Ongoing time and the past simple – when a past action is really complete
I was recently contacted with a question about my Mixed Tenses Exercise, which demonstrates that different tenses can fit into the same sentence structure. The question came from the past simple use in the first example, I played tennis every Tuesday this month. In a...What’s the difference between ‘smile to’ and ‘smile at’?
What is the difference between She smiled at him. and She smiled to him.? Sometimes, there is none. Other times, one might clearly be correct (or incorrect). It’s useful to look at individual examples of preposition use like this with examples and explanations to get...How to use suffixes to create nouns from adjectives and verbs
Many words in English can be adapted to be used for different grammatical functions. We often use prefixes and suffixes (extra parts of the word added at the beginning or the end) to change the meaning of a word for a variety of purposes. Adjectives and verbs can be...
Exercising English at Halloween
We’re fans of Halloween and the spooky period here on ELB, so I’ve compiled a variety of articles and exercises to explore the language and literature of this holiday. The English speaking world celebrates Halloween at the end of October, a time when...Basic Sentence Order in English
Taken from my guide to sentence structure and word order, Word Order in English Sentences, here is a brief introduction to basic sentence structure in English. Sentences in English stick to a standard general order, that is simply explained as: (1) Subject (2) Verb...
Unusual adjective positions that don’t stick to the rules
The general rules for adjective word order (the basics of which are covered in the ELB guide to Word Order in English) are usually understood as most adjectives coming before the noun they describe, with a few exceptions that follow linking verbs, such as to be (when...
Noun complements and adding additional information after nouns
Basic word structure in English shows that a noun either be followed by a verb (when the noun is the subject) or a prepositional phrase or a time (when the noun is an object). However, nouns can be joined by additional information as part of a single grammatical unit....How to use Bridging Words Effectively (however, therefore, thus etc.)
One of the most common problems I edit in more advanced writing, particularly non-fiction such as reports, essays and general academic texts, is over-use of bridging words. Everyone suffers from this at some point; even when I edit my own writing I tend to cut out a...
Word order for compound nouns
Nouns can be combined with many different words to form compound nouns, the core noun is modified as though with an adjective. Compound nouns are treated like a single unit, so the entire group of words take the position of a regular noun, and any modifiers come...Want to Master English?
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