Fantastic Magazines for Learning English

Digital Photographer

Perfect if you like: taking pictures with your camera or phone.

What you’ll find inside: This magazine is full of colorful photos and very pleasing to look at. There are many tips and guides on how to take great pictures, and they are written in simple and easy-to-understand English though there are some technical camera terms. You feel like the writers are talking to you! You can impress your friends with your improved English and your new photography skills!

Fast Company

Perfect if you like: business and learning how successful companies work.

What you’ll find inside: Fast Company is one of the most approachable magazines about business and companies. It has many interviews of successful people, as well as general news about interesting new companies. It does use a higher level of writing than what is usual for magazines, so give it a try first to make sure you can understand the articles.

Cricket and Cicada

Perfect if you like: excellent literature and short stories.

What you’ll find inside: Cricket and Cicada are literary magazines aimed at teenagers. Each issue is full of wonderful short stories and poems, and beautiful illustrations. Even though these are technically children’s magazines, they are perfect for learning English because they have high quality writing.

Mental Floss

Perfect if you like: interesting trivia and facts.

What you’ll find inside: What does outer space smell like? Why isn’t cat food mouse-flavored? If you’re the kind of person who asks yourself these questions, you’ll love Mental Floss. Each issue is full of bite-sized trivia and mostly short articles with really interesting facts that you’ll want to share with others.

While the print edition of the magazine stopped publishing in 2016, you can still read Mental Floss online. Click here to get more information.

Although many Chinese students say that their knowledge of English grammar is good, most would admit that their spoken English is poor. Whenever I speak to a Chinese student, they always say, “My spoken English is poor.” 【小题1】. I would like to suggest that there may be some reasons for their problems with spoken English.

First, they fail to find suitable words to express themselves due to a limited vocabulary. Obviously the better answer is to enlarge their vocabulary. Others will follow you as long as you use the words that you know.

【小题2】 . Sometimes they make mistakes when they are speaking because they are shy and nervous. Yet students should remember that their goal should be fluency not accuracy. Your aim in writing is to be accurate. However, in speaking your aim is fluency. You want to get your message across, to talk to someone in English, as quickly and as well as you can. 【小题3】, but it doesn’t matter. The person you are speaking to will understand you and allow any mistakes he hears.

The third reason is that not enough attention is paid to listening. You have one mouth but two ears! 【小题4】.

Fourth, most Chinese students are not active language learners. Instead of actively seeking out opportunities to improve their spoken English, they passively wait for speaking opportunities to come to them. 【小题5】, then you will see English-learning chances wherever you go.

How to Learn Several Languages at a Time

Learning a new language is a challenging and wonderfully rewarding experience. At some point, you may find yourself needing or wanting to learn several languages at the same time. 【小题1】 However, it also allows you to challenge your brain and take advantage of the similarities and differences between the languages you’re learning.

【小题2】 If you have a choice, choose to learn one language that is easier for you, and another or others that are more difficult. An easier language will be one that is similar to your native language or another language that you know, while a more difficult language will be one that is less similar.

Make one language your priority. 【小题3】 This way, at the end of your hard work, you are more likely to be skilled in at least one of your languages, rather than only knowing a small amount of each of them.

Translate between the languages you’re learning. One way to keep all the languages you are learning active in your mind is to try translating between them, rather than translating them back to your native language. 【小题4】

Add all of the languages to a language-learning app or website. Several language-learning apps and websites, such as Duolingo, Memrise, Clozemaster, Anki and Lingvist allow you to add several languages at once. 【小题5】 This way, when you are on-the-go, you have quick access to a way to study any of the languages you are trying to learn.