Some people have that rare gift of inspiring you to keep going. Lariza, my "neighbor"—along with others who left Journaly before I could even say goodbye—is a great example. I’m thinking of some of

Think of a time you wanted to say something in your target language. It's like standing at the start of a road—you have rules to follow, lanes to choose from, traffic lights to obey, and you start

What song are you singing? One of Ed Sheeran. You've put your shirt on backwards. What do you mean by backwards? Shouldn't the label go in the front? No, the label goes in the back... Well, you've

I placed the knife on top of it, and in one smooth motion, the blade sank into the mochi, splitting it with ease. Nothing can resist the edge of a Japanese knife. It split in two as if it'd been

I came home one day and saw my father  in the dining room, looking at the walls. He had removed all the pictures from the largest/amplest wall and tacked to it a bunch of sheets of paper. At first

"Today, we're going to learn how to drive." "Yaaaay!" "First of all, put on your seat belt." "Shouldn't I get in the car first?" "Ah, yes. But watch your head. This car is like a can of sardines.

A duck walks into a bar and orders a combo plate. When a customer hears him, he says, "This is incredible! A talking duck!" "So what?" asks the duck. "You can talk too." "That's true," says the

Three drunks run into a train station because the train is about to leave, and the station manager tells them, "Come on, run! The train is about to leave!!" He just manages to help two of them get on

A little girl asks her mother, "Where do babies come from? How was I born?" The mother braces herself with patience and replies, "One day, I cut off the most beautiful flower in the garden, put it

The director of a zoo is desperate. The kangaroo keeps escaping from its enclosure, so he decides to build a six-foot-tall one. The next day, he sees that the kangaroo has escaped again, so he makes

Telling a joke is like telling a story: there are usually two or more characters, a situation, a plot, and an ending that is supposed to be funny to the listener. However, not every joke lands the

Two jaguars bump into each other in the jungle. They don't speak the same language, so they try to communicate in English, and one says to the other, "Jaguar you?" Two men are fighting over a piece

Hey, fam! What’s up, my people? I dropped my phone on me and couldn’t reach you guys. I just saw all the messages. You're lit! I’m finna cry, no cap. I miss you a ton, and I can’t wait to hug y'all.

It's my turn. I walk up to the examiner's table, pull the chair back, and take a seat. A bunch of nervous people are murmuring in the room next door, and he looks at me with a poker face. I know I'm

I remember as if it were yesterday one of my teachers—whose name, paradoxically, I can't recall no matter how hard I try—once told that writing long sentences is one of the things that makes writing

I've heard a lot about Dr. Stephen Krashen and his hypothesis about language acquisition, and I have no doubt that his research has been an absolute game changer for anyone learning languages. His

"I have some bad news: The subjunctive is dying." "Yaaaaaay!" "Really? What kind of people are you, cave dwellers? At least show some respect! The subjunctive has been with us for ages, and I'm going

It's not easy to make good bread. Even though I have a ton of cooking doodads in the kitchen, it took me a while to make an edible one. I remember my first try at it. It smelled like bread, but it

Talking about the future mainly involves discussing plans and predictions, and the "will & be going to" pair could tell you a lot about that. But I'm not a big fan of sharing my plans because they

It all started with a pizza. I made a pizza for dinner last week. I don't do this very often because we're an odd number of people at home, and even though I know that πr² is the formula for finding