I went to a conference about teaching English a couple of weeks ago and saw a presentation by Paul Raine, the owner of a great website Apps4EFL.com. It’s a free website for students and teachers.
Category: Vocabulary
Absolutely or Exactly?
The adverbs ‘absolutely’ and ‘exactly’ can sometimes be used in the same way but they do have different meanings; they are not exactly the same. Read on to find out how to use them.
Continue reading Absolutely or Exactly?
Are You Into English?
It is easy to talk about likes and dislikes in English: “I like this” and “I don’t like that” are OK. Sometimes you want to say something a little different and ‘love’ and ‘hate’ are not what you were thinking about.
Continue reading Are You Into English?
Say Something
When you are talking and can’t find the words you need, you need something. I’m going to tell you how ‘something’ can help you when you can’t remember vocabulary.
Are You Tired?
There are so many ways to say you are tired in English. Why not use more interesting vocabulary when you’re worn out?
Contraction distractions
When you read English for fun you might see some words you cannot find in the dictionary. Some of these have apostrophes (‘). This means they may be contractions, words made shorter by missing out letters and replacing them with apostrophes.
Ol’
‘Ol’‘ just means ‘old’, doesn’t it? Yes, but not in the way you might think. There is the usage of ‘old’ to mean ‘not young’ and there is also another usage of ‘old’ to mean ‘dear, having sentimental value or being familiar’. It is mainly American, common in the Southern states and is heard a lot in country music.
“This ol’ town feels like home.”
This could mean the town is old or dear to the speaker.
“Silly ol’ me. I should have gotten up earlier for school, I guess.”
The speaker here is not old but is familiar with himself or herself.
Li’l
‘Li’l‘ is easy. It simply means ‘little’.
“This crazy li’l thing called love.”
“A li’l bird told me a secret.”
Words That Mean Food Is ‘Posh’
English changes all the time and some recent changes have taken even native speakers by surprise.
‘While’ or ‘During’
Talking about periods of time and what goes on can be tough. Should you choose ‘while’ or ‘during’?
As a general rule, use ‘during’ when you follow with a noun or short noun phrases but ‘while’ for something longer.
Do I Have To Learn Phrasal Verbs?
Yes, you do, eventually. If you never learn phrasal verbs there are going to be huge gaps in your vocabulary knowledge. This could cause you to be unable to express yourself properly or to misunderstand other people.
“But you could just use normal verbs, couldn’t you?”
You could in some situations but not in others. There are differences in meaning between some phrasal verbs and their non-phrasal alternatives; sometimes it is small but sometimes it is vast.
Do, Go or Play
Here’s a quick rule when talking about sports and physical activities.