Latest Articles from ELB
What’s in the upcoming ELB writing skills book
If you’re a member of the ELB mailing list you may have seen that I’m working on a new guide to improved writing skills. The idea is to present advanced writing tips for learners of English as a foreign language - a guide based on how the language functions, as...
When can we use the past simple for timeless rules?
When we write a rule in a past tense narrative, should it still be in the present simple tense? This was an excellent question raised by a reader, from a fairly unexpected source - this Christmas reading exercise. It contains the phrase “everyone knew how magical...
Why “keep doing” is present simple and not continuous
I’ve been asked about the tense of “keep writing” – and how it relates to the rules and patterns we use for the present continuous form of “to be writing”. Many verbs can be followed by other verbs in an –ing form, such as “keep doing”, “enjoy doing”, “avoid doing” -...
Using -ing forms for perfect meanings
A recent question I’ve been asked is whether or not the following sentence is correct, as it sounded strange to the learner: “With the restaurant having closed, there was nowhere to eat.” What do you think? Better as “As the restaurant had closed…” or “With the...
Comparing Examples of all the English Tenses
I have had a few requests recently to provide more examples of sentences as they are used across all the English tenses. This is useful to show how and why we might use the different tenses to describe the same situation. One example was given in my timeline (I go...
4 Tips for Writing Cover Letters in English
Whether applying for schools or jobs or simply asking for information, at some point everyone communicating in English must write cover letters. There are templates you can use to get started, as long as you make them personal, but the basic principles for effective...
What do you want to learn?
To make my site and the articles I post as helpful as possible, I am running a survey to find out what you, the student, are most interested in learning. And, just as important, how do you like to learn? Please take my quick survey by clicking HERE - it's just 9 short...
New author website – with free English fiction
If you follow my writing you may be aware that as well as educational material I also write adult fiction, in the contemporary fantasy and dystopian genres (more broadly, science-fiction fantasy!). I have just launched a new author website I would like to share -...
Bird of prey and other “noun of noun” constructions
Subjects formed with multiple nouns connected by of can mean consisting of, or taken from, for example ‘piece of cake’, but can also mean belonging to, or with the purpose of, such as ‘father of the bride’. ‘Bird of prey’ can be confusing, though, because it seems to...