by Martin Burke | Sep 22, 2019 | This is how we say it
‘How about’? or ‘What about’ Some advanced learners of English occasionally confuse these two expressions… If you say ‘What about…?’, it has a sense of ‘I think that you’ve forgotten about…’, or ‘I think that you...
by Martin Burke | Apr 8, 2019 | This is how we say it
In a recent lesson, one of my English language students said the following ‘when I was there, I tried and catch a bus’. When I told her that the correct expression in this case is ‘I tried to catch a bus’, she asked me to explain why there was a difference, since she...
by Martin Burke | Apr 2, 2019 | This is how we say it
What is Groundhog Day? Many newcomers to the English language may have heard this expression being used but not perhaps have been aware of its significance or its origin. Here is an extract from Wikipedia; Groundhog Day … is a popular tradition celebrated in...
by Martin Burke | Mar 15, 2019 | This is how we say it
Another common element of spoken English is that of the question tag. This is often a challenge to learners of English because although to native anglophones it is an everyday part of our language and as such is a natural ‘reflex’, for students of English it can be...
by Martin Burke | Mar 4, 2019 | This is how we say it
This is a sentence structure which sometimes causes confusion among non-English speakers. In French, as in many other languages, the following sentence structure is used; Je veux que vous lisiez ceci This phrase, which employs the subjunctive, would be translated...
by Martin Burke | Feb 19, 2019 | This is how we say it
A common mistake I hear when talking to my French-speaking students is when they are talking about the number of people, including themselves, in a given situation. While in French you might say ‘au repas, on était cinq’, this is not translated into English as ‘at...
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