It brings me great pleasure to announce the arrival of the English Enjoyed app: master your English in ten minutes a day.

As a subscriber to this newsletter, you are among the very first to see it. This is an exclusive look before the app is announced to everyone else.

This is the most audacious project I have undertaken to date, and I dearly hope that you will enjoy using it as much as I have enjoyed building it.

Download it on the App Store (iPhone)

Get it on Google Play (Android)

The problems it solves

1. You already know English well, yet you lack the precise words to express exactly what you mean.

2. You resolve to improve your English and vow to study diligently for an hour every day. It starts brilliantly, but by day three something breaks the momentum, and the system lies in ruins.

3. Perhaps you do keep a system: a notebook of words, a few grammar rules looked up. Only you never look at them again, and the words and rules go unlearnt.

Vocabulary. Grammar. Recall. The app solves all three at once.

The Evergreen Method for everlasting English

Spaced repetition

In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus measured how quickly we forget: about half of something new is gone by the next day, and most of it within a week.

However, if one reviews a word at the precise moment one is about to lose it, the memory does not merely survive—it strengthens. English Enjoyed calculates that moment for every card you hold, and asks you to recall it then.

If you recall it correctly, the card advances further into the future. If you do not, the app notes this, and you will meet that card again sooner.

One card, one idea

Piotr Wozniak, who wrote the first spaced-repetition program, called it the minimum information principle: simple cards are learnt faster, retained longer, and recalled more reliably than complicated ones.

So every card asks you to remember one thing. Lead the metal and lead the verb are two cards, and each grammar topic is broken into its separate rules, so that you can learn each one cleanly.

Words in context

We do not learn a word by staring at its definition. We learn it by meeting it in a novel, a conversation, or a film, embedded in a sentence, surrounded by the context that gives it life.

A word written in a notebook has no context to anchor it. How would you know that anchor can be used figuratively, unless you saw it used so? (See the previous sentence.)

So every word comes with three sentences, written to show it in different settings, and each review asks for the next. Here is mollify:

Not even a word from the chef himself could mollify the diner, whose soup had arrived cold for the second time.

Her neighbour, still furious about the hedge that had been cut without his leave, seemed somewhat mollified by a handwritten apology.

Offended by the young critic’s review, the old novelist was soon mollified by her evident admiration for his early books.

You can hear words spoken aloud too, recorded in my own voice, with more added every week. A word you do not know how to pronounce is a word you will not use.

What to expect

Your daily Refined Ritual

Every day, the app invites you to add between one and five new cards—words, idioms, grammar rules, or punctuation rules, chosen by you—and then to complete your reviews.

Why five?

The Rule of Five is not a restriction upon your ambition. It is the protection of it.

Every review pile that has ever collapsed did so for the same reason. Somebody added ninety cards on a Sunday because inspiration struck, and by the following Thursday nine hundred reviews were waiting—and no human being alive opens that app ever again.

Five a day does not collapse. Five a day is survivable during your worst week: the impending deadline, the flu, or the house move. It keeps your reviews to about ten minutes a day.

5 new cards. 10 minutes a day. 1,825 new words and rules a year.

Your first meetings

When you add a new word, it is first introduced: its meaning, its sound, and a sentence. Then you meet it three times, with a little less help each time:

1. Choose it from four options.

2. Type it, knowing how many letters it has and the letter it begins with.

3. Type it, knowing only how many letters it has.

From the next day, you recall it from memory alone, with a Hint button should you need one.

A grammar or punctuation rule begins with a question, asked before you have read the rule. Answer as best you can: that first answer is never marked. Then you see the rule as two sentences, one with the mistake and one without, followed by two more questions.

Track your progress

In this century, we do not suffer from a shortage of information; we suffer from a shortage of accountability. Think of your streak and the Progress tab as an accountability partner, keeping you on course.

The Elevation

Every card stands on one of five stages, according to how long the memory would last without a review: Learning, Settling, Acquiring, Solidified, and Mastered.

A card earns the status of Mastered only when you would remember it for a full six months without seeing it once.

We chose a demanding measure on purpose, because a number that flatters you is not a measurement. It is a decoration. At English Enjoyed we have high standards, and there are no medals for mere participation. This status you will have to earn—and when that figure climbs, it means something.

Your own linguistic library

All your cards are kept in your Library.

It is not a word list. It is a library—catalogued, beautiful, and assembled by nobody but you. Every card in it is there because you decided that something was missing from your English, and resolved to put it right.

You may sort your collection by newest, alphabetically, or by stage. You may search it. You may open any card and read its definition, its grammar rule, and its sentences. And should you meet a word in a novel that we do not yet hold, you may add your own.

How I know it works

I speak with some confidence on this matter, because this is not a method about which I have merely read. It is the method by which I have improved my own French, Spanish, and English (yes, even my first language), and by which I continue to do so, day after day.

Here is how you will know it has worked: one day, some months from now, you will be in conversation, and you will say punctilious, amortise, or mollify—correctly, in context, without hesitation, and without the faintest recollection of having learnt it.

What the app cannot do

Let me take a moment to be candid about what this app is not. English Enjoyed will not replace a teacher. It will not replace live conversation, watching films, reading novels, or the irreplaceable business of making a fool of oneself in a foreign language in a bar. Nothing replaces that.

What it does supply is the bricks: the words, the rules, and the expressions—the small, sturdy, interlocking pieces from which every sentence you have never said before will be built.

We handle the bricks. You build whatever you like.

Download today

One thousand eight hundred words and rules a year, held not in a notebook destined to be lost, but in the only repository that has ever mattered: your own long-term memory, permanently, and on demand.

The app requires a subscription, and the first 14 days are free. We shall email you two days before your trial ends, so there are no surprises.

