Master English With Tim

Way back in July 2009, Tim decided it was a good idea to ride his mountain bike alone and without maps from Sergeev Posad to Yaroslavl. Just as his students warned him would happen, Tim soon found himself trapped between bandits and rogues, and was even invited into the attic (the part of a building that is just below the roof and that is used to store old and forgotten things) of a temporarily em...

Which do you prefer- reading fluently in your own language, or reading English while using a dictionary to look up unknown words? Obviously the first. But what if you could read English books with something like the ease that you do in your own language? Well, you can- and you can do it today. Extensive reading is the reading of a large amount of easy books over a long period of time- for example,...

In Episode 20, Tim talks about the common verb BECOME and six synonyms you can use in its place to have more control over your language and sound more sophisticated. One of these verbs is GET, which Tim already spoke about in Episode 6 . The other synonyms of BECOME are: TURN, GO, GROW, WAX and FALL. Listen in to learn exactly how to use each of these verbs, and of course hear plenty of examples!...

English word histories and English root words can help you to learn advanced English vocabulary- even beyond C2 level. Let's say it directly: language mastery does not stop at C2 level. I’m not the first to propose this idea, but especially for written texts we really need to add some new difficulty levels: D1 and D2, to describe academic texts that use a lot of smart-sounding words. A good way to...

Yes, you can master English pronunciation! Way back in Episode #7 , Tim introduced you to the chewing gum accent, where native and very advanced speakers of English pronounce common words and phrases in ways that barely resemble their written forms. Some of these pronunciations are ones that you already know, for example “ gonna ” instead of the more book-like, correct form “going to” or “ prolly...

In Episode #17, Tim talks about the surprising variety of unusual animals you can find in an Ohio suburb: white-tailed deer (like Bambi), eastern gray squirrels (bigger than their European cousins), chipmunks (a bit like squirrels, but much smaller and with their houses on the ground instead of in the trees), lightning bugs (also called fireflies- insects which make light at night) and cicadas (la...

In Episode #16, Tim compares six of the best online dictionaries: Google Translate , Longman’s , Cambridge , Britannica , Wiktionary,   Chat GPT , and also Tim’s own dictionaries, one of which, Words For Numbers , is available online as a subscription. Which dictionary is best for students at each level of language learning? What are the strong and weak points of each dictionary? Find out in this...

In Episode #15, Tim shifts his attention from the details of English and English teaching to four true, sad and bizarre stories from his life and travels, as well as a bit of Indo-European etymology. After all, Tim does get around the world and so it is morally imperative that he turn base metal to gold by sharing his horrible experiences for the jollification of others. Cover photo credit: Koreni...

In Episode 1 , Tim talked about the first step to speaking and writing with correct grammar: understanding the details of others’ output so we have correct models to imitate. In today’s episode, Tim talks about four ways students can reduce the number of mistakes they make when speaking and writing themselves. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Tim has been teaching English for eighteen years, and perhaps the most common difficulty his students have is with constructing questions. Popular textbooks like English File and Headway show how to construct questions, but students need more examples than these books contain. In Episode 5 , Tim gave over two hundred examples of one type of question- yes/ no questions, and he later offered student...

Want a higher score on IELTS or TOEFL? Then learn the words of the NGSL , which Tim talked about in Episode 2 . The New General Service List includes the top 2800 words of English in order of frequency- with the most used words at the beginning so you learn the most important vocabulary first. The NGSL is oriented mainly towards written, non-fiction English, which means that knowing the words in i...

How do you make others do what you want them to do? In Episode #10, Tim the native speaker English teacher, polyglot and world traveler tells you the most practical words and constructions to talk about influencing others. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

You’ve heard Tim the teacher and Tim the traveler. But what about Tim the student? In Episode 9, Tim shares his experience learning Russian from almost zero while living in Moscow 2006-2009. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

LIKE is another one of those words that seems to mean everything, or nothing, or maybe even both at the same time. In Episode 8, Tim separates the different meanings of this very commonly used word and gives examples of each of them to help you understand LIKE every time you hear it. Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

English listening is hard because real English pronunciation is VERY different from the English pronunciation you hear in the classroom. Sometimes native English speakers talk like their mouths are full of chewing gum- common words and phrases come out in ways that are extremely hard to understand: “don’t you” becomes “doncha”, “didn’t you” is pronounced “dincha”, and “I am going to” is pronounced...

The verb GET is one of the hardest words in English. Or is it? In Episode 6, Tim shows that even if GET has a lot of meanings, all of those meanings are in just four categories: movement, change of condition, receiving or taking, and convincing others to do something for us. In this episode, you will listen to 131 examples sentences with GET so you learn and understand this verb better than ever b...

How do you construct questions? If you’ve learned English, you’ve probably asked yourself this question many times, even after learning rules about questions in the classroom. However, learning the rules for making questions is just one of two different ways to learn how to construct correct questions. The other way is just to learn a big number of correct questions without thinking about why they...

In episode #1 some weeks ago ( Episode #1: Understanding Speech and Text For Better Grammar. – English with Tim ), I showed how gaps in our understanding of input- speech we hear and text we read- can cause us to make mistakes in grammar when it’s time to speak or write. But how do we find the gaps? One way is with dictations, exercises where you try to reproduce in speech or writing the exact wor...

The New General Service List, or NGSL, is a popular list of the 2800 most used words of English. Every student who wants to know English at an advanced level needs to know the words in this list well. Listen to find out how you can learn these important words! Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Why do you keep making the same mistakes in English grammar when you make OUTPUT, i.e., when you speak and write? Well, focusing on these mistakes is not always the best approach. Why? Because grammar mistakes often have their roots in problems understanding INPUT, i.e., you have problems with English reading or spelling- or especially problems with English listening. These problems can be very ba...