Community Discussions
International School + Australian Uni + British wife = what accent?
Thai parents, went to an international school in Thailand from age of 8-18, then university in Australia. Married to a Brit who's herself an army brat (spent time in Germany, Northern Ireland and finally Surrey where her family currently resides), been with her for 5 years. No clue what my accent is supposed to sound most like. https://voca.ro/1kSYK6FXOyGW
How to improve my English?
I'm 19 years old and since I was born a few weeks early I'm missing my left ear. This influenced my learning of my native language (Italian) since I can't distinguish sounds well and I also have some slight mental retardation... So if I find my language difficult and when I find some new word I can't get it into my head, imagine with English. I consider myself quite good at reading and writing English but when I have to listen to someone in English I can't understand anything and when I have to speak English I can't make certain sounds with my tongue etc and I completely mispronounce every word even though I'm always corrected.. I watch movies in English but without subtitles I can't understand. I'm very jealous of people with English spawning in their heads fr and I've always been quite bullied for the fact that I can't speak Italian and English well.
Could you check my sentence?
When I was young, I learned many instruments, piano, violin, cello etc... wind, traditional Korean instrument and percussion. However, I have never played eletronic instrument. I even have perfect pitch! Currently, I'm work in a field unrelated to music, but I have a interest in learning the electric guitar for a hobby. I hope to give it a try if the oppertunity comes.
Is this correct?
But it hasn’t all been for nothing.
pronunciation of "real" in this song (skyline)
i don't hear the "R", when he says "real", is this an alternative way of pronouncing "real"? [https://youtu.be/Z-0tTi7GaPg?t=68](https://youtu.be/Z-0tTi7GaPg?t=68) . (if i had to guess, i'd say that he's saying "but i swear it feels FAIR") And also i don't hear the word "hop" at all, is it me, or he really doesn't say it?. [https://youtu.be/Z-0tTi7GaPg?t=62](https://youtu.be/Z-0tTi7GaPg?t=62)
Can someone check if my writing is correct?
Can you share an experience where you helped someone in a significant way? I work in rescue people’s lives When My first time to work, I saw grandfather fallen into the sea. He couldn’t get out of the sea, because he was drunk. At that time, I rescued him to swimming. It was my precious and valuable experience.
is anyone else reading english on a daily basis? (as a non-native of course)
I managed to read (almost) every day for the last three years and while I still have a long road ahead of me, I can certainly feel a big improvement. I don't really have a goal aside from just getting better. I only do this for my own pleasure. I wanna be able to read difficult book without ever needing a dictionary and understand every spoken word in every context. Well that's actually a big goal I guess :D I do watch a lot of english content as well. Youtube mostly. News, discussions, videos about history and just random stuff. I play my video games in english as well. It used to be my daily habbit to read novels years ago but somehow I stopped. I picked it up again and basically just switched to english instead of continuing to read in my native language, which is german. Sometimes you feel so dumb because you need to pick up your dictionary every two seconds. ( I use my smartphone and it's blessing compared to physical book). You get angry with yourself because you know you checked that word at least three times already... you almost feel like an conman, impersonating someone or something you are not. But these moments pass and the joy starts to kick in the more fluid your reading pace gets. Right now i'm reading W. Irving. Tales of a Traveler (incl. Sleepy Hollow) and I quite like it. What are your experiences? cheers \*\*\*\* PS: here is actually a list of my books I already read in english. I have a normal 40 hours work week so I would say 50 books are not that bad :D Before 2022 I only read very rarely. Feb. 2016 1) Treasure Island, Stevenson 2) Alice in Wonderland, Caroll 3) Jekyll and Hyde, Stevenson 4) Through the Looking Glass, Caroll 5) Weird Tales 1938, various 6) Sherlock Holmes Hound of Baskerville, Doyle 7) Frankenstein, Shelley 8) Time Machine, Wells 9) The Scent of Death, Beckett Dec. 2021 10) The Hobbit, Tolkien 11) Lord of the Rings, Tolkien 12) Eaters of the Dead, Crichton 13) Travels to West Africa, Kingsley 14) Silmarillion, Tolkien 15) The Pickwick Club Papers, Dickens Dec. 2022 16) don't wanna talk about this one 17) 1984, Orwell 18) Call of Cthulhu (Collection), Lovecraft 19) Brave new World, Huxley 20) War of the Worlds, Wells 21) Unfinished Tales, Tolkien 22) complete short stories of A. Bierce 23) Make Room Make Room, Harrison 24) The King in Yellow, Chambers 25) Everything that rises must converge, O'Connor 26 - 31) full collection of 6 Lovecraft books 32) Jurassic Park, Crichton 33) Men like Gods, Wells 34) The Horror Stories of R.E. Howard 35) Moby Dick, Melville Jan. 2024 36) The Fisherman, Langan 37) The Plague, Camus 38) Scenes of London, Dickens 39) something wicked this way comes, Bradbury 40) The Haunting of Hill House, Jackson 41) Uncle Toms Cabin, Stowe 42) The Loss of the Ship Essex, various 43) Rendezvous with Rama, Clarke 44) Ghost Stories, Dickens 45) we have always lived in this Castle, Jackson 46) The Stranger, Camus 47) The Great God Pan Collection, Machen 48) One Hunderd Years of Solitude, G.G. Marquez 49) The Gods Themself, I. Asimov 50) Dracula, Bram Stoker
What's the difference between achieve and reach? When are they interchangeable?
https://www.reddit.com/r/EnglishLearning/comments/1hr7xm2/whats_the_difference_between_achieve_and_reach/
speaking english fluently with confindence
I'm good at writing and understanding English, but I really struggle with foreign accents—it takes me a while to process what’s being said. I’ve tried reading books, watching movies, singing songs, and bingeing series, but nothing seems to help much. As an undergrad from India, I often fumble and lose confidence when speaking in front of others. It’s frustrating because I know I have the skills, but I just can’t express them properly, and I end up missing out on opportunities. Any tips on how to improve or advice for someone in the same boat as me?
“I hate getting phone calls during ‘off hours/ after hours/ off-duty hours’” Which one is correct? Off hours VS after hours VS off-duty hours
Let’s say that you are an employee at a company. You are basically saying you don’t want to receive phone calls from your employer/client after you get off work. Thanks in advance!