together. Just like Lego bricks! That's why I find it like playing with it. You take on brick/part which is at your disposal and then choose which one will go along (with the same method: see what you have and try to make the best combination to convey your message). Thank you for that! I really, really liked this comment – not just because its author agrees with me on the effectiveness of contextual English learning, but also because it puts a completely different spin on the whole thing and makes you realize that English learning and improvement has to be perceived as a fun game rather than a boring chore! (more…)
It’s OK Not to Understand Something out of Context or Something Unexpected!
Funny Experience When Switching Between English and My Native Lingo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7nf5O72uFA
Dealing With Criticism When Making Mistakes in English
Funny English Phrases: Death & Dying Related English Idioms
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDgv198X3lA This is the last funny English phrase video for YearOfEnglish.com subscribers… The reason being – the year is drawing to an end, and so is my commitment to keep publishing new videos for you guys every couple of weeks! :-( That’s why I decided to publish death and dying related English phrases video today – to mark the end of the year and your journey to English fluency. Every end, however, is just a beginning to something new, so don’t get sad while watching this video – instead make sure you listen to the dialogues carefully and REPEAT the phrases you hear. Needless to say, many of those death related idioms can be used in various situations in life – not just when someone is close to passing away, so watch the video above, use the transcript below for better understanding and start using those death related English idioms in your daily conversations! (more…)
Connecting Your Ideas in Written English
The State of “The Flow” and Its Importance When Improving Your English
English Idiomatic Expression: “Along the Lines of…”
Here’s how to improve your English listening skills when listening to my video: put the headphones on, playback the video and write it all down while listening to it! Hi guys, hello boys and girls, hello my dear fellow foreign English speakers! It's Robby here obviously from EnglishHarmony.com and today I'm bringing you another daily English idiomatic expression video. Well, I guess by now you would have noticed that these idiomatic expression videos are not being published on a daily basis. That was the original intention a few years ago but as you can imagine I just haven't been able to keep up with that production schedule, publishing one video a day simply because of my Fluency Star students and everything but I just stuck with the name daily English idiomatic expressions, right? So I'm just going to give you a new one today, right? Because God only knows when is the next one going to come up, when I decide to publish the next one. But to tell you the truth I have a bunch of them recorded and then I publish them as I see fit, every now and then I would publish another one for you guys. Anyhow, today we're going to look at the following English idiomatic expression “along the lines of”, right? And obviously if you want to find out what exactly it means, when you can use this particular phrase then bear with me for a few more moments and everything is going to become crystal clear to you my friends! (more…)
FGC Goal #1: American Phrase #1: TELL YOU WHAT!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNRyDDDikUQ Hi boys and girls :!: I’m going to learn some American English phrases within the next 25 days, and I’m going to shoot for 50 phrases in total. Here’s the video I published yesterday on my English Harmony blog where I announced this mission, and it’s all done as part of my Fluency Gym Coach Program (FGC – hence the title on the video “FGC Goal #1”) where people can set their own English confidence and fluency improvement related goals and achieve them using my program as an effective framework. My goal is basically to add 50 new American phrases onto my active vocab, and the first phrase I’m doing today is TELL YOU WHAT. It’s a very handy way to make your point when speaking with another person, and it could be put into other words simply as HERE’S THE THING. (more…)
Having English as the ONLY Language in the World Would Be a Disaster…
30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course- Day 10- Happiness
This article is part of the 30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course. Sign up here to get every lesson in your inbox for free: (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//forms.aweber.com/form/28/1528169428.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, "script", "aweber-wjs-gh9mm2tmz")); Hey everybody out there, How are you all doing today? Well, to tell you the truth, I am on cloud-nine these days as we are going so well with our "Free 30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course”, and I know it's the reciprocal from the other side as well. (more…)
English Idiomatic Expression – “Opportunity Presents Itself”
Ring Utility Company Phone Lines to Practice Your Spoken English!
If you can't watch the video below - listen to the audio version above! ;-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvRCSSXdWZs There are a lot of ways you can practice your spoken English in situations when you don’t have plenty of opportunities to speak with real people in real life: Speaking with yourself Shadowing English movies Watching all sorts of YouTube videos and repeating what you hear Doing English Harmony System’s speech exercising lessons There’s another way, however, to get your spoken English practiced in the comfort of your own home while at the same time speaking with another human being. Namely – speaking with someone over the phone! But hold on, what if you don’t have any English speaking people you could call? And surely if you know someone you might call, you wouldn’t be calling them every day now, would you? And that’s when the utility company support phone lines step in :!: Basically here’s what you have to do: (more…)
It’s Normal to Forget English Phrases, Expressions and Collocations!
Have You Got the Guts To Improve Your English?
