Can My Phone Understand Me?

  Smartphones can listen to you speak, and display your words.  So can iPads and computers.  If your phone can understand you, other people will probably understand you.

Practice your speech on iPhone or iPad

  • Open the Notes App    and create a new note     
  • Press the Microphone icon next to the Space Bar on the keyboard
  • Start talking – and see what words are shown
  • Are they the same words that you spoke?  If not, try again.

Practice on Android phone or tablet

  • Install the Google Keyboard app from Google Play
  • Then open your email or memo app, or use a free notes app like Evernote
  • Press the Microphone icon next to the Space Bar on the keyboard
  • Start talking – and see what words are shown
  • Are they the same words that you spoke?  If not, try again.

When your phone can understand you, you can use your voice for … email, text messages, Siri questions on iPhones (“Hey Siri“), Google searches (“OK Google“), Alexa, and more.

Google Translate

On iPhones or Android phones, you can also use the Google Translate app (Android; Apple) for this.

  • Make sure the language is set to English
  • Press the microphone button and start speaking

The Little Prince – In Levels

 The Little Prince is a very famous and popular book written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.  You can read – and listen to – the book for free in one of three English levels.   How many English words do you know?  

  • Choose Level 1 if you know about 300 to 1000 English words
  • Choose Level 2 if you know 1000 to 2000 words
  • Choose Level 3 if you know more than 2000 words

 

How Many Words Do I Know?

On testlanguages.com –  

  • Mark each word on the first page  – if you know it very well
    (If you aren’t sure about the word, don’t mark it.)
  • Press 
  • Mark each word on the second page – if you know it very well
  • Press 

At the end, they will tell you about how many English words you know.
This is mostly just for fun, but if you study some vocabulary, and then take the test again a few months later, your score should increase a little.

There’s another website to test your English vocabulary called TestYourVocab

Small Talk

Small talk is simple, polite conversation – usually with someone you don’t know very well.  Making small talk is a good way to practice your English speaking – such as when you meet someone walking in your neighborhood, or waiting in line at a store.  You can talk about things like the weather (“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”), or someone’s cute dog.

Here are some examples of small talk conversations that you can read, and listen to.

Free eBooks

bookbubBookbub.com is a website that tells you about free or inexpensive digital books – eBooks.

You can read these books on an eBook reader (such as Kindle or Nook).  But you can also read them on your phone, tablet, or computer – usually with the free Kindle App or Nook App.  If you have an iPhone or iPad, you can read many of these using your iBooks app.
For example, on BookBub they have listed an eBook version of the popular children’s book I Wish You More, selling now for $1.20 on Amazon .
And here is their latest listing of Free eBooks.