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Tag: English grammar

Posted on February 1, 2023February 2, 2023

“If—” by Rudyard Kipling

A while ago I posted a lengthy grammar article about the conditional sentences in English, and in this post we’ll read a poem by Rudyard Kipling that can be used to illustrate conditional clauses. It has some great vocabulary, too. (Not to mention lofty ideas!) Rudyard and John Kipling Titled “If—”, Kipling wrote this poem …

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Posted on November 14, 2022November 14, 2022

Conditional sentences in English

In this grammar post we’ll be discussing different types of conditional sentences in English: how to structure them and which tenses to use. At the end, you’ll find an online grammar quiz on this topic. We have a lot to cover, so pour yourself a nice cup of coffee and let’s get started! CONDITIONAL SENTENCE …

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Posted on October 17, 2022October 16, 2022

Grammar help: used, used to, get used to…

This post has been written with ESL / EFL students in mind, intermediate level and above. The verb ‘to use’ is a key element in several widely used grammatical structures that students sometimes confuse or don't use properly. In this post we’ll go through them, explain their meaning and, finally, practise a bit. USED The …

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Posted on September 19, 2022September 17, 2022

Grammar practice: adjectives in -ed and -ing

[This post has been written with ESL/EFL students in mind, CEFR level B1 and above.] Are you bored or boring? Was the last film you saw interested or interesting?  There are many adjectives in English that can be used with the endings -ed and -ing, and students sometimes confuse them. If you are unsure when …

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Posted on July 18, 2022July 18, 2022

Thou shalt know thy grammar

In a recent grammar post I wrote about personal pronouns in English, but one thing I deliberately omitted there was the presentation of the archaic forms of the 2nd person singular. Those are thou / thee / thy and thine, which you may have come across in literary or religious texts. Let's first see what …

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Posted on June 6, 2022June 6, 2022

Me, myself and I… Personal pronouns in English

[This post has been written with ESL/EFL students in mind, CEFR level B1 and above.] Thus sang Billie Holiday in a lovely song first recorded in 1937. Besides her, many others have made use of the three forms of the 1st person singular pronoun like that, to emphasise the intensity of their feelings: not just …

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Posted on May 9, 2022May 8, 2022

Correlative conjunctions in English

[This post has been written with ESL/EFL students in mind, CEFR level B1 and above.] Correlative conjunctions are used to join words, phrases or clauses within a sentence. They always come in pairs, which is where learners sometimes make mistakes. In languages such as the South Slavic ones (which most of my students speak as …

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Posted on April 4, 2022April 7, 2022

Prepositional phrases with ‘time’

Mark arrived on time. Or was it in time? At time??? The use of prepositions in English can be quite confusing to native speakers of other languages. Prepositional phrases can be even trickier because they seem to have a special logic of their own; one needs to learn them one at a time, understanding the …

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Posted on March 28, 2022March 27, 2022

How to talk about hobbies and free time activities

Whenever the subject of hobbies comes up, most of my students promptly say they don’t have any. Obviously, I don't believe that for a second, but I understand why such a response: it isn’t always easy to describe one’s hobby. And if the subject comes up unexpectedly in a speaking exercise, students might not even …

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Posted on March 14, 2022March 14, 2022

Graded readers: what are they and how to use them

During many years of teaching English, one thing I’ve consistently used with my students have been graded readers (you can see the ones I'm currently using in the cover photo at the top). There are different types of those - some are designed for native speaker children - but the ones I’ll be discussing here …

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