Denied a Credit Card | Episode 22
Listen to a story about how I was denied a credit card by my bank!
You’ll also learn how to pronounce words that end in the syllable -AR, like DOLLAR and REGULAR.
Welcome to the English Teacher Melanie Podcast, a podcast for intermediate to advanced English learners who want to improve their English listening and speaking skills!
Each episode includes a story and a pronunciation tip. In the story, I use core vocabulary, the most common words in English, to tell you a story about something that happened in my daily life in Canada. The pronunciation tip will help you understand natural spoken English.
You’ll hear the story twice. The first time, the story is a little slower than normal. (It sounds a bit funny because I used editing software to change the speed of the story and make it slower.) After the pronunciation tip, you’ll hear the story again, but at a regular speed.
Learn more about the podcast & how to listen to the podcast here.
THE STORY
I applied for a US-dollar credit card at my bank last year because the expenses for my website are all in US dollars. The Canadian dollar was weakening against the US dollar and it was becoming more expensive to pay my bills with Canadian dollars. I thought it was going to be a simple process to get the card, but the bank denied my application without any explanation! Denied! I needed this card, so I had to figure out what went wrong.
I called the bank right away. The customer service agent said it was an automated process and he couldn’t give me a definite answer. He said my credit score probably wasn’t high enough, and he told me to request my free credit report. The report contained my credit history from the last 7 years. There were no problems in my report. I didn’t miss any payments and I paid my bills on time. I still had no idea why my credit score may have been low or why my application was denied.
I called the company that prepared my credit report to ask if they had any insight. I had a department store credit card that I hadn’t used in 4 years. I thought that was a good thing. It showed that I could be trusted not to rack up debt. It turned out that this unused card was negatively affecting my credit score because it looked like I was wasting credit. I also had a regular Canadian-dollar credit card. This card had a balance greater than 50% of my credit limit, and that wasn’t good either.
To improve my credit score, I had to do two things. I had to cancel my department store credit card, and I had to pay down part of my regular credit card balance so that it was less than 50% of my limit. I waited a few months, then applied for the credit card again. This time, the bank approved my application and I got my US-dollar credit card.
PRONUNCIATION TIP
One of the biggest mistakes that English learners make with English pronunciation is that they try to pronounce the word the way it is written.
You can’t do that in English.
There are some pronunciation guidelines that you can follow that will help you figure out how to say a word, but the best thing to do is to hear the word first, and then imitate the sounds that you hear.
Did you notice my pronunciation of the word dollar d-o-l-l-a-r? I often hear English learners say /’doʊlɑr/ which is wrong.
In this word, the letter O is not pronounced O, it’s pronounced /ɑ/, so the first syallable is pronounced /dɑl/, like the word doll.
The letter A is not pronounced /ɑ/. The -AR at the end of the word is a separate syllable and it’s pronounced ER /ɚ/: /’dɑlɚ/
Here are some words that rhyme with dollar:
taller, caller/collar, smaller, holler, scholar
It’s important to get the pronunciation right the first time you try to say a new word. If you keep pronouncing the word incorrectly over and over, it becomes a habit and it becomes harder to change & improve your pronunciation.
In the story, I also used the word regular. It ends with the -AR syllable, so
remember to pronounce the last syllable -ER /ɚ/. This is also true for the word grammar.
QUESTIONS
Do you have a credit card? How many credit cards do you have? Do you have any store credit cards?
Have you ever been denied a credit card? If so, what did you do?
Leave me a comment below!
Words in the News: Maria Sharapova
Maria Sharapova is a professional tennis player. She is from Russia. Today she held a press conference and announced that she had failed a drug test.
The press conference was short, but there are some great English expressions you can learn from her short speech.
Some background information: In January 2016 she played in the Australian Open in Melbourne, Australia. (The Australian Open is a tennis tournament.) When Sharapova was at the Australian Open, she had to take a drug test. This is to make sure that athletes are not using substances to improve their performance. Two months later, the the International Tennis Federation (ITF) told her that she failed that drug test.
take a test / fail a test
“I received a letter from the ITF that I had failed a drug test at the Australian Open.”
