To blurt out something (or blurt something out) is to say something suddenly and impulsively, especially because you are nervous or excited.

Examples of use:

1. She suddenly turned round and blurted out, "I love you!".

2. As she was getting into the taxi he blurted out, "I'm your real father".

3. He couldn't help blurting out his true feelings.

4. The location of their honeymoon was supposed to be a secret but he blurted it out to the wedding guests.

5. We were furious when he blurted our secret out.

Can you use this phrasal verb in a sentence?

Have you ever blurted a secret out?

Image © Koinos Zoi Photography

Films (or movies) in English are a good source of authentic and varied English language use, and can be a motivating and enjoyable way to practise and develop your English language skills.

Peter Song, co-founder of AppsAsia, has written a guest post for me about the iPhone app SpeedUpTV.

SpeedUpTV lets you view videos and slow them down so you can listen carefully to the dialogue. You can also repeat scenes so that you can listen carefully to the speakers' use of grammar, and their vocabulary and pronunciation.

I'll let Peter tell you more about the app, including some of the more technical details…

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With the wide selection of apps available for iOS, finding a decent app for managing files can be difficult. However, there is one that stands out as a spectacular app not only for the viewing of video files, but also audio, image and document files.

SpeedUpTV is a full featured video viewing app that carries many features for manipulating video files. Users can playback video files at their normal rate as well as 0.5X to 2.0X, without distorting the overall audio of the video. This is a great feature for those who are trying to take notes from a video but are working at a slower pace than the instructor in the video.

It also comes in handy for slowing down of word pronunciations, which can be very useful when learning a foreign language. If you're watching your favorite dramas or movies in a foreign language but sometimes can't hear what is said, you can slow down the dialogue to hear more clearly, and can also repeat scenes to catch some tricky pronunciations.

Users can use pinch-to-zoom to skip between video chapters. More importantly, the app also supports scrubbing for better time control of video. This allows users to jump between seconds of videos. Users can also make use of the SMI subtitle feature as well as A-B repeat.

Other than video file playback, users can view a wide variety of files with SpeedUpTV. There is support for the playback of audio files – perfect for listening to recordings of lectures. Jpeg and png image files are supported as well.

If you need to pull up lecture presentations or notes, that is possible thanks to the support for viewing ppt, xls, doc and PDF files. So instead of having to jump between multiple apps to view documents, audio, video and image files, all files can be viewed from one app, SpeedUpTV.

For iPhone and iPad users, this app will help them in many different ways, and it is a must for students trying to learn new foreign languages. It’s moderately priced, making it a great choice for students (and everyone else), and it’s a fantastic way to make learning fun and efficient.

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Thank you for your post, Peter

The SpeedUpTV app designed for the iPhone and iPad and is available on iTunes.

If you would like to try the app for free, I have four redeem codes to give away to the first four readers who leave a comment on this post, or who contact me before 17th July

Featured image © anyjazz65

To harp on about something is to talk repeatedly or continually about something in a way that other people find boring.

Examples of use:

1. I wish you would stop harping on about your promotion!

2. I hope your father doesn't harp on about his collection of WW2 memorabilia this evening.

3. She made a mistake with the accounts at work, and her manager has been harping on about it for months.

4. I crashed the car into a lampost and my wife harped on about it for weeks.

According to some sources, this expression comes from "harp on a short string" which means to play the same note repeatedly.

Image © James Jordan

1. To chip in something is to give an amount of money to help pay for something.

Informal English.

Examples of use:

a. We are buying mum and dad an anniversary present. Would you like to chip in?

b. We all chipped in and paid for David and Martina's honeymoon.

c. Everyone in the office is chipping in for Pierre's leaving present.

d. Newspaper headline: Public will be asked to chip in £20 each towards 2012 athletes.

2. To chip in is also to interrupt or add a comment to someone else's converation (mainly UK English). Informal English

Examples of use:

a. Can I just chip in here and say that I disagree with both of you?

b. I'll start the discussion and then I'd like you all to chip in with your ideas.

Image © Perry French