Welcome to the Britlish Library.

I hope you will enjoy the 230 British English lessons in the Britlish Library. I have designed the lessons to help you improve all areas of your English skills from writing and speaking, to listening and reading.

The British English lessons in the Britlish Library are full of multimedia content in the form of videos, audio files, animations, and engaging image files. This multimedia content makes learning British English much more fun and engaging than simply reading text in a book.

Latest British English Lessons

Here are the 5 newest British English lessons from the Britlish Library. I always add new lessons to the Britlish Library every week so make sure you bookmark this page.

The Suffix -ish

You have probably noticed the suffix -ish at the end of many English words. The suffix -ish is actually in the words English and British, and consequently Britlish, too. A suffix is a tag that we add to the end of words to change their meaning slightly. In the case of -ish we add it to the ends of nouns and adjectives to form adjectives which mean approximately, somewhat, or like. It’s a very old suffix which Old English inherited from the Germanic. Common uses of the suffix -ish are colour words, talking about the size of things, when talking about the temperature of things, when describing qualities, and it is often added to numbers and time to indicate approximation.

Why are Human Beings so Stupid, Ignorant, and Pathetic?

This lesson looks at why individually humans are stupid, ignorant, and pathetic, but collectively, as a species, we are capable of incredible achievements. How long would you survive if the fabric of our society dissolved away and we were left to fend for ourselves? What do you think will come after humans have outlived their usefulness? Do this lesson to find out some of my thoughts on this matter.

Make Off

Bernie Madoff died in prison on 14th April 2021 having served just 12 years of a 150-year prison sentence for running the biggest ever Ponzi scheme which defrauded people out of an estimated $65 billion. This English lesson takes a look at the ironic pronunciation of the phrasal verb make off, which means to steal money, and Bernie Madoff's last name which is a homophone with made off. The animation of the Madoff character in the video was done using iClone and Character Creator from Reallusion. I think it is the most realistic animation I have made to date.

Alaska

This “Alaska” joke gets its humour from the pronunciation features of British English. If you understand the rhythm of English and how weak and strong syllables behave when we speak, you will be able to understand the humour of this joke. The Britlish Library lesson explains how and why the joke is funny and gives you plenty of exercises to help you learn, remember, and use these pronunciation features.

Wind Idioms

There are quite a few wind idioms in British English. I have created an Activation Quiz to teach you 15 of them and give you some practice using them. These 15 idioms include put the wind up, take the wind out of someone’s sails, and an ill wind, to name just a few. You can learn these idioms by doing the multimedia-rich, interactive activator in this lesson.

Random British English Lessons

Here are three random British English lessons taken from the 230 British English lessons currently in the Britlish Library. I add new lessons every week, so be sure to bookmark this page. Sign up for a free membership and you will get an email each time I add a new lesson to the library.

Knackered - Vocabulary Activator

Just as Eskimos have many words for snow, apparently, so, too, do the British, wearied by overwork, have many words for being tired such as drained, exhausted, fatigued, knackered, spent, tired out and worn out. This lesson will help you to learn, remember, and use these words without becoming exhausted in the process.

CPE Reading and Use of English Activator 1

The Cambridge Proficiency Exam (CPE) reading and use of English is a set of 7 questions from the full CPE exam for which students are given 90 minutes to complete the exam. I have created an example exam using the same format as in the CPE and you can do a full, reading and use of English exam timed for 90 minutes to help you get used to planning your time wisely in the actual exam. You can also do parts 1-4, part 5, part 6, and part 7, separately as untimed tests if you just want to practice the exam technique. Each of the tests in this activator will give you immediate feedback on your score and show you where you might have made mistakes. There are 53 questions in total in the Reading and Use of English part of the CPE and you can score a maximum of 72 points. These tests reflect the official Cambridge scoring system.

