When do you use the word “the”? When do you use the word “a” or ”an”? When is it not correct to use any article? This is a problem for many English learners all over the world, and especially for those whose native language does not have any articles, like Chinese, Korean, or Russian.

English may seem like it is fickle. What do I mean by that? I mean that sometimes it looks like there is no reason for things to be the way they are – not predictable, not according to any rule that you can easily see. So, are these things that you just have to hear, absorb and try to imitate? Or are there some guiding principles?

“Countable”. You may have heard of this word before. It means that you are talking about something that can be counted. For example, we can say “three eggs”, but we can’t say *“three waters”, because we can’t count ‘water’. But hey! Maybe you’ve heard someone say to the waiter in a restaurant “Bring three waters, please.” What they really mean is “Bring three GLASSES of water.” It is the noun “glass” that is countable, not the word “water”!

Getting more complicated, right? Well, how about this? If it is a unit of measure or time, which is considered countable (“three hours”, “four gallons”, etc.), we generally use “a” or “an”, and not “the”. For example, we say “My car needs a gallon of gas.”, and not *“My car needs the gallon of gas.” On the other hand, body parts, which are also countable, usually take “the”. Take a look at this example – we say “A bee stung her on the arm.”, and not *“A bee stung her on an arm.”

Want more? When we want to say something is the ‘best’ or the ‘first’, we generally use “the” and not “a” – “She was the best singer”, not *“She was a best singer”, or “He was the first astronaut.”, and not *“He was a first astronaut.”

Sometimes there should be NO article in English. This is the case for non-countable nouns, like the word “knowledge.” For example, we say “Knowledge is power.”, and not *“The knowledge is power.”, or *“A knowledge is power.” But as I said before, English seems fickle. It is perfectly OK to say, “He has a good knowledge of English.” Don’t you just want to scream?

And remember that we said units of measure or time usually take “a” or “an”. Well, not always. If they are in a ‘by phrase’, use “the” – “He was paid by the hour.” (not *“He was paid by an hour.”), or “Milk is sold by the gallon.” (not *“Milk is sold by a gallon.”)

My advice to you? Go with the flow. See and hear how English is used, and just try your best to get it right. The more examples you hear, the better your English will be. And yes, go ahead and scream. It’s OK. We understand!

I’ve heard so much about Barcelona. The architecture. Gaudi. The art. Dali, Picasso, Miro. The sports. FC Barcelona, Messi. The beautiful gardens and wonderful tourist spots. But here we are, at the Mobile World Congress 2013. Our multi-screen version of SpeakingPal English Tutor is in two booths – one at the Qualcomm sponsored “Connected City”, and one at the Sony make.believe space.

Why two booths? Well, SpeakingPal won first place for Best Multi-Screen Experience in the Qualcomm sponsored AllJoyn Peer-to-Peer App Challenge, and also won a free MWC booth in the Sony Multi-Screen UX Competition.  It was all very exciting. Ok, very little sleep, hardly eating, standing on our feet all day. Did I mention that there were loads of people, with a constant stream of visitors? The latest trends. The coolest gadgets. And we were in the thick of all this delightful technology! So, in the end, it was all worth it.

Now we’re back home. Well, someday I’ll see Barcelona, someday…

It is not every day that you are considered a finalist in a competition, so we are especially pleased to be considered as one in the upcoming LaunchEdu showcase of innovative educational products and services. SpeakingPal is shortlisted in the Higher Education section of LaunchEdu, which is part of the 2013 SXSWedu Conference and Festival.

I’m sure you have all heard of SXSW in conjunction with music, film and entertainment showcases. SXSWedu is a particularly interesting happening that is solely committed to presenting education-related content that highlights the leading trends in education today.

SpeakingPal is delighted to be among this elite group of innovative educational providers.

CES 2013. One of the biggest shows of tech stuff. Everything nifty. Everything new. And here we are, at the Haier booth presenting SpeakingPal TV Remote. It is quite exciting. There is a buzz everywhere.

So what do we have to offer? Our flagship app for improving your English speaking skills now on Smart TV – and controlled by your smartphone or tablet! After all, if you are going to have a Smart TV, isn’t it a good idea to also have a Smart Remote Control? And what is smarter than your smartphone or tablet? So, we decided to enhance the regular control functions of a usual remote control and allow your mobile or tablet to act as a navigation tool, microphone and camera – so that you can interact in a new and exciting way with the character on the big screen and learn to speak English in a whole new way.

