📜 Here I come to one of the memoir writer’s difficulties– one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened. The reason is that it is so difficult to describe any human being. So they say: “This is what happened”; but […]
Many English language students struggle with memorising the many different verb forms we have in our language. It can be difficult, especially when they are studied out of context. So in today’s lesson, I hope to share 3 essential verb forms that are not only commonly used on a daily basis by native English speakers, but
Lesson #168: 3 Important Irregular Verb Forms in Dickens’ ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ Read More »
If you have been watching the ceremonies to commemorate the inauguration of the U.S. president today, you will have overheard several references in their speeches and poems to one very influential book in the English language: the Bible. This is because for centuries, the English Bible – specifically the King James Version, first published in
Lesson #166: Everyday English Idioms (From One of the Most Influential Books in English) Read More »
📗 The fire being lit, the hearth swept, and a small kettle of a very antique pattern, such as I thought I remembered to have seen in old farmhouses in England, placed over the now ruddy flame, Frances’ hands were washed, and her apron removed in an instant; then she opened a cupboard, and took
Lesson #165: Affirming Something Emphatically With ‘The’, ‘Do’, or ‘Did’ Read More »
Nearly everyone knows about – even if they have not read – Jane Austen’s famous novels: Pride and Prejudice (1813), Sense and Sensibility (1811), Persuasion (1818), and Emma (1815), not to mention Mansfield Park (1814)and Northanger Abbey (1817). 📚 But most people, including native English speakers, are less familiar with Austen’s earlier (or unpublished) writings. Works like The
Lesson #162: All About Hyphens and Dashes (in UK and US English) Read More »
📙 Here was one of the advantages of having lived alone so long! The little bustling, active, cheerful creature existed entirely within herself, talked to herself, made a confidante of herself, was as sarcastic as she could be, on people who offended her, by herself; pleased herself, and did no harm. If she indulged in
📙 The White House was on the edge of a hill, with a wood behind it— and the chalk-quarry on one side and the gravel-pit on the other. Down at the bottom of the hill was a level plain, with queer-shaped white buildings where people burnt lime, and a big red brewery and other houses;
📗 ‘I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and I watched and felt each from
Lesson #159: Wondering Wildly in ‘Wuthering Heights’: Expressions Using ‘If … Then …’ Read More »
If you missed the first part of this lesson where we described the main functions of ‘either/or’, ‘neither/nor’, and ‘both’, you can check it out here. This is part 2 of our lesson on these important word groups, where we consider how they relate to the preposition ‘of’, their word order and verb conjugation rules,
📘 ‘Lucy was never visible at these times, being either engaged in the school-room, or in taking an airing out of doors; but, knowing that she was now comfortable, and had given up the, to him, depressing idea of going off to the other side of the globe, he was quite content.’ – Thomas Hardy,
📜 I am sharing a poem today that I particularly like: ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ by Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939). Yeats’ poem rings a chord in these days when we cannot readily travel but can only dream of places of tranquil beauty. In English, we often speak of such places as ‘oases’
Lesson #157: An Oasis to Dream About: Yeats’ ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ Read More »
If you have ever read books set in Victorian Britain, you may have noticed that women were generally discouraged from reading any books that might cause them to become intellectual. While novels, magazines, and some plays were considered acceptable for them to read, they were discouraged from reading works of science, philosophy, theology, or the