How to learn English with SIRI

There are many tricks to learning English. Everybody can suggest you to watch a TV series in English to exercise your listening and if you want to improve your reading skills, you can read books. Listening to  music is the easiest way to reach both these goals. The problem comes - if you don’t have an English person nearby - when you want to practice your pronunciation. With this post I want to share with you my secret to learning to speak English properly.

Are you ready? Pick up your I-Phone (or use Google Translator) and start a conversation with Siri!

Every time that I come to the UK I write a ‘Giulia’s Dictionary’ with words that I’ve learnt during my stay or with words that I already know, but with which I'm not sure about the spelling (just to better remember them). A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the kitchen after dinner and I wasn’t sure about the meaning of a word: ‘mould’. I asked Nicky (my host-mum) if the meaning of mould was ‘to change the shape of something’ to write it in my dictionary. Yes, it is, if you consider the verb. But 'mould’ (or ‘mold’) can also be a fungus that grows on walls or on food.

 In someway we started to speak about the difference between ‘mould’ and ‘moss’, which is a plant.

Now I know it, but at the beginning I was really confused. The solution? “Let’s ask Siri” said Nicky.

“What is the difference between MOSS and MOULD?”

This is how my adventure started, because - during my first week here - when I tried to ask Siri something she always misunderstood the word I was saying (which means that my pronunciation was so bad!). When I tried to ask Siri the question about MOSS and MOULD, Siri wrote “Which is the difference between MARS and MOULD?”. 

This is my sixth week in Torquay and I am improving my English quickly: now Siri understands me. There is only one word with which I am having problems: ‘earthnware’. When I try to ask Siri “How do you spell EARTHNWARE?” there is always something extremely strange and funny that comes out. For example:

“How do you spell HERDSDOWN WHERE?”

“How do you spell HAW THORNE WHERE?”

“How do you spell ARDENWAY?”

One time I was really lucky with:

“How do you spell EARTH AND WHERE?”

Nicky said to me “When you are leaving Torquay the last thing that I will ask you at the train station will be ‘try to say EARTHENWHERE’”, by that time, I have to learn it. This is my summer challenge.

GIULIA DE VENDICTIS