r/EnglishLearning

How would you describe a pregnant woman who's noticeably so far along?

hi everyone!!! I’m a student from Romania,and i’m trying to develop a natural america accent.

my english is not perfect and i’d also like to improve my overall fluency, vocabulary, and grammar, but my main goal right now is pronunciation.

My biggest problem right now is the american R sound. when i try to pronounce it in words like “red” ,”right” , “bright” and car it sometimes feels like i’m making sounds out of my throat and comes out more like an ARR or something weird like that. when i try to relax and do the stuff with my tongue it comes out like WED or something like that cause the R doesn’t feel pronounced correctly.

I’m not sure whether my problem is tongue placement , tension, intonation or a combination of these things.

if there is anybody who have learned an american accent, especially if english isn’t your first language i would like to hear something from yall, thank you!

Is there any difference? If they're interchangeable, which one is more commonly used?

For example, it's customary in my culture to mix up bottom and top parts of rice before serving it. This is because the top part tends to be drier, and doing this helps fluffing the rice.

Is it tossing? Mixing up?

What would you call this?

What's the difference in using??

Im talking talking about the schwa sound in the first syllable, idk if im saying it right or if it is drifting towards a different sound bc the way i felt i felt that it was different than the second version idk if its wrong different or just different tho!
Thanks in advance!

https://preview.redd.it/eqaypedy1vuh1.png?width=728&format=png&auto=webp&s=4b5fd4ddc8cd0557e476f09e4b89c5d4c412d143

I know I can call them advertisement boards but I'd like to know if you all call it the same.

Can you do me a favor and help him get this costume on?

Can you do me a favor and help him put this costume on?

What's the difference between these two sentences?

for improving listening comprehension specifically.

it's been my biggest problem in learning english for a long time because i never knew what was the best way to improve that and would always get frustrated. the thing is that i really, really want to watch movies/tv shows without subtitles, but its still kinda tough for me, so i need to pay way more attention and spend much more energy to understand what the point is. therefore i dont watch it frequently because of the fear not to understand some parts and because of the annoying thought about how difficult it is - to manage to understand. uh.

at the same time, when i watch anything with subtitles i understand everything. the problem is not lack of my vocabulary or something, just the comprehension part. and it annoys me even more, because every time when i turn subtitles on i cant help but think that this is like cheating. and even tho its way easier to watch and actually enjoy it, every time i feel kind of really unsatisfied.

that's why im asking this question here. i know that this is really helpful to watch stuff regularly, but if i do that (regularly) without subtitles, then, pretty sure, i will lose my energy motivation and all this important stuff very quickly. i can watch it less often, though.

or i can watch it more with subtitles, because here i know that it won't be a problem for me. i just.. i cant understand if it really will work. because, like, i just read text from screen, dont i? then how the heck is it gonna help me with listening comprehension? i seriously dont understand this sort of things so i hope someone can explain it to me

thanks for reading! also, if there are any grammatical errors in the text, please tell me, this is very important for me!

You may barely believe it, but I knew what "conscious of" means.

When I saw this phrase, I thought that there was a specific meaning of "conscious" that I didn't know because of the two words before it.

Ofc, I don't think that my English skills are good. I have much to learn...but seriously? How in the world did I understand the word as "Readily recognizable"???

I have had enough of my clumsiness. I hope that this is just something like a slump. :(

Hey everyone!

I'm currently at a B1 level. I can read and understand spoken English pretty well, but when it comes to speaking, I struggle a lot. I often translate directly from Spanish, make grammatical mistakes, and have trouble putting my thoughts into coherent sentences.

I really want to become fluent and speak more naturally without constantly overthinking what I'm trying to say.

I've been thinking about finding someone to practice English with while playing video games on Discord. I usually play Minecraft, League of Legends, and TFT, but I'm open to trying other games on Steam!

My questions are:

• What helped you improve your speaking fluency the most?
• How did you stop translating everything in your head?
• Has anyone here improved their English by gaming and chatting on Discord?

I'd love to hear your experiences and advice. If you're also looking for someone to practice English with while gaming, feel free to reach out!

Thanks! :)

​

As a non-native speaker of English I've always struggled with the language skills, I could improve myself in most of it during my journey, but there was still one that I considered it to be deadly challenging which is **SPEAKING.**

I thought I would be able to learn through some simple drills being posted here and there on the internet, but despite all the drills I could barely step forward. Until I decided to face my fear of speaking by meeting up with my friends who also are learning English, this idea facilitates my the hard skill I been always avoiding, this was a real step to the stage of fluency (*I'm not that fluent yet but I know where to start and where I can arrive*).

I understood that speaking is a psychological problem more that a linguistic one. That's why I pushed myself to an environment where I am forced to use merely English.***

I wish this will help everyone struggling with skill.

Good luck 🤞🏽

I teach English. I am also French-American, so I grew up tripping over false friends in both directions. Last week I posted here about how English has three layers (Germanic, French, Latin) and a lot of you mentioned cognates: words that look the same across your language and English.

This post is the dark side of cognates. False friends.

These are words that look identical or nearly identical between two languages but mean completely different things. They are the most embarrassing trap in language learning because you have no idea you are walking into them until you have already said it.

A few of my favourites:

French: "Actuellement" does not mean "actually." It means "currently." Every French speaker has accidentally said "Actually, I work in Paris" when they meant "Currently." Native English speakers do not catch it because the sentence still kind of works.

Spanish: "Embarazada" does not mean "embarrassed." It means "pregnant." A student of mine told her American boss she was "very embarazada" after spilling coffee in a meeting. The boss said "oh, congratulations?" and the room got very quiet.

German: "Gift" does not mean "present." It means "poison." In German you do not give someone a Gift. You give them ein Geschenk. Imagine handing someone a beautifully wrapped Gift on their birthday.

Portuguese: "Puxar" means "pull," not "push." Right next to a door labeled "Push" in English. Universal source of confusion at every airport.

Italian: "Sensibile" does not mean "sensible." It means "sensitive." Calling someone sensibile in Italian is not the same compliment as calling them sensible in English.

A few more for fun:

German "bekommen" means "to receive," not "to become."

French "sympa" means "nice/friendly," not "sympathetic."

Spanish "asistir" means "to attend," not "to assist."

French "librairie" is a bookstore, not a library.

German "Rat" means "advice," not "rat."

French "rester" means "to stay," not "to rest."

Spanish "realizar" means "to carry out," not "to realize."

Portuguese "esquisito" means "weird," not "exquisite."

The lesson I keep coming back to with my students: confidence in a foreign language is not about knowing more words. It is about knowing which ones you can trust.

What is the worst false friend in your native language? Curious to hear from Polish, Russian, Japanese, Arabic, and other speakers I have less exposure to.

I rarely mix them up now, but it still happens from time to time, especially when I'm saying a sentence while not thinking much. I still know who I'm talking about but I just happen to use the wrong pronoun. Just now I said "she" when I was supposed to say "he", but I still knew who I was talking about.

I'm not sure if it's because lack of practice because I've practised using pronouns a lot (obviously, pronouns are used in almost every sentence). So maybe it never goes away completely?

Does this still happen to you if your language doesn't have gendered pronouns?