PhraseMix Articles

The "lean-back" language learning experience

The new Phrase Mixer review tool that I released last week represents an important new direction for PhraseMix Premium. It's the "lean-back" language learning experience.

"Lean-back experience" is a term that I learned at my day job at a large magazine publishing company. A few years ago,...

Memorize phrases with the Phrase Mixer!

The Phrase Mixer is a powerful tool for memorizing phrases. It automatically selects past lessons for you to review.

Launch the Phrase Mixer »

The newer the lesson, the more often it pops up in the player. This allows you to learn lessons really well at first, then review...

How should I use PhraseMix Premium?

Congratulations! You have a Premium membership. Now what? 

Here are some Premium features that you should try out:

• The Phrase Mixer audio review tool
• An audio player on each Lesson page
• Downloads of weekly collections of lessons
• Member-only articles 
• The power to create new ...

How to use the word "time" in English

Here's a list of useful collocations for the word "time":

What do people do with time?

• spend time on things
• devote time to things
  "Devote" is similar to "spend" but seems more thoughtful and purposeful.
• waste time
  (But not you, of course!)
• be out of...

How many lessons do you study per day?

A reader sent me an email asking me how many PhraseMix lessons he should study per day.

Personally, I would try to learn 2 new phrases per day. I would not only read the lessons, but try to search for other examples of each of the phrases on the Internet and on YouTube.

I would also spend 10-15...

English phrases for the holidays!

The end of December in the U.S. is known as "the Holidays".

The word "holiday" can mean any holiday, from religious holidays to national holidays. However, "The Holidays" means the time around the end of the year. 

One reason that English speakers call...

How can you find English speakers to talk with?

One complaint I often hear from English learners is that it's hard to find people to practice with.

I agree that it can be hard. You have to change your habits to put yourself in new situations where you get more English practice. It takes a little bit of bravery. You have to be willing to speak...

How to describe a funny person in English (Part 2: talking about humor negatively)

In the last article, I presented some phrases that you can use to describe a funny person. Of course, there are a lot of ways that humor can go wrong. Here are some things that you can say about people who try to be funny but fail, or who joke about bad things.

Unfunny humor

• Corny jokes...

How should I use "I hope" and "I wish"?

If you want to use "I hope" and "I wish" correctly, you just need to memorize these two phrases:

I hope I can...

I wish I could...

You may be wondering: why do English speakers use the present tense for "hope" and the past tense for "wish"?

The secret...

How to describe a funny person in English (Part 1)

How do you describe someone who's funny in English? Of course you can say something like:

She's funny.

He's hilarious.

But there lots of different ways that a person can be funny. They may tell funny stories, act silly, say odd things, tell jokes that they've heard, etc. So how do you...