Master English With Tim

Students need to focus more on past participles! Past participles are found in six different grammatical constructions: perfect verb tenses , the passive voice , reduced relative clauses, past participial phrases, the modal perfect, and as adjectives. Understand these six uses and you will more easily decode long and complex sentences, especially in advanced texts. Episode 121 reviews and consolid...

This week, Tim continues and completes his deep analysis of the passive voice, identifying and clarifying six unusual and advanced passive constructions. Three of these constructions (for example, replacing BE with GET) are typical of conversational English, so learning them can help you understand and use everyday language with better accuracy and confidence. The other three constructions are com...

In English, we have two ways of constructing sentences- the active voice and the passive voice . The active voice is the standard, common way to build sentences, while we use the passive voice most commonly in written and academic English. In other words- if you want to understand and use English at an advanced level- then you need the passive voice! Every passive voice sentence includes a past pa...

The internet and textbooks typically use the EXTENSIVE method to explain grammar. This means they use lots of situations and examples to explain each construction. But we also have the rarely used INTENSIVE method, where you learn one construction with deep, intense focus on one example. If you're learning a new construction, the intensive method gives you a single deeply understood sentence to us...

Ever jumped out of an airplane? How about the Eiffel Tower- have you been there? Or maybe you've done something simple but important, like change the oil in your car? The present perfect, the verb tense of experiences, will help you to talk about important and exciting things you've done in your life. If you've learned both regular past participles and irregular past participles , then constructin...

How are English listening, English grammar and English pronunciation connected? One way is consonant clusters. Consonant clusters, for example /bd/, /vd/, and /rdʒd/, are series of consonants pronounced together, without any vowels in them. Consonant clusters are often pronounced so quickly that they seem to be a single sound. You can find consonant clusters in the beginning, middle and end of Eng...

If you want to learn the present perfect, or the passive voice, then you need to learn the past participle, also known as the third form of the verb. And you especially need to learn the irregular past participles! And the reality is that many students don't know the third forms of irregular verbs well. What can you do to solve these problems? Well, Episode 115 is a great place to start! it will g...

Let's be direct: if you want a high score on IELTS or TOEFL, then you need to learn the 2809 words of the NGSL, or New General Service List, and their different meanings. Knowing NGSL vocabulary will help you to understand the details of what people say in English (instead of just the basics), More episodes with words from the NGSL: Episode 2 : The NGSL- 2800 Words For Better English. Episode 11 :...

Why is English listening so difficult? English listening is difficult because real English pronunciation is very different from what students hear in the classroom- DID YOU becomes DIDJA, WHAT'S YOUR becomes WUTCHER, and so on. This style of American English pronunciation is called chewing gum pronunciation, and it has the biggest effect on the most commonly used words, for example YOU and YOUR. T...

The New General Service List, or NGSL, is a list of the most used words in English. If you know the words from the NGSL well, you can score higher on IELTS or TOEFL. What's the biggest mistake English students make? Well, one of them is that they think that each English word has just one or two meanings. In reality, you need to know three, four, or even more functions for each word if you want to...

I'm not gonna lie- pronouns aren't "sexy" like verbs (and especially irregular verbs!) are. But we use pronouns really ALL THE TIME, and students often overestimate how well they know pronouns. So- listen to Episode #111 to consolidate and deepen your knowledge of this essential and misunderstood part of speech, or category of words. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more informatio...

Everyone knows that phrasal verbs are difficult- "there is little or no connection between the words in a phrasal verb and its meaning", people say. This kind of phrasal verb does exist, but is not super common. In reality, you can usually get an idea of what a phrasal verb means by understanding the words that are in it- especially the base verb. Listen to Episode #110 to understand the differenc...

How well do you know the difference between action verbs and stative verbs? While action verbs talk about classic actions like "walk", "try" or "jump", stative verbs talk about other categories of action, like things you do with your mind ("agree", "remember") or senses ("see", "smell"), or characteristics of things ("weigh", "cost"). Listen to Episode #109 to sharpen your vocabulary and make fewe...

