Learn English, one short lesson at a time
240 free lessons in everyday American English as spoken in Chicago, from your first hello to real conversations.
Each lesson is one page and takes about 15 minutes.
Everything is explained in simple English, with no translation into another language. Every line comes as text and as audio, so you can read it, hear it, practise it with quick exercises, and finish by saying it out loud.
The whole course follows Ana, who has moved to Chicago for a year, her new neighbors, and a very polite yak named Murray. By the door of the corner diner stands an old jukebox that sometimes plays nothing at all.
Meet the cast
AnaJust moved to Chicago for a year and still takes every idiom literally. In the lessons, you speak as her.
DeeRuns the Blue Plate diner, calls everyone hon, and refills your coffee before you ask.
MurrayA very polite yak with a Ventra card on a cord, who sits at the end of the counter and never finishes his coffee.
TashaAna's friend, a pastry chef from Milwaukee who sends long voice memos and tells stories a little bigger than they were.
DannyDee's son. He runs a food truck on the boulevard and is sure the jukebox will play any day now.
Mr. KowalskiAna's formal landlord, usually on the porch with a ring of keys.
Dr. OkaforThe calm family doctor across the street, who asks what hurts and what you have already tried.
MarcusAna's boss at a small architecture studio, who likes plain words and short meetings.
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How the course is built
Every lesson teaches a handful of short lines people really say in Chicago, not grammar tables. You read and hear each line, follow a short story, practise it with quick exercises, and finish by saying it out loud.
The meanings and explanations are written in simple English, so you build your English in English. A line means what the simple English next to it says, never a word-for-word translation.
The lessons follow one story, so the same people and places come back and earlier lines keep showing up. Nothing you learn is used once and forgotten.
It goes from A1 (your first hello) to B2 (holding your own in a real conversation). Each lesson takes about 15 minutes.
The course is built around text and audio. The voices are computer-generated, clear and the same every time, so you can replay a line as often as you like. Speaking practice is record-only: you record yourself and compare it with the voice, but the course does not score your pronunciation.