📙 “My dear Miss Catherine,” I began, too vividly impressed by her recent kindness to break into a scold, “where have you been riding out at this hour? And why should you try to deceive me by telling a tale? Where have you been? Speak!” – Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847) … You may remember […]
Lesson #236: Three Ways To Use ‘Been’, The Past Participle Of ‘To Be’ Read More »
📙 ‘“… Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don’t talk of our separation again …”’ – Cathy Earnshaw in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) In this second Part of our Lesson
📙 ‘Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff’s dwelling. “Wuthering” being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather.’ – Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847) Have you ever been confused about the differences between ‘being’ and ‘been’ in English? 🤔 ✍️ Both of these
📗 ‘It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we shall attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war which England and France last waged for the possession of a country that neither was destined to retain.’ – James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative
Earlier this week we delved into (dived into) the ‘nuts and bolts‘ (an expression that means ‘everything relating to’) of direct and indirect speech. But of course, it takes time and space to cover such a large topic, and I noticed that some students had questions about the difference in tenses used in retelling indirect
Lesson #231: How two different tenses can be used together correctly in reported speech Read More »
This Lesson post builds on what was covered in Part 1, so if you missed it why not quickly review our basic outline of ✏️ 1) what direct and indirect speeches are, ✏️ 2) the main differences between them, and ✏️ 3) how to correctly use the verbs ‘to say’ and ‘to tell’ in those
For the last couple of years, I have been reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch throughout May and June. It has 8 books (or sections) and so I read one book per week, finishing one of the longest books in just 8 weeks! 📆 It is a marvellous work, and has in fact been described as ‘one
As you may remember, every second Saturday we take the time to look at a poem from English or American literature. This week I am sharing with you a poem by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (whose poem, ‘Paul Revere’s Ride’, we looked at in Lesson #187). 🖋️ As I thought about this poem
Lesson #229: Reading for Appreciation: ‘A Psalm of Life’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Read More »
We continue our Lesson on the differences (and similarities) between the expressions ‘be going to [verb]’ cf. ‘will [verb]’ to talk about the future in English. (If you missed it, we looked primarily at ‘be going to …’ in Part 1 of our Lesson) … 📝 ‘WILL [+ VERB]’ (SIMPLE FUTURE) In Part 1 of
📗 “We will go—you and I alone, Caroline—to that wood …” “We are going to see Miss Shirley Keeldar.” – Charlotte Bronte, Shirley (1849) … 🔎 In what ways is the future tense in these two sentences different? This is a question that baffles many students – understandably, since the differences are very subtle! This
If you have been reading these Lesson posts for some time, you may remember how much I like Emily Bronte’s poetry. She was a poet I discovered only in the last few years, and I wonder how I could have been reading literature for so long and yet not have read her poetry before! I
📗 “I don’t understand you,” said Alice. “It’s dreadfully confusing!” “That’s the effect of living backwards,” the Queen said kindly: “it always makes one a little giddy at first—” “Living backwards!” Alice repeated in great astonishment. “I never heard of such a thing!” – Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1871) … Have you ever read
Lesson #223: Avoiding confusion in your writing: 3 Punctuation Tips Read More »