We take a lot of tests in life. For example, we take tests in school to pass a course. We take a test to get a driver’s license.
Professional athletes take drug tests to make sure that they are not using substances to improve their abilities.
You can pass a test (get the required score or be successful) or you can fail a test (not get the required score, not be successful).
These are collocations. They are words that go together in a way that sounds natural and correct to a native speaker.
take responsibility for (something)
“I did fail the test and I take full responsibility for it.”
“I have to take full responsibility for it, …”
Politicians say this a lot, too!
If you take responsibility for something, you say that it is your fault that it happened, that you are responsible for what happened.
In her press conference, Maria Sharapova did not blame anyone for or accuse anyone of causing this problem.
make a mistake
“I made a huge mistake, …”
A mistake is something incorrect by accident. It could be something someone said or did or wrote. It is not something that someone intended to do or tried to do.
Sharapova did not know that the medicine she was taking was banned by the ITF. She did not take the medicine on purpose. She made a mistake.
let someone down
“I let my fans down. I let the sport down that I’ve been playing since the age of 4, that I love so deeply.”
To let someone down means to disappoint someone because you didn’t do what someone expected you to do.
Sharapova felt that her fans expected her not to take banned drugs to improve her performance. (She didn’t know that the medicine she was taken had been banned by the ITF. She had been taking it for 10 years. The ITF only banned in on January 1, 2016.)
face consequences
“I know that with this I face consequences …”
Yes, face is a verb, too! I know, English is confusing.
A consequence is a result of something you have done. Usually, a consequence is a negative result. In Sharapova’s situation, she will probably not be allowed to play tennis for a few months or a year as a consequence of taking banned medicine. She may have to pay a fine (an amount of money).
As a verb, face means to accept and deal with a problem or situation directly. Sharapova knows that her mistake has consequences. She will do what she has to do.
give someone a chance (to do something)
“I don’t want to end my career this way, and I really hope that I will be given another chance to play this game.”
A chance is an opportunity (to do something). Sharapova wants another opportunity to play tennis. She doesn’t want this mistake to end her career.
In this context, when you give someone a chance, you give them an opportunity.
Here is a video of her press conference (she walks to the podium at 43:17):
How Much Time Should You Spend “Studying”?
I received an email recently from a student:
“I am planning to start your lessons tomorrow. I will dedicate one hour daily. Do you think this will be enough time?”
You may be surprised by my answer.
I thought it was too much time.
I have taught so many students who started like her: focused, eager, determined. They start out with good intentions, but then they get bored, discouraged, and lose interest.
I didn’t want her to get bored. I didn’t want her to get discouraged if she couldn’t spend one hour studying every day. I didn’t want her to give up.
I wanted to make sure that she did something in English every day, and instead of doing nothing.
You don’t have to study English every day to learn English, but you must do something in English every day.
What is “studying”?
A lot of students try to learn English by studying the same way they studied for a test in school.
Here’s the definition of the verb STUDY from the Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary:
to read, memorize facts, attend school, etc., in order to learn about a subject
Is that how you learned your own native language/mother tongue?
When we think of “studying,” we think of the things that we did to study for a test or pass a course. We think of forcing ourselves to sit at a desk. We think of staring at a textbook or grammar book and trying to memorize grammar rules. We think of memorizing long lists of words and trying to use them in a sentence. Studying gives us a headache.
We think it’s boring and we try to avoid it.
Studying for an exam or to pass a course is not the same thing as learning English. Your goal now is not to memorize lots of information to pass a test, but to learn how to speak and understand English.
Instead of memorizing words, learn words in the context of a sentence or paragraph and learn the collocations with that word. Instead of memorizing grammar rules, learn phrases and sentence structures that are used by native speakers.
Studying is just one part of learning.
Here is the definition of the verb LEARN from the Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary:
to gain knowledge or skill by studying, practicing, being taught, or experiencing something
There are many different ways to learn something. Studying is one form of learning. It’s an important part, but it’s not enough. You need to do other things to learn as well.
Think of the way you learned your native language or mother tongue. Yes, you spent some time studying your language in school. For example, you learned how to spell words and how to improve your writing. However, most of your learning came outside of school, by talking to your family & friends, reading magazines, newspapers and books, and listening to TV shows, music, etc.
