Using “agree” and prepositions – with, on, to, about
Depending on the object, you can “agree with”, “agree on”, “agree about” or “agree to” something. All of these prepositions can be connected to a noun, so it’s the nature of the object that decides the appropriate...
Adverbs for building atmosphere – vocab and reading pratice
To put my Friday Twitter vocabulary blasts to more use, here’s a list of adverbs that can build atmosphere in descriptive English. As adverbs describe verbs, adjectives or other adverbs, these atmospheric words can add depth to your descriptions and events. The...The Past Tenses in Narratives – Comparative Examples (2)
Continuing my short series of narrative examples to explain different uses (and the reasons behind different choices) in using past tenses, below is another brief past tense passage. The sentences are numbered, with full explanations below. Past tense narrative...Subjunctive mood, form and use
The subjunctive mood in English is used to describe actions, ideas and events that are not real facts; for example imagined possibilities (or impossibilities!), and future intentions. It is often used in dependent clauses, such as if statements in conditional...
The Past Tenses in Narrative Use – Comparative Examples (1)
As the many uses of the different aspects of English can make choosing between the different tenses confusing, it may help to look at specific narrative texts or sections of English dialogue and analyse why the writer or speaker chooses different tenses. To help...Pronouncing question words with contractions
There are many contractions in English, as shown in my previous list exploring the most common ones. The most commonly contracted words, such as is, not, will, are and had, are reasonably clear to identify, usually joined by either a personal pronoun, certain subject...
Should “no” be followed by a singular or a plural noun?
No is used to describe nouns, meaning zero – no cheese, no fun, no noise, no clowns, etc. Withuncountable nouns, zero is always followed by a plural – zero people, zero degrees, etc. However, no is more flexible than zero. Normally, it is followed by a plural...Friday Vocabulary Lessons on Twitter
Bored of filling the English Lessons Brighton Twitter page with links to ELB articles (a huge variety of content as there is here), I have decided to start a series of scheduled Twitter lessons, to make things more interesting. The first of these that I am introducing...How to use the past perfect continuous
The past perfect continuous can seem quite complicated to form, with had + been + present participle. However, the nice thing about the past perfect continuous is that the words used in the form never change (like the bare infinitive). This is because all three words...Want to Master English?
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