Download today and start your 14-day free trial.

Download it on the App Store (iPhone)

Get it on Google Play (Android)

Should you meet any difficulty, please write to support@englishenjoyed.com.

With warmest regards,
Thomas

We have reached the end of the road, for some at least. The final episode of A Murder of Mistakes is upon us and I hope you have enjoyed unravelling the story as much as the grammar.

We conclude by focusing on the usage of the semicolon. It is oft misunderstood, more often misused, or simply not used at all. After this finale, you shall know how to wield it with absolute ease.

As Professor Merriweather elegantly put it, the semicolon is “half-stop, half-trumpet”, which is a fitting end to such a case. The semicolon: neither a comma nor a full stop, but a measured pause in the conversation.

Who knows? We may see some of these suspicious characters again.

Read more

There are rather curious instances in English where one wonders why a certain manner of speaking is favoured over others. Our language is deeply idiosyncratic, often preserving exceptions to prevailing standards like flies trapped in amber.

Today’s instance is the use of demur in the phrase without demur. We routinely say things such as “without objecting” or “without complaining”, so why do we rarely say “without demurring”?

Read more

We have reached the penultimate episode of A Murder of Mistakes. However well the suspects have conducted themselves, masks have certainly slipped—as has grammar. No one’s alibi is watertight, and some did not live to see the end; nevertheless, everyone remains a suspect.

In today’s episode, we look at the use of however and nevertheless. While many writers treat them as identical twins, they are actually just cousins. They both signal a shift in thought, but they do entirely different jobs in a sentence.

Yours sincerely,
Thomas

Read more

Ah, a longstanding miscommunication between British English and American English: In British English, the inclusion or omission of the definite article (“the”) before the word “hospital” changes the entire meaning of the sentence. It determines your relationship to the institution.

It is believed to be George Bernard Shaw who once quipped, ‘Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language’

Yours sincerely,
Thomas

Read more

Understanding can come slowly and laboriously after painstaking time spent working something out. Whereas realisation usually comes thick and fast, rather like an epiphany.

The difference between these verbs boils down to action versus possession. Are you actively trying to solve a puzzle, or do you already hold the knowledge in your head?

Yours sincerely,
Thomas

Read more

In English, because, since, and as can all be used as conjunctions to explain why something happens. However, they are not perfectly interchangeable.

The correct choice depends entirely on what you want the listener to focus on: the reason or the result.

Let us explore the subtle nuances contained within each choice and how we can use them to our stylistic advantage.

Yours sincerely,

Thomas

Read more

Read more

Navigating the English language when you are feeling under the weather can be a headache—quite literally. The rules governing which articles precede illnesses depend largely on how the English language categorises the condition.

If you want to precisely declare which vintage of misery one has caught, do read on.

Yours sincerely,
Thomas

Read more

We have a strange case of “like-itis” in contemporary society. The word has evolved to become as useful as a Swiss Army knife, pervading our everyday speech with such ease that even the most sophisticated amongst us cannot escape its influence.

While “like” serves many functions, today’s lesson focuses solely on its use as a preposition meaning “similar to”, being distinct from “such as”.

Whether one likes it or not, “like” is here to stay; however, should one wish to add a little distinction to your expression, read on.

Yours sincerely,
Thomas

Read more

I am loth to admit I was not personally aware of this particular distinction in advance of researching it. The more gaps one seems to fill in one’s knowledge, the more gaps seem to appear—language, after all, is a lifelong journey—and may today’s lesson go some way to expanding one’s own knowledge.

Yours sincerely,
Thomas

Read more

Today’s lesson is a perennial headache of grammatical confusion. It is ‘lie’ or ‘lay’? The difference depends entirely on whether there is an object (a thing being acted upon).

To untangle this mystery, we must interrogate their usage.

Yours sincerely,
Thomas

Read more

Recently, we officially crossed the halfway point of this year (2nd July). While your New Year’s resolutions may be long forgotten—hazy vows made in the temporal no-man’s land of possibility that exists between the 31st of December and the 1st of January—I hope today’s lesson at least provides yet another solution to the resolution to improve one’s English.

Yours sincerely,
Thomas

Read more

These two words (or three, if you are being pedantic) still give me pause for thought. One hopes that today’s lesson will shed enough light to dispel any further confusion.

Are we all together ready? Very well, do carry on!

Yours sincerely,
Thomas

P.S. The subtitles may be helpful for this one.

Read more

In British English, the difference between these two words comes down to a single vowel, but that vowel completely changes the stakes of the situation. It is the difference between asking for directions and being interrogated by a detective.

Read on to unravel the differences between these two seemingly similar verbs.

Yours sincerely,
Thomas

Read more

Has a witting suspect finally been caught in a grammatical trap of their own making? Or do they possess enough education to evade sentencing?

The lawyers amongst us surely know the power of words and the importance of their placement.

However, as with any language, there is a large degree of ambiguity one can leverage to their advantage.

Yours sincerely,
Thomas

Read more

Are you famous for a celebrated achievement? Are you infamous for a scandal in the community? Are you notorious for confusing these words?

Or perhaps you feel similar to Mae W…

Read more

Today we have an exquisite look at a particular grammar issue (i.e., the misuse of i.e. and e.g.). While e.g. is generally used with aplomb, i.e. can certainly cause some… issues.

May this lesson serve to clarify their usage and sharpen your prose.

Yours sincerely,
Thomas

Read more

Today’s lesson brings you a playful look at the risks and benefits of distinguishing between assumption and presumption. Be careful—assuming too audaciously may land one in r…

Read more

We are now entering the fourth and final act of A Murder of Mistakes.

Please take today’s lesson with a large pinch of salt. For this is more a question of style than of strict grammar agreements.

Read more