Learning English should not be so boring that you don’t want to do it, or you tell yourself that you will start tomorrow, just like you are going to start your diet to lose weight tomorrow, or you will quit smoking tomorrow, … and then tomorrow never comes.
Now, let’s be honest. You do need to study. Some days, you need to sit in a chair at a table or desk and review your notes, because the more times you hear and see a word, the easier it is to remember. That’s why you need to REVIEW things.
to study or look at (something) again
What are some other ways of learning?
You can learn English anytime, anywhere. There are opportunities to experience and learn English all around you. Learning happens all the time, not just when you are sitting at a desk.
Whenever you do something in English, you are still learning, even if you don’t write down a word or memorize a grammar rule. You just don’t notice that you are learning!
When you listen to something in English, you are getting used to the sounds and the rhythm of English. This is important. When you read something in English, you are getting used to English sentence structure and English spelling patterns.
When you listen, you hear the same words, sentences and sounds over and over again. When you read, you see the same words, collocations and sentences over and over again. That’s how you remember things.
- Read a book before bed, just for fun. You don’t need to write down any words or look up any words in a dictionary if you don’t want to. Just read. If you want to write down some words, pick the 3-5 most important words that you need to know to understand the story. You won’t remember anymore than that.
- Imitate what you hear. Do people speak your language with different accents? Do you make fun of people by pretending to speak your language with an accent? This is what you need to do in English. Pretend to be a native English speaker. Hear the sounds that they make. Try to make the sounds that you hear. Hear the word, don’t try to see the word.
- Watch a TV show or movie in English (with subtitles if you need to). I went to Honduras in 2005. It’s a country in Central America, south of Mexico. I went to see some ruins in Copan. The tour guide spoke English with an American accent, yet he had never travelled outside of Honduras. His native language was Spanish. He made jokes in English. He learned English from watching the Simpsons. I’m not joking. He loved English & he loved the Simpsons, so he watched it all the time & started to imitate the sounds he heard. He learned to sound like a native speaker.
- Listen to podcasts or audiobooks. A podcast is a series of digital audio files that you can download from the internet. An audiobook is a digital recording of someone reading a book. Because both of these things are digital files, you can listen to them on your computer, tablet or mobile device.
An important note: Speaking to or listening to other English learners is not learning English. You can practice English by speaking to other English learners, but you are not going to learn anything. [Related: 4 Truths About Learning English]
How much time should you spend learning English?
If you want to change and improve your English, you need to make time for English every day. Every. Day.
I do not accept the excuse that your life is so busy that you don’t have time for English. I don’t believe you. There are 24 hours in a day. I don’t believe that you can’t find 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 1 hour during your day to do something in English. If you really want to, you can find time for English. If it’s important to you, you’ll do it.
However, you can’t do the same thing every day or you will get bored. You need to study, but you need to do far more listening and reading than you do studying.
- Set up a schedule. Look at your week. On what days can you spend an hour doing something in English? On what days can you spend 30 minutes? When can you read a book or listen to something in English? Are there days when you are very busy and can only spend 15 minutes doing something in English? On what days can you sit down and review what you have learned?
- Review what you have learned every day. Did you hear a new word, phrase or sentence structure while you were watching a movie? Review that word or phrase.
- Don’t quit or punish yourself because you didn’t study for an hour today. One hour is better than 30 minutes, 30 minutes is better than 15 minutes, and 15 minutes is better than nothing.
- Change things often so you don’t get bored.
How do you learn English? How do you study?
Now it’s your turn. Tell me how you learn English and how you study! Share your tips in the comments below. What works for you? How do you study English? How do you learn English?
Improve Your English by Reading Children’s Book Series
In my post How to Learn English, I talked about why reading is so important and how you need to find books at your level.
What if I told you that reading doesn’t need to be hard and it doesn’t need to give you a headache? What if I told you that you could learn new words, improve your listening and speaking skills, and it could be interesting and fun?
You’re going to think I’m crazy, but read this post until the end and I promise that you will want to start reading.
I want you to read children’s book series.
What?
Why is reading so important?
This section is for those of you who think reading is a waste of time.
