weekly posts on literature, languages, and learning
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on 19 January 1809, Edgar Allan Poe is widely recognised as one of the seminal voices of the American literature. Best known as the master of the macabre, his writings are very diverse, including numerous short stories, essays, and poems. Almost two centuries after his death, his Dark Romanticist writings continue …
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One thing I often notice in student papers is the random use of dashes and hyphens. In most cases, people simply use hyphens only, probably because they are easiest to find on computer and smartphone keyboards. Another reason is that only very few seem to be able to tell the difference between -, –, and …
Last time we had a poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson here on the blog, it was his lovely short piece “The Owl”. In this post I’d like to present “Ring Out, Wild Bells”: it’s a classic New Year’s Eve poem, filled with good wishes and hopeful pleas. First published in 1850, it addresses everything from …
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November has brought shorter days and cooler weather, as well as one of my favourite weather conditions - fog! It's often there when I wake up in the morning, descending again in the evening hours. I know not everyone likes it, but it just looks so delightfully mysterious to me. I've always been fascinated by …
The Weekend Listener is an eclectic weekly list of noteworthy podcasts and radio recordings, old and new, curated for your listening pleasure. Posts in this series are published on Fridays – please search the website for the previous instalments. LANGUAGE Word of Mouth | Why is English so weird? Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com …
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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[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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[This post has been written with ESL/EFL students in mind, CEFR level B1 and above.] There are countless resources on the internet that can help you with learning and practising new vocabulary. In this post, I’ll introduce you to just three websites I always recommend to my students and that I regularly use myself. Make …
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There are many different kinds of beans, from kidney beans and string beans to pinto and lima beans. Apart from being the key ingredient in many popular dishes all over the world, did you know that beans also happen to be an ingredient in a number of phrases and idioms in English? Let’s learn a …
Continue reading "Do you know how many beans make five? – Expressions with the word ‘bean’"
I haven’t blogged much about the history of the English language, but the arrival of summer is just begging for a quick introduction to something called Middle English. It's a form of English spoken in the Middle Ages, between the 11th and the 16th century. During that period, Old English underwent massive changes that eventually …
grammaticus 