Learning English

  1) FRONT and END POSITION There are certain adverbs of time which are normally placed at the very beginning or at the very end of the sentence: afterwards , eventually , lately , now , recently , soon , then , today , tomorrow and so on, as well as some adverb phrases such as at once , since then , till 8 a.m.  (or similar), etc. These positions are also known as front or end position. End position is usual with imperatives and phrases with till . Examples: *afterwards : - Afterwards she was sorry for what she'd said. (front position) - Let's go out now and eat afterwards. (end position) *eventually: - Eventually we will own the house. - I'll get round to mending it eventually. *lately: - Lately, she has been worrying about her son. - Have you seen her lately? *now: - "So that's the truth," I told her. "Now you know." - It's too late now. *recently : - Recently, I've been feeling a bit depressed. - I have...

                                                   What does it really mean to know a word? Many people believe they know a word if they can translate it in their own language. However, there is much more to any word then just translating its meaning. We are reminded of this every time we come across a word we thought we knew well in a completely unexpected context. According to Penny Ur , a renowned English Language Teaching expert, to learn a word we need to know: 1. Form: pronunciation and spelling 2. Grammar 3. Collocation 4. Aspects of meaning (1): denotation, connotation, appropriateness 5. Aspects of meaning (2): meaning relationships 6. Word formation Let us now consider every of these features a...

                                                                                                                         LaughLab, a year long project whose aim was to find the world's funniest joke, has ended and the winning joke is: Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out...

1) THE USUAL POSITIONS These adverbs normally come  after the verb , verb + object , or verb + preposition + object : - She worked abroad for a year. (after the verb) - Put your toys away . (after verb + object) - They looked for her everywhere . (after verb + preposition + object) * There are phrasal verbs, however, which consist of a verb and an adverb (such as pick up, put down, clean out etc.). The object can be placed either after the phrasal verb or between the verb and the adverb: - She picked up the pen . or She picked the pen up . * Although not explicitly said in the Thomson-Martinet grammar, the length of object again would normally affect the position of the adverbs of place too. This is because the adverb usually modifies the verb it follows so if the object is a clause it may wrongly modify the verb in that clause instead of the main verb. For example: - She looked everywhere for the dress she saw in her favourite movie . (S...

Once you learn the basic facts about adverbs (form, function, comparison etc.) what remains is to learn where to place them in a sentence. You will probably find somewhat difficult to remember all of the rules related to their position (I know I have), but you don't need to worry too much. The more we use English the better we get at it. For a start, you will improve your language by remembering at least those rules that apply to most adverbs or which correspond with your own language, later on you can build up your knowledge bit by bit. I myself will benefit a lot from revising this not at all easy area, although adverbials (a word or group of words with an adverbial meaning -manner, time etc.) offer more flexibility than other sentence constituents (subject, predicate etc.). All the information here is taken from the so-called pedagogical grammar (such as Thomson-Martinet's one) and some other sources (such as Oxford or Cambridge dictionaries). I will not be using Qu...

                    All of us eventually grow bored with reading about grammar rules and exceptions from those rules, with studying vocabulary lists and similar. Although this may be necessary for any person striving to have a career in teaching or anything else heavily dependent on your excellence in English, we all love to have fun learning something. And having fun learning English is definitely possible thanks to diverse multimedia today. We should never underestimate the usefulness of diverse exposure to a language. Almost any kind of exposure to the language you are trying to learn can have various benefits. However, you do need to be aware of your goals, i. e. why you learn a certain language and what you want to achieve. Having your goals in mind you can choose to learn either only from very reliable and trustworthy sites or from any sit...

Adverbs just like adjectives have both regular and irregular comparison as well as a certain number of constructions with comparison. There are many similarities between comparisons of adjectives and adverbs so I will occasionally draw your attention to them while writing about the comparison of adverbs. REGULAR COMPARISON 1) Single-syllable adverbs (just like single-syllable adjectives) and early form comparative and superlative by adding - er and - est : - hard, harder, hardest - near, nearer, nearest - early, earlier, earliest (y has changed to i) - long, longer, longest - deep, deeper, deepest - high, higher, highest - fast, faster, fastest - low, lower, lowest 2) Adverbs of two or more syllables form comparatives and superlatives with more and most put before them: *This is also true of adjectives, however, two-syllable adjectives ending in - er, -y or -ly normally add -er and -est like single-syllable adjectives (clever, cle...

Certain adverbs, just like some adjectives and other parts of speech, have a restricted use. This means that they cannot be used freely in any type of sentence or language mode (spoken or written). Sometimes there is a logical explanation behind the restricted use: "little" and "few" are rarely used in spoken language because of the possible confusion with "a little" and "a few". We rather say "hardly any" or use a negative verb with much/many ( I didn't see much . instead of  saying I saw little .). We can also further modify "little/few" to avoid confusion ( so little, too few, comparatively little etc .). However, there are also words which simply are not used by native speakers in all contexts. One does not see a particular reason for their restricted use but it still exists. Using those words freely, i.e. without restriction, would not necessarily result in ungrammatical sentences but rather in an unnaturally sou...

Many adverbs (especially of manner and degree) are formed by adding -ly to their corresponding adjectives. Sometimes this requires certain adjustments of the spelling: 1) If the adjective ends in -y then we need to change that y into an i before adding -ly: - happ y + ly = happ i ly - merry -- merrily - pretty -- prettily - crafty -- craftily - cosy -- cosily - easy -- easily - angry -- angrily 2) Normally we retain the final - e in adjectives when adding - ly : - privat e + ly = privat e ly - strange -- strangely - safe -- safely - rude -- rudely - extreme -- extremely - brave -- bravely - moderate -- moderately ** There are 3 exceptions: tru e --- truly, du e -- duly, whol e -- wholly 3) Adjectives ending in consonant + le  (-tle, -ble, -ple) drop the final e and add y only: - gen tle + (l) y = gently (final e dropped, l is omitted to avoid doubling the consonats) - simple -- simply - ...