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Interactive exercises build your skills

Practice all your skills and get immediate feedback with exercises that test your listening, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.

Take the quizzes and do the exercises to get actively involved with English and learn more from every Plain English lesson.

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Never be confused thanks to built-in translations

Forget that confused feeling. Use built-in translations to immediately see the definition of the most difficult words and phrases in Plain English.

Never pause the audio or skip a hard word again: just hover your mouse over a highlighted word to see its definition in your language

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Languages available: Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Turkish and Polish

Full library of lessons you’ll love

The Starter membership is based on the Plain English lessons about trending topics and current events that you already know and love.

If you already like listening to Plain English, then you’ll love the quizzes, exercises, and translations in the Starter membership

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Try each exercise

Curious about how they work? Click each tab to try them out

ListeningPronunciationGrammarVocabularyQuizzes

Press the speaker icon and write what you hear in the box to the right:

Read this

Read this paragraph silently:

Oh, the mall. We take it for granted now: it’s in movies, TV shows, books, songs, and advertisements—not to mention our own daily lives. But the indoor mall is relatively new. The first fully enclosed shopping mall in the U.S. opened only in 1956. “Southdale Center” in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota, had multiple levels of shops, an airy interior, fountains, and a courtyard.

Now record yourself

Now, click the red button below and record yourself reading the paragraph:

Next, listen & compare

When you’re done, play this audio clip and compare it to your voice recording:

Verb tenses

Prepositions

Story quiz

Expression quiz

See the translations in action

Choose your language from the list. Then hover your mouse over any highlighted word or phrase to see the instant translation.
(Hint: On a mobile device? Just tap the highlighted word.)