Reading is not a waste of time! Reading helps you learn a lot of new words in a short amount of time. You learn new words in context, which means you learn words by looking at the situation in which you find the words and by looking at the words around them. You learn how to use the words correctly in a sentence, without memorizing anything. Learning happens naturally, the way you learned your native language (your first language, your mother tongue).
Reading is not a waste of time IF it is “free voluntary reading.” This is an idea from a well-known education professor named Steven Krashen. (We are going to talk more about him later in this post.) Free voluntary reading means that you choose books that are interesting to you and at your level of reading.
You are not just learning words. While you are reading for fun, you don’t even realize that you are learning collocations and sentence structure. Here are some other benefits:
- Your confidence improves.
- Your grammar improves without having to memorize “rules.” You learn sentence structure instead of rules.
- It becomes easier to speak to and understand native speakers.
OK, this is nice, but how do you find books at your level* of reading that are fun and interesting?
(Please remember that “at your level” doesn’t mean that you need to know every word you read, just that the book is easy to understand and you don’t need to look up a new word in every sentence.)
What is a book series?
Books series are very popular in the English-speaking world. I read many books series when I was a young girl!
Think of TV series like the Big Bang Theory, NCIS, Modern Family, or CSI. Each series has the same group of characters and the same theme. NCIS, for example, is about a group of agents who investigate crimes involving the US Navy or Marines.
A book series is similar. It’s a group of books that all have the same characters and are about a similar topic. In each book, the characters experience a new problem.
How do you know that reading book series works?
That professor that we talked about earlier, Steven Krashen, published an article many years ago in the Journal of Reading. I found this article recently and I was so excited when I read it! It’s about real English students just like you who improved ALL their English skills by reading a book series called Sweet Valley Kids. (These books are no longer in print, but I recommend others below).
Here’s what happened: There were four women living in the U.S. and learning English as a second language. They were asked to participate in a reading program. Their teacher gave them books to read from a series called Sweet Valley Kids.
(At the time, there were many Sweet Valley series and they were very popular. I used to read Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High!)
The women loved these books! These were short books, less than 100 pages, and they were easy to read. They were able to read many of the books in a short amount of time. The more books they read, the more their English skills improved. They found that after reading several of the books in the series, it was easier to understand things on TV and easier to have conversations with native speakers!
You can read the entire article here: Acquisition of vocabulary from the Sweet Valley Kids series: Adult ESL acquisition
Where can I find these books?
Before I tell you about the book series that I recommend, I want to tell you that there are several places where you can find these English books:
Canada & the U.S.
- bookstores
- secondhand bookstores
- libraries
- thrift stores (Salvation Army, Goodwill, Value Village, etc.)
- Amazon.com & Amazon.ca
Outside Canada & the U.S.
- English bookstores (in major cities)
- the English section of libraries (in major cities)
- Amazon.com or the Amazon in your country
Amazon.com sells “Kindle Editions.” These are e-books, or books in digital form. This is awesome! You can buy Kindle books from anywhere in the world! You don’t need Amazon’s Kindle device to read these e-books. You can download the Kindle app for your phone or tablet from the iTunes app store or Google Play. You can even read Kindle books on your desktop using the Kindle Cloud Reader!
(Strangely, you cannot actually buy Kindle books on your phone or table. You have to use your desktop computer to purchase Kindle books, but once you’ve bought them, the Kindle books will be available on all your devices.)
Here are the book series that I recommend:
(with links to Amazon.com*)
Before you choose a book, you can read the first chapter of each book in the series! Click on the image and then click on any book in the series. Click on the book cover where it says “Look Inside.”
Each of these series is available in Kindle (e-book) version.
I picked these first two series because the characters live in the real world. The stories are about everyday situations. There are no magical creatures!
1. Greetings from Somewhere
This book series is so fun. Ethan and Ella are twins. Their mother is a travel writer and their father is a professor. They get to travel around the world! In each foreign city, something happens and they must solve a mystery before they leave for the next city!
2. Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew
Nancy Drew is a popular character in the English-speaking world! Nancy is a detective. She and her friends Bess & George solve mysteries that happen at school and in their daily lives.
