English tutor Alice here to teach you some common ways to say hello in American English. Hi Hey What's up If you're wanting to improve your casual American English speaking skills then check out my tutor profile and book a lesson!

Happy New Year. The end of 2025, I spent a lot of time working at my part-time job during the year-end holidays. Because of that, I was quite busy and often felt tired, but I think it was a meaningful way to end the year. On New Year’s Eve, I treated myself to a special meal. I ate soba noodles with two pieces of shrimp tempura, which felt very luxurious and made the moment more memorable. Eating traditional food helped me feel the atmosphere of the New Year and relax after a long period of work. During the New Year holidays, I received New Year’s money from my parents and my grandmother. I was very grateful for their kindness and support. Receiving otoshidama reminded me that I am still supported by my family, and it motivated me to use the money wisely. I also spent time with my relatives. We went bowling together, and although I am not very good at bowling, I really enjoyed playing and laughing with them. After that, we ate eel at a restaurant. The food was delicious, and it was nice to share a meal while talking about our lives. This year, I want to stay healthy and grow more than I did last year. I hope to challenge myself and make this year a meaningful one.

My favorite time of the year is January, when we set goals and dream about what we want to achieve. If one of your 2026 goals is learning a new language, or specifically Spanish, I can help you check that off your list. So what are you waiting for? ¡Vamos a hablar juntos!

Try to imagine an egg laughing. What would happen to its shell? Confused? Well, then maybe it's best to listen to the episode in full. In this final episode of American Idiom, Mona and I discuss the phrasal verb CRACK UP. Thank you for listening! --- And thank you very much to IqbalStock for the photo

If aliens don’t exist, that would be strange, because we know how ordinary our planet is. Maybe our current technology is too primitive to find them. Can you imagine dinosaurs wondering whether there were aliens in the universe and trying to fly high to confirm their hypothesis? Maybe we are not much more advanced than dinosaurs, who were once, just like us, the dominant species on Earth, and died out way earlier than the earth itself.

Today, I woke up early and learnt some English instead of surfing around. I truly hope that I can maintain and improve that. I will believe in myself once again without doubfulness.

I joined a mountain climbing trip with my father and my brother. My father’s cousins also joined us, so it was a big group. I hadn’t seen them for a long time, so I was surprised because they had grown a lot. It felt nice to see them again and talk together before the climb. We started climbing late at night. It was very cold, and the air felt sharp. I was worried about snow, but luckily there was no snow on the mountain, so it was safer than I expected. While we were walking, my body became warm and sometimes even hot. However, when we stopped to rest, I got cold very quickly because we were not moving. After climbing for a long time, we finally reached the top of the mountain. There, we watched the sunrise. The morning sun slowly came up, and the sky changed color. It was very beautiful and made me forget how tired I was. I felt glad that I didn’t give up. Going up the mountain was hard, but going down was also difficult. The ground was slippery, and my legs felt tired, so I had to be very careful. When I finally arrived home, I was completely exhausted. I lay down on my bed and fell asleep right away. It was a tough experience, but it became a great memory with my family.

Are you wanting to learn how to speak clear and completely understandable American English so someone from the United States can really effortlessly understand you without assumptions or confusion? So you don't have to repeat yourself? Have you ever had a native English speaker from the United States watch and listen to you speak and let you know what mistakes you make by typing what they heard you say in written form then put a correction next to it in written form? Have you had them judge your mouth movement? Have you had them really focus on your letter sounds? Maybe you mis pronounce your short vowels. Have you been taught pronunciation from someone from the United States? Have you then had that person give you a lesson plan that would teach you letter sounds? A step by step formula/guide/lesson plan that would teach you letter sounds (short vowels, long vowels, letter blends)? If you're wanting to speak clear and completely understandable American English and you've never been taught letter sounds from someone from the United States then you may have learned the British form of pronunciation OR a mixture of American+(country where you're from) pronunciation. Start your journey to sounding more American today! It is possible! It is achievable! Check out my tutor profile. I offer pronunciation classes!