weekly posts on literature, languages, and learning
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 …
To most readers, the name of Arthur Conan Doyle will forever be connected with the world’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, and his trusted friend Dr Watson. The celebrated writer of detective stories based his whole literary career on extolling the virtues of science, reason and logical thinking, which leaves many surprised to learn that …
[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 …
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 …
In an earlier post, I wrote about the etymology of the English words for the days of the week. As we saw there, those words have their origin (for the most part) in the names of some of the main deities of the Germanic pantheon. In this post we’ll look at the names of the …
Continue reading "Modern English names for the months of the year – 100% Latin!"
In an earlier post, I’ve given a few tips on how you can use podcasts to improve your English listening skills (you can read it here; also available in Serbian here). This article is for those who have neither the time nor the patience to listen to hour-long programmes, but would like quick and more …
Continue reading "Listening tips: five-minute practice using news podcasts"
Each year, lexicographers1 working for prominent publishing companies announce a word that, in their judgment, marked the previous year. Their choice usually tells us something about the state of affairs2 in the world we live in and the way language reflects it. In this post, we’ll look at the English words of the year 2021. …
It's been claimed that the Inuit languages of North America have over 50 different words for snow. You may be surprised to learn that English comes pretty close: if we include all the regional variants and dialects, the list gets pretty long! But don't worry, in this post we'll only look at the most common …
Some find them outdated and archaic, but they are still very much around, and just won't go away: Latin abbreviations in English! While most of them tend to be used in formal, academic writing, a number of them feature in everyday spoken language, as well: a.m. and p.m. in reference to time, AD when talking …
Working with students, I’ve realised many of them struggle with tasks connected with art. They are often reluctant to approach the subject because they don’t know much about the history of art, or they feel they lack relevant vocabulary. As they tell me, they wouldn’t know how to describe a painting even if they had …
grammaticus 