English to Reach Your Goals

Do you want to understand English better? Do you need English for work or to reach a special goal? EnglishHints can help you improve your English.

If you already use English at work, but need to work on some professional skills, check out the suggestions & resources on the Advanced English Communication Skills page or contact me for personal help. (There's more information in the sidebar, & a contact form at the bottom of this page.)

You can also use EnglishHints to increase & practice your English vocabulary. Increase your reading comprehension. (That will boost your vocabulary as well!) Work on your writing skills. Get ready for English-language tests.

If you teach ESL, use the lesson plans and materials here to make your job easier and more rewarding.

You can learn & practice:

4 young professionals at a restaurant discussing what's on a computer screen. Text at page bottom: English to get where you want to go.

word building skills including common roots, prefixes, and suffixes, to enlarge your vocabulary,

academic vocabulary-- essential for professionals and university study in English,

common idioms to help you understand more of what you hear,

reading skills to increase your vocabulary and comprehension. (You can also find sources of interesting reading material for different levels and subjects.)

grammar (sentence structure, verb tenses, and practice exercises), to help you speak and write with confidence,

writing and proofreading in English, &

test-taking skills to prepare for important exams like the IELTS and the TOEFL.

ESL teachers can find

ESL lesson plans and planning ideas for various levels,

low prep, high-interest worksheets and printable games, &

activities and fresh ideas for your class. (See also information on the English Detective newsletter below.)

English Hint #1?

A young man studying on a computer text: Tip #1: To learn English, Think in English!

Listen, read, and practice English whenever you can! It's easy to improve your English!

√ Even a few minutes a day will make a real difference. Play a game, learn an English idiom, or do an exercise from this site when you have a few minutes free.

√ Make yourself think in English! Tape notes to the bathroom mirror. Sing a song in English while you clean or do chores. Listen to the radio or a podcast in English while you exercise.

√ Read a lot! Study English language newspapers. Analyze journal articles in your field. Read stories to your children. Even read ads—-anything that makes you think in English!

Check Out This Quiz

Try this short quiz to see if the lessons and exercises in EnglishHints.com could help you.

(After answering each question, click the right-facing arrow to get the next one. There are explanations or links below the quiz. )

For questions 1-6, choose one or more:

1. Fearlessly means
1. a person who is afraid
2. to hesitate
3. doing something because of fear
4. a person who is unafraid
5. to act without fear
2. An ‘employee’ is
1. A person who is employed at a workplace
2. A job
3. A workplace
4. A person that supervises or gives jobs to others
5. A company that provides jobs for people
3. Things that burn easily are:
1. burnish
2. flammable
3. inflammatory
4. inflammable
5. nonflammable
4. ‘Put off’ may mean
1. to take off a piece of clothing
2. to drop something on the floor
3. to postpone
4. to push something aside
5. to help someone exit a bus or train
5. “Cut it out!” can mean:
1. to injure the skin
2. to use scissors to remove part of a piece of paper or cloth
3. to locate the information you need
4. to chop vegetables into small pieces
5. to stop doing something
6. Mary told me she looks up to Mark. She probably means
1. Mark is taller than her.
2. Mark is always climbing something.
3. She thinks Mark is funny.
4. She admires Mark.
7. Four of the following sentences mean basically the same thing, but the other does not. Which sentence has a different meaning?
1. Although I have spoken English all my life, I still am learning new words.
2. I have spoken English my whole life, but I know only a fraction of the words in an English dictionary.
3. Even if I had spoken English all my life, I still could learn new vocabulary.
4. Even though I’ve spoken English for as long as I’ve lived, there are still words I don’t know.
5. In spite of speaking English all my life, I continue to learn new words every year.
8. Which of the sentences in the answers is the closest in meaning to the following statement?:

Before introducing a major new product, a corporation’s management team needs to consider all the different ways it may impact their business.
1. Before a new product is developed, a business should calculate its potential profitability.
2. When a company wants to produce a new product, it first needs to analyze its various possible effects on their profits and other products.
3. While an innovative product may be attractive to a company, management should look into its costs before committing to manufacture it.
4. Business analysts need to examine the value of a product before it goes into production.

If you want to know more about questions 1-2, see List of Suffixes. For question 3 see Negative Prefix List. For 4-6 see Common Idioms, which has the links to the alphabetical index pages.

In question 7, sentence C is the different one. Sentences A, B, D, and E all say that English is my native language. C is in the unreal conditional tense. (It says I have NOT always spoken English, but it considers how things might be if reality had been different.)

For a short explanation of the unreal conditional tense, see the Modal Verbs section on 'would.'

When I thought about how to explain the difference, I realized I would need to teach some grammar terms.

Grammar explanations can help you understand the reasons behind confusing sentence structures.

To understand professional journals or textbooks, you need to recognize distinctions like the difference between 'although', 'even though', and 'even if.'

If you have doubts about these differences in meaning, see Complex Sentences. (You can also practice them with Adverb Clause and Complex Sentence Practice.)

In question 8, all of the sentences are similar in meaning. However, A, C, and D talk about considering only profitability (A), costs (C) or value (D).

The example sentence talks about “all the different ways it may impact their business.” Sentence B is inclusive in the same way. It talks about its “various possible effects on their profits and other products”—not just its costs or profit.

For specific suggestions for your English level, or for specific purposes like preparation for a test or business English, see Study English Online.

Lady studying & smiling, with an alarm clock in the foreground. text: Just minutes a day learning English will help you reach your goals!

Didn't find what you needed? Explain what you want in the search box below. (For example, cognates, past tense practice, or 'get along with.') Click to see the related pages on EnglishHints.


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What's New?-- site blog

Learn about new and updated pages on EnglishHints, with just enough information to decide if you want to read more.

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Do you already use English in your profession or studies-- but realize you need more advanced English or communication skills in certain areas?

I can help-- with targeted suggestions & practice on EnglishHints or with coaching or specialized help for faster results. Let me know. I can suggest resources or we can arrange a call.

Picture of a student sitting at his desk.

Want to increase your vocabulary fast? This challenge will help you see how many English words with Latin roots you already know, & will make it easy to learn more. Besides, it's fun!