by Phil Williams | Aug 28, 2014 | Definitions, Exercises, Words
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...
by Phil Williams | Jul 10, 2014 | Definitions, Exercises, Grammar
The construction “not only … but also …” is used to emphasise something that has more than one quality, or has done more than activity, where the final quality is especially surprising or noteworthy. It can be used to list adjective qualities, nouns or verbs, to show...
by Phil Williams | May 30, 2014 | Exercises, Words
The following exercises will test your use of ‘even’ in sentences. First, this will practice your use of word order – remember that even is used as an adverb, so it follows adverb word order rules. Usually, it comes before the word that it is changing, so try to place...
by Phil Williams | Feb 26, 2014 | Exercises, Listening, Speaking skills
Understanding and using contractions in spoken English may seem simple in theory, but when listening to native English speakers you can encounter contractions unexpectedly. It can be difficult to understand what contractions mean when there is more than one...
by Phil Williams | Feb 11, 2014 | Exercises, Grammar
Want to test your understanding of when to use the past simple or the past perfect? These two exercises test your understanding of which tense to choose in individual sentences. Complete the following sentences choosing between the past simple and past perfect tenses,...
by Phil Williams | Jan 22, 2014 | Exercises, Grammar
In the affirmative present simple, the forms for he/she/it use different conjugation to the bare infinitive (the “third person S” rule, for regular verbs). Otherwise you may not notice a difference, for example: I like cheese (present simple form of to like) vs I do...