I chose these next two series because I wanted to recommend series with boys as the main character.
3. Tales from Maple Ridge
This series takes place in 1892 in a small town in the U.S. The main character’s name is Logan Pryce, and the books in this series are all about his daily life and the problems he faces, like his first trip to a big city or finding his brother in a blizzard.
4. Flat Stanley
Yes, Stanley is flat, as flat as a pancake! One night, while he is asleep, a bulletin board falls on Stanley and flattens him. He discovers he can do fun things because he is flat. He becomes a hero because he stops thieves from stealing paintings from a museum!
(*The links to Amazon.com are affiliate links. When you buy something at Amazon.com through these links, Amazon gives me a very small % of your purchase at no extra cost to you! You won’t even know that it has happened. This helps to keep EnglishTeacherMelanie.com free for everyone. Remember, you do not have to buy these books at Amazon.com! You can try to find them in your country, or buy them through Amazon in your country. It’s not about the money. It’s about helping you find the best resources to learn English!)
I am so excited for you to read these books!
Please tell me as soon as you finish one of these books.
I want to know what you think.
I can’t wait to hear from you!
How to Learn English
I get a lot of messages from English learners. One of the most popular questions is, “How can I improve my English?” After 8 years of teaching English, I still don’t have a complete answer for that question, because the answer depends on the person asking the question and his/her current level of English.
One thing I have discovered is that most English learners need to change the way they learn English.
Many English learners think they need to memorize grammar rules and memorize lots of new words. They think that reading should be difficult because if it’s not difficult, they won’t learn anything.
That’s how many people learned English in school.
Is that how you learned English? Now, as a result, you know a lot of grammar rules and you know a lot of words, but you struggle to put a sentence together and you can’t understand natural spoken English.
You are not alone. This is very common.
You need to become an independent English learner. You need to learn how to learn English.
1. There is no magic secret to learning English. Stop waiting for one.
I get the feeling that many English learners want me to tell them a secret. They think that once they know this secret, it will be easy for them to learn English quickly.
There is no quick and easy way to learn English. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort, because there are a lot of things to learn!
The easiest and quickest way to learn English is to learn English like you learned your native language. (Your native language is sometimes called your mother tongue.)
You didn’t learn your native language by memorizing grammar rules. You didn’t learn your native language by talking to other people who were also learning your native language. You learned your native language by listening to the people around you: your parents, your family, people on TV, people in movies. You may have learned some grammar rules in school, but you could already speak your native language by the time you started school. Over time, you improved with more listening and reading, and a lot of practice.
That’s what you need to do in English.
2. Stop memorizing and obsessing over grammar rules.
Native speakers don’t memorize grammar rules. In fact, in some English-speaking countries, we don’t even learn grammar rules in school! I had never heard of a gerund or the present perfect tense until I started teaching English.
Of course, you need to understand English grammar. You need to understand how English grammar is different from grammar in your language. The worst thing you can do is think in your language and then try to translate that into English. Your sentences end up sounding strange and unnatural in English.
For example, in Latin languages like Spanish and Italian you don’t need to say the subject of the sentence because it’s part of the way the verb is conjugated. I hear a lot of Spanish and Italian speakers say in English, “Is good.” What is good? “Is good” sounds fine in Spanish and Italian, but it sounds lazy in English, because an English sentence needs a subject. That’s important to know!
However, not everything in English can be explained by rules. Sometimes, when the question is “Why?” the answer is “Because that’s the way it is.” Asking “Why?” or obsessing over small details and exceptions to rules is not going to help you improve your English.
Native speakers don’t always follow grammar rules anyway.
I am not going to publish many grammar posts on this website anymore. I want students to focus on learning sentences instead of rules. I closed the comments on existing grammar posts on this website because so many English learners were worrying about small details and it was taking up a lot of my time answering questions that were not going to help anyone improve his/her English.
You will learn more English grammar by reading and listening, not by memorizing grammar rules.
3. Focus on core vocabulary and collocations.
You need to learn vocabulary, but memorizing long lists of words is not going to help you improve your English.
First, learn the right words. There are over a million words in English, but some words are more important to learn than others.
Ninety percent of everything that native speakers say and write comes from just 7000 words. That’s not a lot compared to the total number of words in English.
