PhraseMix Articles

8 reasons why your English isn't improving

Do you feel like you're becoming better at speaking English?

I often get emails from PhraseMix readers saying something like this:

"I need help. I've been studying English for a long time, but I don't feel like I'm improving. What do you suggest?"

Here are some of the most common reasons that...

How your brain learns English (and how it doesn't)

I sometimes worry that the lessons I write contain too much information.

"Information" includes anything that can be written as a "rule": grammar rules, explanations of the difference between two words, etc.

It's OK to learn information about English. But it's much, much more...

Listen to the lessons

You might have noticed that there's a new feature on PhraseMix. You can now listen to every key example sentence if you sign up for PhraseMix Premium. 

Learn more deeply by memorizing sentences

I provide explanations of different phrases with every PhraseMix lesson, but that's not really the...

What does the perfect example sentence sound like? (Part 2)

This is the second in a series of posts about recording example sentences. Read the first entry here.

In my last post, I explained the process of recording example sentences from PhraseMix lessons. I also explained why faster and more natural-sounding examples are best. In this post, I'm going to...

What does the perfect example sentence sound like? (Part 1)

(This is the first of a series of posts about recording example sentences.)

I haven't been posting many new blog entries lately. That's partly because I've been busy getting audio lessons ready to release. I thought I'd write a little about the recording process and what I'm trying to achieve...

Why you should focus on learning situational English

In my last blog post, I explained that there are two categories of sentences:

• things that you say about a topic
• things that you say in a certain situation

For example:

• topic: family - things to say when talking about one's family
• listener: family - things to say to your family

How I've been improving the lesson categories

My problem with categories

Have you explored the Categories page on PhraseMix? It's a useful way to review lessons on different topics, like business, shopping, or phrasal verbs. 

I realized something recently while writing Twitter messages to advertise some of the categories. I had...

"Correct" pronunciation is not always right.

A funny story

Back when I was a middle school English teacher in Japan, one day there was a big standardized English test. All of the Grade 3 students had to take it. I was asked to sit in on the test and help administer it by passing out papers and making sure that no one was cheating.

After a...

Tips for mastering English

If you've been reading the blog, you probably already understand PhraseMix's philosophy of language learning. But just in case you need a reminder, I posted a new page on How to Learn English. This is a collection of my best ideas for how to improve your English skill quickly. 

Take a look...

Some unusual advice for improving your English accent

People often ask my opinion about how to improve their English accent. The best answer, of course, is to spend a lot of time listening carefully to natural, native English. But there's another secret which has to do with your attitude.

The secret is:

...