2018-10-12 How to Talk About Preferences
Imagine that you are at a restaurant for breakfast. You want something to drink, but you are not sure what.…
2018-10-05 Old Grammar Rules You Can Break
Like many languages, English is constantly changing. And today it is changing faster than ever. Mobile phones, social media, increased…
2018-09-28 Don’t Be Afraid of Contractions!
Many languages shorten words in everyday speech. In English, we shorten a lot of words. One way we do this…
2018-09-21 Where Did You Learn English? Forming Questions, Part 3
Imagine you are meeting a group of English learners to practice your speaking skills. The group leader puts everyone into…
2018-09-14 Forming Questions, Part 2: Yes or No Questions
English can be a complex language to master. It has a lot of rules – and breaks many of them.…
2018-08-24 Mmm, That’s Good! Using Interjections
Oops! I spilled some coffee.Hmm… Let me think about it.Woohoo! That’s great news. Let’s celebrate. To the untrained ear, sounds…
2018-08-17 Am I Being Watched? The Continuous Passive Form
In his popular 1980s song, American singer Rockwell sang the words, “I always feel like somebody’s watching me.” He doesn’t…
2018-08-10 Cheer Up! Phrasal Verbs and Emotions
When was the last time you experienced a wide range of emotions over something – from sadness to happiness, or…
2018-08-03 Improve Your Writing with Inversion, Part 2
In last week’s Everyday Grammar, we told you about a few kinds of inversion that are useful in academic writing…
2018-07-27 Improve Your Writing with Inversion, Part 1
In English, the traditional word order of a statement is subject + verb. Never do we change the order except…
2018-07-20 The Exciting World of Participial Adjectives
The English language has a lot of adjectives. Some estimates put the number at several thousand. And while those numbers…
2018-07-13 The Mysterious Word ‘Whose’
Suppose you are at a birthday party. Everyone has a cell phone. Just as the group begins singing to the…
2018-07-06 Would You Like to Know More About ‘Would’?
In Part 1 of this program, we told you many uses of “would” in everyday speech. Today, we will talk…
2018-06-29 The Many Uses of ‘Would’ in Everyday Speech, Part 1
Imagine that you are visiting a friend in Washington, D.C. Your friend takes you to a popular restaurant. You look…
2018-06-22 Before Fearing Adverb Phrases, Read This
When you woke up this morning, you probably did at least five things before you left your home for school…