Though is normally used as a less formal form of although. And you can use although to express a contrast between two facts. Often, the contrast will be surprising. Here is an example: Although it had been raining for weeks, nobody got depressed. You’d expect people to get depressed when they see nothing but rain,… Continue reading Sentence Transformation with Though
About the Definite Article (The) Yesterday there was an interesting question on Reddit. I hope you’re all following this great forum website, where there are lovely people to talk with about all kinds of interesting subjects. The sub-Reddits that you’d want to follow are called Grammar and English Learning. English Learning isn’t very busy, so… Continue reading When to Use The with People (Definite Article)
While there are a vast number of words that exist only in the singular, there are also many words in English that you can use only in the plural. Singular – there is one thing of it. Plural – there is more than one thing of it. So that means that plural words (nouns) usually… Continue reading Words that exist only in the plural
This morning I got a phone call from a friend. He was crafting (= writing) a business email to a friendly organization in Argentina that he needed an answer from. My friend wasn’t sure whether the sentence he had written was correct. Here is the sentence: Just a gentle reminder to ask you when can… Continue reading Word Order of Subject and Verb
Click on the video if you prefer reading and listening, or just listening: My students usually find this hard to learn. Well, maybe a miracle will happen and you will find it easy. Don’t get discouraged. All you need to do is think of lots of examples of your own, and keep practising until you… Continue reading Comparisons with As … As
I’ve recently had a hilarious chat with the helpdesk at WordPress. (My blog is made with WordPress.) Why was it hilarious? Not because I had to laugh about the helpdesk person’s English. In fact, he or she (?) has good English. That had I had to laugh had more to do with the absurdity of the… Continue reading Do You Make These Mistakes?
Matt Wharton Today you’re going to learn about how to request things with a command, and then adding will you or could you at the end. They look like this: Send me the email before 5 pm, will you? Buy some bread on your way home, could you? You may have noticed that the will… Continue reading Requests with Will You and Could You
This week was International Women’s Day. As I’m a great feminist, here are some jokes about men and women. All you need to do is fill in the prepositions. Prepositions are little words that indicate position or relationship. Here are some: In, on, for, of, to, after, before, under, next to, between, until, by, at,… Continue reading Prepositions Blast
Watch this video to learn how to agree when a friend or someone else tells you something. You’ll learn how to say: So do I. I do, too. Neither do I. I don’t, either. And of course, the most important thing, when to say each of them. Things to do after you’ve watched the video:… Continue reading So Do I and Neither Do I – Agreeing with Someone in Conversation
As I’ve told you in my last newsletter, English speakers find tenses very important. If you know you make lots of mistakes with tenses, or you don’t know when to use them at all, you definitely need to fix this. It would be one of the first things you’d need to fix about your English.… Continue reading In Which Order Should You Learn the Tenses?
English with a Smile 