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Britney Spears was a child star; her acting and singing career started on television as a Mouseketeer, a teen performer on a Disney variety show called the Mickey Mouse Club. From there, she rocketed to stardom as a pop singer and her first two studio albums were global sensations. But fame took its toll and a variety of personal struggles played out very publicly. She was photographed driving with her infant son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat, calling into question her parenting. She was caught smoking in front of her son , while the four-year-old played with cigarettes. She got divorced. She shaved her head . She was in and out of drug rehabilitation centers . She lost custody of her children . After one drug overdose , she was committed to a psychiatric ward and was held against her will .
Britney Spears was a child star; her acting and singing career started on television as a Mouseketeer, a teen performer on a Disney variety show called the Mickey Mouse Club. From there, she rocketed to stardom as a pop singer and her first two studio albums were global sensations. But fame took its toll and a variety of personal struggles played out very publicly. She was photographed driving with her infant son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat, calling into question her parenting. She was caught smoking in front of her son , while the four-year-old played with cigarettes. She got divorced. She shaved her head . She was in and out of drug rehabilitation centers . She lost custody of her children . After one drug overdose , she was committed to a psychiatric ward and was held against her will .
Britney Spears was a child star; her acting and singing career started on television as a Mouseketeer, a teen performer on a Disney variety show called the Mickey Mouse Club. From there, she rocketed to stardom as a pop singer and her first two studio albums were global sensations. But fame took its toll and a variety of personal struggles played out very publicly. She was photographed driving with her infant son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat, calling into question her parenting. She was caught smoking in front of her son , while the four-year-old played with cigarettes. She got divorced. She shaved her head . She was in and out of drug rehabilitation centers . She lost custody of her children . After one drug overdose , she was committed to a psychiatric ward and was held against her will .
Britney Spears was a child star; her acting and singing career started on television as a Mouseketeer, a teen performer on a Disney variety show called the Mickey Mouse Club. From there, she rocketed to stardom as a pop singer and her first two studio albums were global sensations. But fame took its toll and a variety of personal struggles played out very publicly. She was photographed driving with her infant son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat, calling into question her parenting. She was caught smoking in front of her son , while the four-year-old played with cigarettes. She got divorced. She shaved her head . She was in and out of drug rehabilitation centers . She lost custody of her children . After one drug overdose , she was committed to a psychiatric ward and was held against her will .
Britney Spears was a child star; her acting and singing career started on television as a Mouseketeer, a teen performer on a Disney variety show called the Mickey Mouse Club. From there, she rocketed to stardom as a pop singer and her first two studio albums were global sensations. But fame took its toll and a variety of personal struggles played out very publicly. She was photographed driving with her infant son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat, calling into question her parenting. She was caught smoking in front of her son , while the four-year-old played with cigarettes. She got divorced. She shaved her head . She was in and out of drug rehabilitation centers . She lost custody of her children . After one drug overdose , she was committed to a psychiatric ward and was held against her will .
Britney Spears was a child star; her acting and singing career started on television as a Mouseketeer, a teen performer on a Disney variety show called the Mickey Mouse Club. From there, she rocketed to stardom as a pop singer and her first two studio albums were global sensations. But fame took its toll and a variety of personal struggles played out very publicly. She was photographed driving with her infant son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat, calling into question her parenting. She was caught smoking in front of her son , while the four-year-old played with cigarettes. She got divorced. She shaved her head . She was in and out of drug rehabilitation centers . She lost custody of her children . After one drug overdose , she was committed to a psychiatric ward and was held against her will .
Britney Spears was a child star; her acting and singing career started on television as a Mouseketeer, a teen performer on a Disney variety show called the Mickey Mouse Club. From there, she rocketed to stardom as a pop singer and her first two studio albums were global sensations. But fame took its toll and a variety of personal struggles played out very publicly. She was photographed driving with her infant son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat, calling into question her parenting. She was caught smoking in front of her son , while the four-year-old played with cigarettes. She got divorced. She shaved her head . She was in and out of drug rehabilitation centers . She lost custody of her children . After one drug overdose , she was committed to a psychiatric ward and was held against her will .
Britney Spears was a child star; her acting and singing career started on television as a Mouseketeer, a teen performer on a Disney variety show called the Mickey Mouse Club. From there, she rocketed to stardom as a pop singer and her first two studio albums were global sensations. But fame took its toll and a variety of personal struggles played out very publicly. She was photographed driving with her infant son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat, calling into question her parenting. She was caught smoking in front of her son , while the four-year-old played with cigarettes. She got divorced. She shaved her head . She was in and out of drug rehabilitation centers . She lost custody of her children . After one drug overdose , she was committed to a psychiatric ward and was held against her will .
Britney Spears was a child star; her acting and singing career started on television as a Mouseketeer, a teen performer on a Disney variety show called the Mickey Mouse Club. From there, she rocketed to stardom as a pop singer and her first two studio albums were global sensations. But fame took its toll and a variety of personal struggles played out very publicly. She was photographed driving with her infant son, Sean, on her lap instead of in a car seat, calling into question her parenting. She was caught smoking in front of her son , while the four-year-old played with cigarettes. She got divorced. She shaved her head . She was in and out of drug rehabilitation centers . She lost custody of her children . After one drug overdose , she was committed to a psychiatric ward and was held against her will .

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Frequently-asked questions

Don’t see your question? Simply contact us and we’ll be happy to give you a reply.

Is Plain English Starter right for me?

The Starter membership is great for anyone who likes learning English and wants to practice listening, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary on a modern platform. This plan is especially good for anyone at the intermediate level (between about A2 and C1 on the Cambridge scale).

You translate words in the transcript. Which languages are available?

Our in-text translations are available into Spanish, Portuguese, French, Chinese, Italian, German, Japanese, Turkish, and Polish. If you speak one of those languages, you’ll see translations of difficult words appear instantly in the transcript.

If you don’t speak one of those languages, that’s okay! You can still take the quizzes and do the exercises.

What is the difference between the Starter and free memberships?

The free membership includes slow-speed audio and lesson transcripts. The Starter membership adds interactive exercises to build your skills and adds instant translations into 9 languages.

The free membership is good for listening and reading. But the Starter membership is perfect to build all your skills as an active learner.

How many lessons do you have?

We have over 650 lesson sets about current events and trending topics, dating back to 2017. About 400+ lessons include the exercises.

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Will the price ever go up?

No! The price we offer new members may rise, but existing members will keep their price for life. If you join now, your price will never go up as long as your membership is active.

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If Plain English Starter membership isn’t right for you, simply request a refund within 30 days of joining. To be fair to all members, we cannot offer a refund after 30 days.

Can I upgrade to Plus+ later?

Yes, of course! We’ll even give you a credit for any payment made toward your Starter membership when you upgrade. If you have any questions after you join, you can send us a note from your new home page and we’ll be happy to help.

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You get:

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