These 7000 words are the core vocabulary of English. These are the words you need to learn.
Next, you need to learn the words that go together, like “throw a party” or “pay cash (for something).” These are called collocations. Collocations are words that go together in a way that sounds natural and correct to a native English speakers.
The most important thing to know about collocations is that English collocations are very different from collocations in your language. That’s why you can’t just translate words from your language into English. We don’t say “make a party” or “make sports” in English. The collocations in English are “throw/have a party” or “play sports.”
When you look up a new word in a dictionary for English learners, like the Macmillan Online Dictionary or Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary, it will tell you the collocations for that word, too.
Here are some collocations that I have used in this blog post:
(it) depends on
put (something) together
a lot of
in school
as a result
obsess over
follow a rule
focus on
4. Read. Everything. Anything.
This is the part that English learners often avoid because they can’t find something to read at their level, or they think reading has to be difficult.
When I was studying French, I thought reading had to be difficult if I was going to learn anything. I thought that I needed to learn as many new words as possible. This is not true! You should not be reading a book that has more than one or two new words per page.
Again: You should not be reading a book that has more than one or two new words per page.
Reading isn’t fun or interesting if you have to stop and look up new words in a dictionary every sentence. If there are more than one or two new words on a page, you won’t be able to remember those words or, worse, you will mix up the meanings of the words.
When you read for fun, you learn English without even realizing it. You get used to natural English sentence structure. You can understand new words without having to look them up in a dictionary.
This is where I will be focusing my efforts now. I will help you find interesting books at your level that you can read for fun.
5. Listen. To everything. Anything.
Listening to a native speaker for just 15 minutes a day can make a difference, even if you don’t understand everything the speaker is saying. (Fifteen minutes is the minimum amount of time you should be listening to English. More is better!)
Obviously it is more enjoyable if you can understand what the speaker is saying, but even if you can’t understand what the speaker is saying, you are still learning something about spoken English: You are getting used to the rhythm of natural spoken English.
You are also learning to match sounds with words. The pronunciation of an English word often does not match the spelling of that word. You can’t look at an English word and know how it is pronounced. In English, you need to hear the word to know how it is pronounced.
If you don’t know the correct pronunciation of a word, how will you know when you hear that word? You will think you are hearing a different word.
When you encounter a new word, look it up in a dictionary for English learners, like the Macmillan Online Dictionary or the Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary. Click on the speaker icon to hear someone say the word. Try to imitate what you hear. Both dictionaries also include the IPA transcription of words, so if you know the IPA, you will now how to pronounce the word.
The best way to learn is to listen to a native speaker while reading the words, and then try to imitate what you hear. The best way to learn is to listen to the English Teacher Melanie podcast, my series of listening lessons.
6. Speak. Write. Try not to make mistakes.
Listening and reading are inputs, information that you receive and take in. Speaking and writing are outputs, information that you produce from inputs. You cannot speak or write in English without listening or reading first. You need to listen to English and read English before you can speak or write in English.
In the blog post 4 Truths About Learning English, I said that native speakers don’t care if you make a mistake. This is true. It’s OK to make a mistake.
Try not to make mistakes all the time. Try your best to say or write something properly. If you are not sure of the spelling of a word, take the time to check a dictionary.
If you make the same mistake over and over, it becomes a habit. Habits are very hard to change or break. It becomes very difficult to improve your English if you first have to change what you know. Your brain gets used to speaking or writing English, even if you’re doing it wrong. It’s difficult to train your brain to do something differently.
I have taught many students who said they wanted to improve their English, but they didn’t want to change the way they already spoke English, even if they were wrong. It’s very hard to change the way you speak English, even if you’re wrong, if that’s the way you have spoken English for a long time.
In English-speaking cultures, it’s rude to correct someone’s mistakes. A native speaker who is not a teacher will not tell you or correct you when you make a mistake. This is important to understand.
In a perfect world, everyone learning English would have their own English tutor who could correct their mistakes. It is possible, however, to learn English without you’re own private teacher.
You need to read. You need to listen. You need to focus on core vocabulary and collocations. You need to be an independent learner.
Leave a Reply