30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course- Day 17- Hands-down edge on others
This article is part of the 30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course. Sign up here to get every lesson in your inbox for free: (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//forms.aweber.com/form/28/1528169428.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, "script", "aweber-wjs-gh9mm2tmz")); Hey everybody out there, So you love learning English, isn’t it? It’s the reason you are here at English Harmony reading all the articles. Hence, I brought another chapter of “Free 30-day Vocabulary Acquisition Course” where you learn something new every day about a subject with context and examples, and so will you today. (more…)
How to Organize English Phrases for Optimal Learning
The moment you start reading my blog, you can’t help noticing that I’m highlighting specific word groups in red. These word groups are idiomatic expressions or the so-called collocations, and they’re very useful for all foreign English speakers for the following reasons: They allow us to speak using native-like English speech patterns; They enable us to group words together thus avoiding hesitant speech; They render translation unnecessary thus facilitating overall English fluency. For best results, you should incorporate such and similar idiomatic expressions into your spoken English practicing routine, but here’s the million dollar question: “How to organize all those phrases for optimal learning?” Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty of how exactly you should organize English phraseology for the optimal learning experience, let me remind you that I’ve already done all that work for you :!: I’ve created a unique fluency improving program called the English Harmony System and it took me a good few months to organize hundreds upon hundreds of idiomatic expressions which provide the framework for almost a hundred speech exercising video lessons. Basically you can save yourself all the hassle of organizing all your phrases and you can start practicing your spoken English RIGHT NOW! But what if you’ve already been using my product and now you’d like to keep practicing on your own? As we all know, spoken English improvement is a lifelong process, and it only stands to reason you would want to keep working on your English phraseology for the rest of your life, right? So for those of you interested in taking your fluency improvement to the next level, here’s a few ways of organizing your English phraseology for your spoken English practice sessions. (more…)
English Idiomatic Expression: “It’s Not to Be Taken Lightly”
Is Learning English grammar not important for speaking?
English grammar is not necessary for speaking fluently; you only need to focus on idioms, phraseology, and slangs in order to communicate like a native. It is for this reason that even after years of learning English grammar at school you can’t speak fluently. Well, that’s somewhat you read when you hit up my personal blog, or be it English Harmony or any other English learning blog. (more…)
Don’t Learn Some Obscure English Words that Even Native Speakers DON’T KNOW!
Types of Phrasal Verbs- Transitive, Intransitive, Separable, Non-Separable
Hey there everyone, How are you all doing? Today I want to share with you how phrasal verbs can help you improve your English vocabulary and how you can easily learn them. Here's an example: " I don’t like if someone cuts in while I talk". In the sentence above, phrasal verb ‘cut in’ means to interrupt in between. Phrasal verbs are undoubtedly one of the most crucial parts of our daily conversation. Hence, I thought why not shed some light on their types and what they are. So before we jump to their types, let’s see in brief. What is a Phrasal verb? A phrasal verb is a combination of a verb and another word or two, usually a preposition or an adverb. They are very important in English as they help you sound more natural when you speak or when you write. Natives usually don’t find it hard to understand them (of course, because it’s what they have been listening to since birth), but when it comes to a non-native, it is definitely not a piece of cake to understand and use in their spoken English, especially if you are a beginner. TYPES OF PHRASAL VERBS Some say there are two types of phrasal verbs, while others four. It has always been a topic of discussion and different English teacher explain it depending on the sources they learned from. I don’t say books or sources they learned from were wrong. I went through many of the English books, blogs, and resources and found a different answer at every place which can make a learner even more confused with the concepts and types. So without beating around the bush, let’s see their types and what they are. Phrasal verbs are basically of two types : Intransitive phrasal verbs Intransitive phrasal verbs are the phrasal verb that does not require a direct object. Examples- • Hurry up! • Robert dropped by at my place yesterday. • I didn’t do that good; I am just expecting to get through. Many of you will comment that the second example is wrong because you see an object in the sentence. So before you all do that, let me explain what direct object means. “A direct object is the group of words that is acted upon by the verb. And as you can see, in the second sentence “at my place yesterday” is not acted upon directly by the verb ‘drop’, so the sentence doesn’t have any direct object and the phrasal verb is intransitive.” Transitive phrasal verbs Transitive phrasal verbs are the phrasal verbs that have a direct object. Examples- • I am going to throw these biscuits away because they have expired far before. • My boss turned down my leave for my brother’s marriage. • My mother came across my lost earphones while cleaning the house. Transitive phrasal verbs are of two types: Separable phrasal verbs- The phrasal verbs in which you can put a direct object in between and separate them, hence they are called separable phrasal verbs. Examples of separable phrasal verbs • You can’t even do the initial steps properly; you need to do it over. • He doesn’t want to let his mother down by failing this time. Inseparable phrasal verbs- The phrasal verbs in which you cannot put a direct object in between and separate them are called inseparable phrasal verbs. Example of inseparable phrasal verbs • I ran into one of my old colleagues yesterday on a bus. (CORRECT) • I ran one of my old colleagues into yesterday on a bus. (WRONG) • He can easily get the role as the lead artist in his brother’s absence; both brothers take after their father almost 100%. (CORRECT) • He can easily get the role as the lead artist in his brother’s absence; both brothers take their father after almost 100%. (WRONG) So that is it for today. I hope you have a clear understanding of their types and the difference between them. You can find here more articles and examples of phrasal verbs. See you soon with some new topic and vocabulary. Till then keep learning and improving. Take care and? Bye-bye.
