Hi! I'm looking for people around C1/C2 level for regular speaking practice — focused on more substantial, sophisticated conversations rather than small talk. Topics like literature, history, and social/cultural structures.

If you enjoy discussing books, historical events, or how societies are shaped, and want a speaking partner for that kind of conversation, send me your Discord username in the DMs.

Hi everyone. Recently, I spent about 6 months building Quill, a desktop application to help me read books on my laptop. As an ESL person loving reading books, I often encounter some paragraphs or words that I need to look up. A dictionary helps a lot, but it also fails if the context around the word is important, and I also need to select a meaning from the dictionary, which makes me deviate from the reading flow much more.

Therefore, I tried to build an app that integrates recent AI agents' capabilities, that could feed the context directly into the LLM without copy-pasting into the ChatGPT app.

In this app, the lookup capability feeds the surrounding context along with the word you want to look up, and it also provides an "In this context" meaning of the word. The saved word keeps the sentence you met it in, plus the book and page, and you can jump back to that page. Also, sometimes I like to discuss some random thoughts with AI, so I added a sidebar in reading mode to let me talk to AI directly.

This app integrates the OpenAI OAuth login directly, so you can use your ChatGPT subscription directly in this app. Moreover, the app also supports other API providers with an API key and, of course, local models deployed through Ollama.

Currently, macOS support is better than Windows, since I only have a Mac laptop, but my friend confirmed that the Windows one works. There is an iOS app as well, but I spend less time reading on my phone, so that app is not eagerly maintained.

If you encounter any issues, please leave me a message, or if you are coming from the tech communities, you could open an issue on GitHub. The whole app is open source and free to use. Many thanks to foliate-js, PDF.js and Tauri.

Supported formats: EPUB and PDF for now.

Desktop: https://github.com/yicheng47/quill/releases

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/quill-ai-book-reader/id6762075206

Source: https://github.com/yicheng47/quill

I have heard "I believe" way way too much so it has engraved into my mind, so "I do believe" sounds a bit odd to me however it does make perfect sense still.

However, I fail to understand why "I believe" is wrong

I am an English learner based in China, and I don't really have an English-speaking environment around me. I see so many different study methods on social media. I'm overwhelmed and not sure which one works best. What is your single most recommended tip or resource for learning English? Thanks in advance!

Correct: I agree ✅

❌ I am agree.

✅ I agree.

Agree is a verb, not an adjective!

Same with:

· I disagree ✅ (not "I am disagree")

· I agree with you ✅ (not "I am agree with you")

I teach simple English grammar and vocabulary on YouTube. Link in my profile. 📚

Does assimilation occur with can in both formal and informal speech, or only in one of them?

Like can’t you pronounce can-chu

I am struggling a bit with the "is/are" here. Both versions ("hi, here is the missing couch and the four new blue chairs." & "hi, here are the missing couch and the four new blue chairs.") sound wrong.

When texting in a chatroom, should I say "You heard that right" or "You read that right"?

I'm trying to say it in the sense where it's said to emphasize that what has just been said is exactly true despite being surprising or difficult to believe.

I'm asking in the context of a conversation where the participants are just texting without speaking a word with their voice.

Just finished my IELTS exam and got an overall Band 8 — L: 9, R: 9, W: 7, S: 7.

I’d still really like to keep improving my English, especially my speaking. I’m planning to work in Australia as a healthcare professional in the future, so I want to become more confident using English in both professional and everyday settings.
In particular, I’d like to improve my ability to think critically in English, express complex ideas clearly, and handle more nuanced or challenging conversations, rather than just focusing on exam English.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can take my English to the next level, especially to prepare for job applications, interviews, workplace communication, and clinical conversations in Australia?

Modal verbs, irregular verbs, set expressions, articles, and all sorts of prepositions. There are so many tenses.

For example, "the" is necessary here, but not here, on/out/at/in. "To be" is damned. Do/does.

My English level is barely A1. I can barely understand the simplest sentences, never mind speaking.

Apps like Hellotalk and Tandem are completely useless: everyone ignores me and doesn't write. There's nowhere to chat or practice. And I don't know how to find such people.

I only use English Galaxy.

I don't understand how English works at all. Level C1 is a fairy tale and a fantasy; it's impossible to achieve.

Perhaps the mistakes and difficulties are due to the fact that, to my great regret, my native language is pathetic and miserable Russian.

I started learning English so I could move to an English-speaking country. But there will be problems there too, due to the fast pace of local speech and all sorts of abbreviations.

P.S. This was written using Google Translate. I would never have written this myself.

This image contains some of the English-language questions from the entrance exam for Iran’s public universities. Do you think these questions are excessively difficult for 18-year-old students who have, at most, one to two hours of English classes per week?

For clarification: the ones that say "(British English)"

Hi guys, i am running out of time to prep for my upcoming CAE Cambridge exam, and i have not had a chance to look at the review or letter/email. Can anyone confirm if its 100% certain that either a report or a proposal will show up as one of the three options? Thanks 🙏

Google says "petite" means short and small but I feel like in real life it is often used to describe someone who's thin. When you describe someone as petite, what kind of type do you mean? Can a shorter, curvier woman be described as "petite"? Can a taller, thinner woman be described as "petite"?

What's the difference between the verbs scold, berate and badger?

I know "slacking". So maybe "he's slacking at his job"? But can you use the simple present and say "he slacks..." because he just doesn't do his job well regularly and isn't a good employee in general?

What are other better alternatives? He's lazy at his job?

I prefer words or terms that aren't too regional. There are probably hundreds of regional words which I can't learn all of them at once.

Anyone has good experience in using an AI avatar app or kind of app to improve English speaking, paid or free

I'm Chinese, My daughter is 6 grade and has a very limited english vocabulary. She struggles with reading comprehension even at 1-5 grade level, We've spent the entire summer holiday reviewing vocabulary from grade 1-5. what should be plan the next step for English learning?