Five words for IELTS and TOEFL: BLOOD. APPROPRIATE. BLOCK. WARM. COUNT. It's just five words, but these five words have 22 functions or meanings. That's around four meanings for each word! And in fact, most English words have two or more meanings or functions. If you know these meanings or functions, you will understand advanced spoken and written English with greater depth, detail and confidence,...

People don't often think about their noses- but Tim does, and he's made a whole episode with over a dozen words for talking about noses- animals' noses (including pig SNouts), people's noses (including SNoots), and things people do with their noses (for example, SNore). Listen to Episode 107 for all the funny and interesting vocabulary you'll ever need for talking about noses. Hosted on Ausha. See...

What's the best way to learn something? Make it interesting . Learn the most used irregular verbs from K to Z with 51 fun and amusing micro-stories. P.S.- Don't forget to listen to irregular verbs A-J in Episode #79 ! Cover photo credit: By Jesus Solana from Madrid, Spain - Black sheep . Do u also feel different? // la Oveja negra. Tambien te sientes diferente?, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedi...

Tim is a polyglot- in addition to English, he speaks French, Russian, Spanish and German (plus a bit of Polish). Of these four, Tim's strongest language is German- he holds a C1 certificate in German, the "Deutschprüfung für den Hochschulzugang", or DFH for short. So how did Tim learn German, and what lessons from his experience can you use to learn English? Listen to Episode #105 to find out! Cov...

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me". Maybe- but what about a word that has ten different meanings, like stick? In Episode #104, Tim focuses first on the different parts of trees (because why not?), and then on the many meanings of the word stick, as a noun, verb and adjective. Listen to learn all ten meanings so you can express yourself and understand others in more...

Stative verbs. Irregular verbs. Modal verbs. Semi-modal verbs. Auxiliary verbs... and so on. In Episode 103, Tim explains these verb types (and many more) and how to use them. If you want to understand just one verb type or all of them, Episode 103 is the best place to start. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

You want to master English listening, but native speakers talk REALLY quickly. What if you could learn to understand them AND also speak more like a native at the same time? If you want to improve your English listening, then you need to learn the rules of how native speakers really pronounce words. Native speakers do speak quickly, but they also change sounds, mix sounds, and even make sounds (an...

In Episode 101, Tim does the hard work for you, diving into 10 words with 24 meanings from the NGSL, a list of the 2800 most used words in formal and written English- words that help you score higher on IELTS and TOEFL- and make you sound smarter at the same time. And for the first time, Tim combines two favorite topics: the NGSL and English etymologies (word histories), sharing the histories of 3...

English word histories are one of the best ways to learn English vocabulary! In Episode #100, Tim takes a deep look into a favorite topic- prehistoric roots or word parts that can be found in modern English words. In this week's episode, Tim focuses on the Indo-European root SKR, which can be found in over a dozen English words- and also in words from other languages, from Spanish to Russian and e...

Learn words and functions from the New General Service List, or NGSL, for a better score on IELTS and TOEFL. Most words have more than one meaning or function, and exploring them is really fun! That's what Tim does in this episode- explore ALL the important meanings of 10 words from the NGSL , 1801-1810. Learning the more advanced meanings of these words will help you to understand and communicate...

Let's keep learning small things that bring big results! The star of this week's episode is a small, powerful and easy to understand prefix that you can add to many different action verbs. Just attach the prefix OUT-, and most of the time you get a new verb with an expressive meaning, like OUTFOX or OUTRUN. Add color and interest to your speech by listening to this week's episode for intermediate...

Did you know that the 100 most used words in English- words like GET , BE , and LIKE (and also articles ) are 50 percent of all words in text and speech? This means that you need to know these 100 words- and know them WELL, with several meanings of each word. In Episode 97, Tim focuses on the meanings of one very common word from the top 100. Listen to find out which word, and learn this word so y...