The senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell are essential in experiencing the world around us. Let's consider them one by one and learn how to use them in conversation. We start with "sight" and "hearing."

This segment is about the sense of smell and the sense of taste. When it comes to the five senses, every language seems to have some quirks, and English is no exception. For example, we use the same verb — "to smell" — to talk about perceiving an odor ("I smell the lemon") and giving off an odor ("The lemon smells delicious").

We use a combination of the five senses to understand what is happening around us. If one sense is weak or lacking, we compensate with another sense.

What is the passive voice all about? Sigrid takes us through the basics, step by step. In the active voice, we focus on "who" does something and in the passive voice we focus on "what" someone does.

Although we use the passive tense in the present tense, it's used in other tenses, too, and that's what we look at in this lesson.

Here are some examples of sentences using both the active and passive voices. Different tenses are used, too!

Sigrid talks about early spring weather, the importance of dressing in layers, and keeping the grass and weeds in check.

One way to prepare for Halloween is to make a jack o' lantern. In this segment, Sigrid explains what a jack o' lantern is, and how kids and adults celebrate Halloween.

The pumpkin is ready to carve out. Sigrid explains that pumpkins are indeed an edible type of squash and not just for making into jack o' lanterns. In fact, one pumpkin can become both a pumpkin pie and a jack o' lantern.

Sigrid finishes carving her pumpkin and places the candle inside so we can see the final effect of the jack o' lantern. Happy Halloween!

For so many of us, life has changed radically. We've had to learn new habits because of the coronavirus pandemic. Here are some of the changes we are having to make.

Everyone should stay home as much as possible to keep the coronavirus from spreading, but sometimes we have to go out for essential errands. What are some items to have on hand when we go out? Sigrid talks about five of them.

What a time to be learning English! Things are happening quickly in the United States and history is being made right now, so don't miss out on the words and expressions you need to know.

We keep seeing the "Black Lives Matter" slogan all around — what's it all about? Well, it's a long story. Here's part of the story in a nutshell.

Lots of English words can serve as nouns, verbs, or adjectives depending on the context. Sometimes even the pronunciation changes. Let's look at the slogan "Black Lives Matter" in both a grammatical and historical context.