The mobile device navigates the application, just like you would use a regular TV remote to do so. But in addition, it records your voice and sends it off to be recognized by the automatic speech recognition engine – so that you can get instant pronunciation feedback. And then it takes a video of you saying the utterance – so that you can see yourself on TV and compare your speech with a native speaker. A Smart Remote for Smart TV!

Pretty neat, huh?

So, you find a need in the marketplace. People need to speak in English, right? And you find out that the need is not met. English tutors are costly, or there are simply not enough of them in certain areas of the world. You start to develop a neat product that you think will fill the need. You do thought experiments. What are the trends? Well, mobile penetration in the marketplace is an obvious one. What do people want? To learn quickly. What’s attractive? Video, interaction, humor, engagement. And then you sum it all up: “Let’s use the mobile and create a simulation of an English tutor where a learner can talk to a video character and get instant feedback!”

Sounds great, and it is a really good idea. But then you have to define the product, and the target market. And here is where real life comes into play. We can’t always predict what is really out there.  So, the real question was this: Who will use it? We thought that we should target intermediate to advanced learners of English who have good English reading or other skills, but poor speaking skills. And so, the product was targeted to this segment.

But when we went live, we found that an awful lot of our users were at English levels that were much lower. I wouldn’t say newbie beginners, but almost! What’s the lesson?  “You never know what’s out there until you find out what’s out there!”

The really important lesson is to learn – and then move quickly when you learn something. So, we developed another product aimed for those who want to learn basic English. Still the same clever idea – just for a different target market. And so we say this: “You can’t always know everything at the beginning. Not even the target. But then, isn’t that what makes life interesting?”

Have you heard the joke about the Australian who came to America and drove his car at a reckless speed and got into a terrible accident? The police arrived and reprimanded him by saying, “Did you come here to die?” He responded, “No, I came here yesterdie (yesterday)”.

And this one is a true story. My friend’s daughter had a visitor from Atlanta, Georgia. We asked what her name is. She answered, “KAYIM”. I’d never heard of that name, so I asked her to spell it. She said: “K – I – M, KAYIM”, in a typical southern US drawl.  That’s when I realized that her name is KIM, which is a very common American name!

We all know that English is spoken all over the world by millions of people. For some, English is their native language. English is spoken as a native language in America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, etc. Within each country, there are different dialects in different geographical areas. This makes A LOT of English dialects! So, English that is spoken in different parts of the world can sound differently, use different words or even allow different grammatical structures.

So, what kind of English do you want to speak? We chose a mid-West American English as our standard. This is because it is type of English that seems to be clear and understandable to all different kinds of English speakers and English language learners all over the world.

What do you think?

There are so many English learners all over the world. They are at different levels. Some take English lessons in public schools, some in private schools, and some are self taught. Some have native English speakers to converse with and some have never even met a native English speaker in person. Some have the resources to hire private teachers or tutors but many do not.

What is true about all of them? They all want more opportunities to learn and they all really want to improve their English skills. And they all have something to say about how they feel about learning English.

Here are some of the pearls of wisdom that I have heard English learners say:

“I can read much better than I can speak.”
“I wish I had more videos to watch in English.”
“My accent is terrible. I am afraid to speak out loud.”
“Sometimes I talk but I don’t know if what I said is correct or not.”

As an English learner, what do you say?

Well, it is hard to believe, but Speakingpal has already reached the 500,000 mark! Getting this kind of response does not come without a lot of planning and hard work. And we are not afraid of hard work! Coders coding into the night, QA constantly on their toes, content developers in perpetual motion, not to mention PR, marketing and overall management – all working hard to make this magic number a reality.

We have been watching the charts, looking at it go up day after day. It is a little like preparing for athletics. You need to put in the time and the energy. And monitor. And see what is happening on a daily basis. You need to be constantly fit to tackle the next day. And you need to have an overall strategy to win.

So how does it feel to have all this hard work pay off with the half million mark? Let’s just say that if we were in the Olympics, it would feel like we have won gold! Now let’s prepare for the next 4 years, ok?