Fluent in 3 Months

Poder is the verb you reach for every single day, "can I", "could you", "I wasn't able to". It's Spanish's do-it-all modal verb for ability, possibility and permission, and it comes with two irregular quirks stacked on top of each other: a stem that flips

Avere is the other great Italian workhorse. If essere is "to be", avere is "to have", and you'll reach for it constantly, partly for talking about what you own, but mostly as the engine behind the passato prossimo, the tense you'll use every time you desc

How do you say "good morning" in French? Here's the honest answer before we go any further: you don't, not really. French has no everyday word that means specifically "good morning" the way English does. What you actually say when you wake up, walk into t

Decir means "to say" or "to tell", and it's one of the verbs you'll reach for constantly in Spanish, which is unfortunate news for anyone hoping for an easy ride, because it's also one of the most irregular verbs in the whole language. The yo form isn't d

How do you say "happy birthday" in Korean? The short answer is 생일 축하해요 (saengil chukhahaeyo). The longer, more useful answer is that this is only one of at least four correct answers, and picking the wrong one can make you sound either oddly formal with a

Querer is one of those Spanish verbs you'll reach for constantly. It's how you ask for what you want, and it's how you tell someone you love them, the same word does both jobs. It's an eie stem-changing verb, which sounds fussy but is actually one of the

Ir is one of the first verbs every Spanish learner meets, one of the most useful, and one of the most irregular. It means "to go", you'll use it constantly for travel plans, daily routines, and one of the handiest shortcuts in the whole language, and its

Haben means "to have", but it does far more than sit in that one box. It's the main auxiliary verb that builds the German past tense, the Perfekt, the one Germans reach for every single day to talk about anything that already happened. Learn haben properl

How do you say "thank you" in Chinese? The short answer is 谢谢 (xièxie). The longer, more useful answer is that Mandarin is a tonal language, and getting the tones on this one word right is the difference between sounding natural and sounding like you're r

How do you say "Happy Birthday" in French? The short answer is Joyeux anniversaire. The slightly longer answer is that French gives you a choice of two equally common phrases, a proper singalong song, and a couple of cultural quirks that'll make you look