Showing posts with label webpages for learning English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label webpages for learning English. Show all posts

Sunday, 11 November 2018

Websites to practise listening and see tips for CAE exam

Here are a couple of websites I have recently found (or found again) to be useful for students in their learning of English.

www.elllo.org - a great place to practise your listening on different topics and with different speakers.

www.caeexamtips.com - some fantastic advice for those preparing for CAE (C1) Advanced English

Thursday, 31 March 2016

General rules regarding prepositions

Prepositions are a nightmare for anyone who wants to learn English, but here are some general rules (taken from http://www.englishgrammar.org/general-rules-prepositions):

Use ‘in’ for countries and big towns.  She was born in New Zealand. I live in Mumbai.

Use ‘at’ for addresses. Are you still at that address?  We live at D 23, MG Road.

Use ‘in’ for position inside a three dimensional space. The cat is in the kitchen.

Use ‘on’ for position on the surface of something. There is something on the roof. Put the books on the table.

Use ‘to’ and ‘into’ to show direction. He went to work. The child fell into the well.

Use ‘till’ to indicate time. I waited till 6 o’clock.

Use ‘since’ to indicate the starting point of something. I have been waiting since morning.

Use ‘for’ to indicate duration. It rained for two hours. We have been living in this city for three years.

Use ‘from’ to indicate the source. She comes from a small town.

Use ‘to’ to indicate the destination. He went to America.

Use ‘between’ to indicate position between two or more clearly defined people or objects. The child sat between his father and parents.

Use ‘among’ to indicate position among more than two people or objects. She sat among the children.

Use ‘with’ to indicate the instrument and ‘by’ to indicate the agent. He killed the spider with a stone. The spider was killed by the boy.

Use ‘beside’ to mean ‘by the side of’. The boy sat beside his mother.

Monday, 26 October 2015

Useful reference for difficult English language questions

Whilst checking a student's writing, I was intrigued to find out whether grammatically it would be better to say:

1. "Simple ideas can be sometimes the best" or
2. "Simple ideas can sometimes be the best"

As we know, adverbs of frequency come before the main verb, but after the verb 'be' and the auxiliary verb.

As such, in this situation, the correct answer would be: 2. "Simple ideas can sometimes be the best"

However, 'sometimes' can also go at the beginning or end of a sentence, meaning that we could equally write: "Sometimes simple ideas can be the best".

The moral of the story then is that English does not always have a set order in how its sentences are written!

Check out the following webpage for more information:
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/247921/would-i-say-i-can-sometimes-or-i-sometimes-can

Wednesday, 9 September 2015

New links!

Have a look at the links I am adding to the right of the page.  From here you will be able to find many useful webpages for learning English, which are all free.
Go and have a look!