Helping English language learners
Definite and indefinite articles can come very naturally to native English speakers but can be confusing to English languages learners – particularly when their first language doesn’t have articles. Let’s start at the beginning....
In a previous post we looked at using semicolons to join two parts of a sentence when each part could be regarded as a sentence on its own. Here we’re going to find out...
An expert in or an expert at? “In” and “at” are both prepositions. There are over a hundred prepositions in English. They are almost always small and very common words. Prepositions usually tell us...
Up is the opposite of down but show up is not the opposite of showdown. They are two different things entirely. First “show up”. Notice that this consists of two separate words. It is...
Inherent or inherited? Inherent and inherited are similar words with different meanings. You could easily confuse them, so this might help you to learn the difference. We use “inherent” when we talk about a...
Less or fewer? “Less” and “fewer” are used in different ways from each other but many people – especially native speakers of English – get them mixed up. Both words are comparative adjectives and...
“Approve” can mean something different from “approve of”. “Approve” changes its meaning depending on whether or not we follow it with “of”. We use approve without “of” to show that someone agrees to –...
Superlative adverbs. Let’s think first about adverbs that form their comparative form with _er and their superlative with _est. Such adverbs include loud, louder, loudest or quick, quicker, quickest. For such adverbs: We don’t...
Let’s start with a warning: the subjective mood isn’t something that most people need to be concerned with. It’s difficult to learn and, anyway, isn’t often used in everyday speech. You only really need...
Adverbs are words that modify a verb. They explain how, when, where or why something is done. Adverbs of manner Adverbs of manner explain the manner in which (how) an action is carried out....