English with Rik

In this episode, we're exploring the language of surprise: seven nuanced English words, plus a fun idiom.

If you'd like the handout, activity, answer key, and transcript, you can become a supporter on Patreon. Learn, practice, and make English yours.

Learn the rules for pronouncing -ed at the end of words. In this lesson, I explain three simple rules you can follow to pronounce the -ed ending correctly in English.

You will also have the chance to practice what you learn with real examples and pronunciation exercises.

The most commonly used tense in English is the present simple tense.

In this podcast, you will not only learn when to use the present simple and how to form it, you will also get some practice forming the tense as I guide you in an activity.

This is a intermediate level lesson about what the most common pronouns are and how to use them. Personal, objective, subject, and object pronouns are all discussed.

There might even be a little bit of comedy :-)

These two sounds are similar but knowing how to hear and pronounce each of these sounds differently will help you sound more like a native English speaker - and be better understood.

Put your headphones or earbuds on and learn how the sounds are made, then practice what you've learned with some time to pronounce them.

What are the two ways can you pronounce the word THE?

What are the three situations for pronouncing THE in these different ways?

The answers are in this lesson.

Modal Auxiliary Verbs are so commonly used in English, it's hard to imagine speaking or writing without them.

In this lesson, you will learn how to pronounce and use the verbs: can, could, may, should, and should. These modal auxiliaries will be used to express politeness, permission, requests, possibility, and advice.

You will learn the grammar rules for using these verbs in different tenses and when you can and can't use them.

Dive in and feel the joy of modal auxiliary verbs!

This lesson is about listening to and recognizing the ɚ sound in paragraphs along with other words, and also listening to the individual ɚ-sound words by themselves.

You will also get the chance to listen to and repeat some ɚ-sound words.

The letter Y can be a consonant or vowel and can be pronounced in four main ways. Start this lesson to learn how to make the Y sounds and when to pronounce it in those different ways.

The ʃ and s sounds are quite similar, and this lesson will help pronounce each of these sounds so they are different from each other - as they should be.

There is a full transcript available in the downloads area as well as handouts about the main points for making these two sounds.

You can also download the audio file that will guide you in pronouncing words that are in pairs, one word with the s sound and the other word with the ʃ sound in it.