Blog posts written for advanced level English learners.
In our Tricky Words blog posts, we explain grammar and vocabulary that our students sometimes ask us about. This posts explains the tricky English words anything, something, and everything. The three examples below use each of these words. So, what do each of these words mean and how are they used? Anything means any one […]
Lack can be a verb or a noun. It means “not have.” If you are poor, you lack money. If you are busy, you lack time. If you are lonely, you lack friends. To start a deep conversation, you can ask your friends: Is there anything you lack in life? What do people our age […]
I’m guessing that you know this, but: Don’t believe everything you read on-line. Much of it is fake news, stories that are mostly hype or click-bait, designed to get you to click and share without thinking very hard. The internet spreads information instantaneously. People see something that shocks or frightens them, or pushes their buttons, or even […]
Every year, at the end of March, high school seniors in the U.S. learn which universities they were accepted or rejected by. As you can imagine, both the students and their parents become very emotional. This blog will give you some vocabulary that you can use to talk about success and failure. Success 🙂 […]
What happens if you have an emergency? If you are in the U.S. and your or someone else’s health is in danger, call 9-1-1. Make sure you know your address. It is a good idea to copy it down and know where it is if you can’t remember it. (If not, then you can call the […]
When people have obvious talent, we wonder if they were born with it, or if it was the product of many hours of practice. We call someone who is born with talent a natural. You probably wish you were a natural at speaking other languages. If you are, we say you have a gift, or that […]
Adverbs connect. They provide a logical connection… between one sentence and another that follows between clauses within sentences. For example: All of us make excuses; however, not all of our excuses are good ones. Because taking responsibilities for our mistakes can be painful, all of us tend to make excuses to justify our poor choices. […]
1) That can be a demonstrative pronoun. It can be the subject or the object of a sentence. It replaces is singular or non-count noun. (For an explanation of this grammar term, visit this website: Ginger Software – What is a Demonstrative Pronoun?) Do you see that? That is a bull. The woman is riding on the […]
Adjectives describe nouns. About this picture, we could say: The angry mother scolded her sullen daughter. Adjective clauses do the same. The mother, who looked angry, scolded her daughter, who looked sullen. Adjectivals (in this case, the preposition with + noun phrase) do the same. The woman with the angry face scolded a girl with a sullen […]
The crazy spelling of English reflects the etymology (or origin) of English vocabulary. Begin by watching Claire Bowern’s simple TED Talk on the origins of English. So. now you know that the reason why these endings are spelled similarly but are pronounced differently is due to their country/language of origin. Now, let’s look at some specific […]