Pronunciation Activation Pack 22 - / p / in Pepper

Activate the consonant sound / p / in Pepper. In this Pronunciation Activation Pack we will be looking at the first of the consonant sounds / p /. We will look at the letter combinations that give the / p / sound. We will look at lots of words which have the / p / sound in them. Finally, we will activate your ability to hear and produce the / p / sound correctly. The / p / sound is a plosive made by completely blocking the air flow and then releasing it explosively. The / p / sound on the chart is shown in blue, which means that it is unvoiced. Each of the unvoiced sounds on the first two rows of consonants make up a voiced and an unvoiced pair. The only difference between the unvoiced and voiced pairs is the use of the vocal cords while saying them. / p / / b / There is normally no problem with spelling, as both / p / and / b / are always P, PP, and B, BB, though the silent letter P can cause confusion. The main problem for students is between minimal pairs which contain / p / or / b /. In this Pronunciation Activation Pack we will be looking at a set of minimal pairs which differ only in the sounds / p / or / b /. In some words, the letter P appears but is not heard. We call this the silent letter P. The Silent Letter P comes before certain letters, the most common of which are N, S, T, and B. Pronunciation Activation Pack 22 - / p / in Pepper

Future 1 - GA12

In the previous Grammar Activation Packs I have introduced you to the present and the past tenses, along with the simple, continuous, and perfect aspects. I also mentioned that English has only the two tenses, present and past. So where does this leave us when we want to talk about the future? Don’t worry, there are several ways that we can talk about the future, including using the present tense, which is what I am going to explain in this lesson. There are two aspects of the present tense that we can use to talk about the future. We can use the simple aspect which uses the auxiliary verb do. We can also use the continuous aspect, which uses the auxiliary verb be, and the ing form of a non-finite verb. To use the present simple or the present continuous to talk about the future, we usually use a future time indicator if we want to make it clear what time we are talking about. Future time indicators often use phrases with prepositions such as at, on, and in, along with expressions using next and this. This British English grammar is essential for all students of English and the many exercises in the pack will help you master it quickly and enjoyably.

Beach or Bitch

A Sounds Rude lesson for 18+ students that will teach you how to avoid a common pronunciation mistake. If you are easily offended by language that Sounds Rude, go no further. If you would like to learn the vocabulary which every native-born Englishman, or woman for that matter, is very familiar with, then I urge you to read on. Vocabulary is vocabulary and it all makes up the English language. The vocabulary in this lesson is not normally found in textbooks or discussed in the English classroom, yet it is an integral part of the language, and very likely to be regularly encountered in an English speaking country.

Britlish Library English Lesson Categories

I have categorised the lessons in the Britlish library into the following categories: English in Use lessons, Exams and Tests lessons, Grammar lessons, Humour lessons, Idioms lessons, Information lessons, Literature lessons, Phrasal Verbs lessons, Sounds British Pronunciation lessons, Spelling lessons, Vocabulary lessons, Writing lessons, Sounds Rude lessons, and more.

You can select all of the lessons in each of the random categories by clicking on any of the images below.

Literature

Some students like to sit back and listen to some interesting English. It doesn't get much more interesting than some of the old classics from English literature. These lessons have been created to help you get the best from the vocabulary found in some of the old classics. As you listen and read your way through these lessons, you also broaden your understanding of English culture.

Vocabulary

Did you know that there are over 600,000 words in English? That's a lot of words, and far more than any human being could ever manage to learn. Even Shakespeare only used around 55,000 different words in all of his works. Mind you, he did actually invent quite a few of them. To get a good mastery of English, you do need to expand your vocabulary as much as possible. The more words you know, the better your English will be.

Phrasal Verbs

Phrasal verbs are like idioms and have to be learnt individually. They are an essential part of your English vocabulary, and without them you will not be able to say that you have any degree of fluency in English. This course of English Activation Packs has been designed to make learning, remembering, and using phrasal verbs as easy and enjoyable as possible. English speakers use phrasal verbs all the time, so you need to at least be able to understand what they mean. Use them yourself and you will sound much more like a native than if you don't.

Sounds Rude

There is an important subset of English which is hardly ever touched on by teachers, and never by the textbooks. This subset of English is the English which sounds rude. The swearwords and curses, which make up a surprisingly large part of daily speech, are neglected by most teachers because, well, they sound rude. This course aims not to titillate but to teach the vocabulary that other teachers shy away from. If you are not offended by strong language, and would like to learn, remember, and use this "taboo" language, then you should take a look at these lessons. Please do not complain if you are shocked by the contents. You have been warned.

Exams and Tests

If you are preparing for one of the internationally recognised exams such as IELTS, or the exams from Cambridge Assessment English, or Trinity, then the lessons in this category will be very useful to your studies. If you simply want to test your English abilities in and see how you are progressing in your studies of English as a second or foreign language, then the tests in this category will help you. You can test your abilities in English by seeing if you make the same mistakes that advanced users of English or even proficient users of English make. There's also an English level test with a hundred questions to test your general level of English. Don't be afraid of making mistakes, as it's through mistakes that we improve in anything we do, including learning English.