English Vocabulary

Lesson #265: ‘from Eton pears to Parliamentary pairs’: 10 English Homophones

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It has been a while since we turned to Charles Dickens for educational inspiration! On the other hand, I have just finished reading the last chapters of my favourite Dickens’ book, Little Dorrit (1857), and am paying tribute to it (acknowledging it respectfully) in today’s Lesson on homophones. You might be asking: what are homophones? […]

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Lesson #264: ‘Girls, such as me and Miss Snowe, don’t need treats’: Understanding the differences between ‘Such As’ vs ‘As Such’

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Every now and then, English language students mention how they are confused by the difference between ‘such as’ and ‘as such’. Are they the same? 🤔 No. As I was reading through Charlotte Bronte’s psychologically deep novel, Villette, I realised some of its lines could help illustrate the difference between these two expressions. 📘 Villette

Lesson #264: ‘Girls, such as me and Miss Snowe, don’t need treats’: Understanding the differences between ‘Such As’ vs ‘As Such’ Read More »

Lesson #263 (Part 2): Vocabulary relating to Clothes, Fabrics, and different kinds of Textiles – ‘All Purple Cloth and Fine Linen’ (Elizabeth Gaskell)

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In this second part of our Lesson on vocabulary relating to textiles, we will continue with four more words that specifically describe richer types of material. They are not the kind of fabric that you would wear every day, but there is a chance that at some point in your life you will wear a

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Lesson #263 (Part 1): Vocabulary relating to Clothes, Fabrics, and different kinds of Textiles – ‘Who On Earth Wears Cotton That Can Afford Linen?’ (Elizabeth Gaskell)

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This wonderful novel by Elizabeth Gaskell is set in mid-19th century (c. 1850s) England, where the main character, a strong-minded girl called Margaret Hale, is forced together with her family to leave their lovely home in the sunny south of England and move to a smoky, industrial town further north (‘Milton’ – a fictional name

Lesson #263 (Part 1): Vocabulary relating to Clothes, Fabrics, and different kinds of Textiles – ‘Who On Earth Wears Cotton That Can Afford Linen?’ (Elizabeth Gaskell) Read More »

Lesson #262: ‘This is the famous stone / That turneth all to Gold’ – George Herbert’s ‘The Elixir’

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This Lesson’s feature image: George Herbert at Bemerton, Salisbury (1860), by painter William Dyce (1806-1864). Photo Credit: City of London Corporation (ArtUK.org) 📆 It is one year to the day – October 1st 2020 – since I started posting short Lessons on how to ‘learn English through literature’! A lot has changed since then, with

Lesson #262: ‘This is the famous stone / That turneth all to Gold’ – George Herbert’s ‘The Elixir’ Read More »

Lesson #261: Writing with a strong sense of wonder – Browning’s ‘Home-Thoughts, From the Sea’

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📜 ‘Home-Thoughts, From the Sea’ (1845) Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-West died away;Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;Bluish ‘mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;In the dimmest North-East distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and gray;“Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?”—say,Whoso turns as

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Lesson #260: Effective advice on ‘How to Write a Letter’, by Elizabeth Turner

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📜’How to write a Letter’ Maria intended a letter to write,But could not begin (as she thought) to indite;So went to her mother with pencil and slate,Containing ‘Dear Sister’, and also a date. ‘With nothing to say, my dear girl, do not thinkOf wasting your time over paper and ink;But certainly this is an excellent

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Lesson #259: ‘All are not taken’: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem ‘Consolation’

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📜 ‘Consolation’ ALL are not taken; there are left behind    Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring    And make the daylight still a happy thing,And tender voices, to make soft the wind:But if it were not so—if I could find    No love in all this world for comforting,    Nor any path but hollowly did ringWhere ‘dust to dust’ the love

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Lesson #258: ‘Late Autumn’: Appreciating a colourful poem by English-Canadian poet Joseph Horatio Chant

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As we draw close to the first anniversary of these regular Learn English through Literature Lessons, I thought it would be a nice celebration to read and reflect on inspiring English language poetry this week. 📚 As you will see, some of the poets we are considering are less well-known, so all the more reason

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Lesson #256: ‘They Were All Wild To See Lyme’ (Austen’s ‘Persuasion’): Using ‘All’, ‘Both’, ‘Either’, ‘None’ Correctly

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📘 ‘The young people were all wild to see Lyme … and to Lyme they were to go – Charles, Mary, Anne, Henrietta, Louisa, and Captain Wentworth.’ – Jane Austen, Persuasion (1818) … I was re-listening to the audiobook version of one of my favourite Austen novels – Persuasion – when this sentence inspired me

Lesson #256: ‘They Were All Wild To See Lyme’ (Austen’s ‘Persuasion’): Using ‘All’, ‘Both’, ‘Either’, ‘None’ Correctly Read More »

Lesson #255 (Part 2): A Look At Scott’s ‘Waverley’ (And How He Uses An Array of Sensory Words to Describe An Unforgettable Experience)

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In our passage from Sir Walter Scott’s great historical novel Waverley (which we looked at in Part 1 of this Lesson), we see how Edward Waverley meets with Flora MacIvor and her companion Cathleen in a remote spot in the Scottish Highlands, where Flora plays on the harp and sings enchanting (fascinating) songs. Waverley is

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Lesson #255 (Part 1): A Look At Scott’s ‘Waverley’ (And How He Uses An Array of Sensory Words to Describe An Unforgettable Experience)

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We are so used to having a wide range of historical fiction titles at our fingertips (accessible to us) that we sometimes forget there was once a writer who began to research and write such works. Many scholars agree that Sir Walter Scott, a Scottish novelist and poet, was such a writer. His 1814 classic

Lesson #255 (Part 1): A Look At Scott’s ‘Waverley’ (And How He Uses An Array of Sensory Words to Describe An Unforgettable Experience) Read More »