What are relative clauses? What is a clause? A clause is a part of a sentence. For example if we say ‘John likes orange but Peter likes banana.’ ‘John likes orange’ is a clause, the first part of the sentence, and ‘Peter likes banana’ is a separate clause, but they are joined together to […]
What are adjectives?
What are adjectives? Adjectives are words that describe something. Everything has a name and in English names of things are called ‘nouns’. For example: “The house is beautiful”. The name of the thing is ‘house’ and so ‘house’ is a noun’. The house is described as ‘beautiful’ and so ‘beautiful’ is an adjective. Other common […]
What is the past participle?
To know what a past partciple is we need to know what verbs are. Past participles are a type of verb. What is Verb ? A verb is usually an action. So for example: ‘go’, ‘buy’, ‘eat’, ‘write’ all of these are verbs. Verbs can also be something which is not an action but a […]
Positive Adjectives for describing personality.
Here is a list of of under 100 adjectives that can be used positively to describe a person’s character or personality. Being able to describe a person is important but just to say he is ‘nice’ or ‘good’ is very generous and simple. To improve your English you need to be able to use more […]
What are adverbs?
What are adverbs? Adverbs are words that tell us how, when, where something happens. A lot of adverbs end in ‘..-ly’ and tell us how an action has been done. ‘He drives slowly.’ ‘She speaks quickly‘. There are many adverbs just like ‘slowly’ and ‘quickly’ that describe a ‘verb’ and tell us how it is […]
What are pronouns?
What are pronouns? A pronoun is a word used instead of a noun. A noun is a name. For example if we say “John cooked lunch.” John is a noun because it is the name of the person in the sentence. If we said “John cooked lunch and then John cleaned the kitchen” it would […]
What is a verb?
What is a verb? A verb is usually an action. So for example: ‘go’, ‘buy’, ‘eat’, ‘write’ all of these are verbs. Verbs can also be something which is not an action but a state or a state of being, such as be (and its forms such as ‘am’, ‘are’, ‘is’ and ‘was’, ‘were’), ‘exist’ […]
What are compound sentences?
What are compound sentences? A compound sentence is a sentence with two clauses. A clause is a part of a sentence or a group of words which have a ‘subject’ and an action or ‘verb. The subject is the person/thing that does the action. So: “John works” is a clause with a ‘subject’ i.e. […]
Pre-intermediate A2 reading: An email from Carlos.
Pre-intermediate A2 reading: An email from Carlos. Read the following email from Carlos and then answer the questions below. ‘Hi Diego, How are you? It has been a long time since we have spoken. I miss you. I hope you are well my friend! How is everything in Spain? I have been in […]
What are phrasal verbs?
What are phrasal verbs? Phrasal verbs are not words but phrases i.e. they can be two or three words. However a phrasal verb like a normal verb has a specific meaning so is almost like a word. Phrasal verbs are phrases which refer to different actions. Verb + preposition(s) Phrasal verbs consist of […]