by Phil Williams | Jun 26, 2014 | Definitions, Grammar, Words
As part of the introduction to the grammar guide The English Tenses, I explain important words that are required to understand English grammar – including participles and infinitives. The following is a full explanation of what we mean when we say the bare...
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 | Dec 17, 2013 | General English, Grammar, Words
The following two sentences use in general and generally in the same way. So what is the difference between the expressions? In general, I like eating cheese. Generally, I like eating cheese. It is a bit of a trick question, as they essentially have the same meaning,...
by Phil Williams | Dec 3, 2013 | Words
The following list covers the most common words for shapes in the English language, with explanations (sorry, no pictures!). Words that may be also be useful when discussing different shapes are side (the edge of the shape), face (the surface of a shape), regular (all...
by Phil Williams | Oct 29, 2013 | General English, Words, Writing skills
Writing emails is now more common than ever, with people sending dozens of emails a day – while in the past people might have sent letters very rarely. With traditional letters, formal greetings and farewells were common in English because writing a letter was...
by Phil Williams | Jul 30, 2013 | Definitions, Grammar, Words
Particularly and in particular are used in English when we want to highlight something important, or individual. Both uses of particular have the same meaning, but are used in different ways. We could also say in specific and specifically (which is more formal but has...