Prepare for Important English Conversations by Speaking With Yourself!
English Idiomatic Expression: “It Goes Without Saying”
Are You Being Judged or Even Discriminated Against Because of Your English?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcuvGwFcz7o Tonight I received an e-mail from a blog reader of mine and he painted a pretty dire picture on discrimination on the grounds of lack of English fluency. This particular e-mail illustrates situation in India where a lot of college students speak fluent English and those who don't are experiencing an awful lot of pressure to catch up with the rest, but I’m guessing the same kind of an attitude is faced by non-native English speakers all around the world 24 hours 7 days a week! The heck – even I’ve been sometimes treated as a less intelligent human being because of my poor English skills, so why should I be so shocked and appalled at this kind of a thing going on? Simply because I’ve forgotten how bad it feels when you’re treated like that! :mad: Now that I’ve achieved a certain degree of fluency in the English language I don’t really have first-hand experiences of discrimination on the grounds of lack of English skills, but there was a time in my life when I was getting such an attitude on a daily basis: (more…)
Customer Support & Service Industry English Phrases
Personally I've been working in various service industry positions for the better part of my working life: Shop-assistant. Bartender. Technical Support Agent. Been there, done that! ;-) Having spent many years dealing with clients on a daily basis, I know only too well how important effective communication is when dealing with customers. Not to mention getting your job in the first place! I mean, do you think your future employer is going to hire you if your spoken English isn’t up to scratch and you don’t know how to greet your customer and ask them what they’d like you to do for them? Also, considering that many companies will put you on probation before offering you a permanent position, it only stands to reason you should show great English communication skills when it comes to dealing with people. After all, customers are the lifeblood of the company you represent, and your employer won’t hesitate hiring someone else if customers are struggling to understand you. If the customer service you provide isn't good enough, why would they keep you, right? So, would you like to brush up on your spoken English skills so that you can provide an outstanding customer service? Well, I’m going to give you plenty of useful English phrases so that you can read them, speak them out loud, memorize them and then use them at work :!: (more…)
4 Ways of Active English Immersion for Foreign English Speakers
Welcome to English Harmony Podcast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Wf9UKN33k Hi Guys, From now on, all my YouTube videos are going to be available as simple MP3 files for those who can’t access YouTube OR if you simply want to listen to the video while going about your daily business! UPDATE: Here's my podcast link on iTunes! Do you see the small podcast widget on the very top of this blog post – just above the video? There’s a playback button for listening to the audio file (which is an EXACT replica of the video just below it!), and there’s also a link to open the file in a new window. Also, there’s a link which says “Download”, and you can simply download the file onto your PC or laptop and then drag and drop it into your MP3 player or smartphone to listen to later on. Handy, isn’t it? I’d say it definitely is! You see, I’ve had a few people saying they’ve been converting my YouTube videos as MP3’s and listening to them in a car; also, I’ve had people from China tell me YouTube videos aren’t accessible over there. So to cater for all of my followers’ needs, I decided to take some action and start doing the podcast! It took me half a day to set it all up, but from now on it’s going to be a walk in the park, and I hope you’ll enjoy listening to my audio podcasts – if that’s your cup of tea, so to speak! ;-) Cheers, Robby :-)
New English Vocabulary Word Phenomenon
Learning English Phrases Beats Learning Individual Words Hands Down!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXFEYFljVW0
English Collocation: “Sparked Heated Debates”
Using Native Language in the English Class? Non-sense!
Future In The Past – Often Ignored But Very Useful!
Have you ever heard of Future in the Past Tense? The chances are – you haven’t! It’s quite weird, but it’s true – many English Grammar books and English learning websites simply ignore Future in the Past! So here’s how it works – whenever you’re re-telling past events, the word WILL becomes WOULD – when referring to future during your story. Example: After the first week in gym I decided I WOULD never quit! Before I had learned this simple grammar rule about using Future in the Past, I would say the above sentence using the word WILL: After the first week in gym I decided I WILL never quit it! How wrong was I… And how wrong are thousands of other foreign English speakers! Yes, I’ve met quite fluent English speakers in my life who still kept on making the same mistake – using WILL when describing future events from past’s perspective. (more…)