This post contains mispronunciations by articulate guests and anchors on prime-time television mainly on NDTV, a popular English news channel. To a lesser degree, the post also covers instances of mispronunciations on platforms outside NDTV. (Note that I’ve treated a…
Babies listen a lot – for several months, in fact – before they start speaking. Listening is arguably the most important input in improving speaking, especially for those at beginner and intermediate level. Yet, few listen regularly. Learn how and…
Hindustan Times (HT), a leading Indian English-language newspaper, started a weekly vocabulary column, Word of the Week, in April 2019. The weekly word comes from none other than Shashi Tharoor. Those who don’t know who Shashi Tharoor is, he is…
Many watch English movies, listen to radio and songs, and read books and newspapers to improve their English. But they make little progress even after several months of watching, listening, and reading. What’s the problem? Attention or rather lack of…
Attaining proficiency in English takes time. In your journey, you’ll face several dry spells of little to no progress. You’ll face frustrating times. Little wonder, many quit. You can improve your odds of success by starting with a mindset based…
While speaking in English, do you first think in your native language (also called mother tongue or first language), then translate into English, and then speak? If yes, you can do wonders to your fluency by merging the two –…
Creating an immersive environment is the quickest and surest way to get fluent in English. See several examples in this post and learn how you can create an immersive environment yourself. For the starters, let’s first quickly understand what’s immersive…
This post starts with the most common use of the two prepositions, followed by other usages. Comments are in square brackets in blue font so that you can easily spot them. And the post ends in a quiz for you…
This post starts with the most common use of the three prepositions, followed by other usages. Wherever possible, the prepositions have been presented in tabular form for ease of comprehension. Comments are in square brackets in blue font so that…
This post starts with the most common use of the three prepositions, followed by other usages. Wherever possible, the prepositions have been presented in tabular form for ease of comprehension. Comments are in square brackets in blue font so that…
This post contains statistics on usage of English language. 1. How many people speak English? Spoken by 1,453 million (native + non-native), English is the most-spoken language in the world by number of speakers. Note: Non-native speakers of a language…
Writing is far more challenging than speaking. Observe and you’ll know. Many more can speak well than who can write well. Even proficient writers face blank-screen syndrome (struggle to get started). Probably, that’s why Kurt Vonnegut, an iconic writer, said,…
