Reading Classic Literature

Lesson #150 (Part 1): When Should You Use ‘Shall’ Vs. ‘Will’?

📘 ‘I beg, Catherine, you will always wrap yourself up very warm about the throat, when you come from the rooms at night; and I wish you would try to keep some account of the money you spend; I will give you this little book on purpose.’ – Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (1817) Have you […]

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Lesson #148: Your Language Learning Journey: Assessing How Much You Have Truly Learned So Far

🍁 Since autumn (or fall, as it is known in Canada and the USA) is my favourite season of the year, I have included several poems and literary passages in recent lessons on this topic. đŸ‚ I have yet another poem in autumn to share, one by the Welsh poet R. S. Thomas (1913-2000) called ‘A

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Lesson #147: An Advanced English Sentence Structure That All Native Speakers Use

📗 ‘Having decided to conquer the Land of Oz and to destroy the Emerald City and enslave all its people, King Roquat the Red kept planning ways to do this dreadful thing, and the more he planned the more he believed he would be able to accomplish it.’ – L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of

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Lesson #146: Do We Ever Use Double Negatives In English?

‘And unrecorded left through many an Age, Worthy t’ have not remain’d so long unsung …’ – John Milton, ‘Paradise Regained’ (1671) These lines come from a poem â€“ ‘Paradise Regained’ â€“ which I first read as a teenager and whose opening section I copied into the notebook featured in the photograph above. â€Š You may have seen in an English lesson

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Lesson #144: Five Small But Important ‘Fruits’ Gathered From Gaskell’s ‘North And South’

I thought it would be nice for a change to take a short text from a classic and analyse it in today’s lesson.  So I have the pleasure of re-introducing one of my top favourite novels, North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), having been inspired today by this biscuit tin which I bought last year when I

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Lesson #142: Improving Your English Expression By A Different Path

As I have mentioned in these short lessons before, I am convinced that one of the best ways to improve your standard of English is to memorise vocabulary in context. What better exercise then than to read some English poems, choose a few that you like, and learn them off by heart! I would like

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Lesson #141 (Part 2): American Vs British Punctuation: How To Use British English Quotation Marks

📘 ‘Why do you say “poor Rosamond”?’ said Mrs Plymdale, a round-eyed sharp little woman, like a tame falcon. – George Eliot, Middlemarch (1871) As observed in our last lesson post (Part 1 of this lesson, ‘American vs British Quotation Mark Punctuation’), there are 4 main rules on how to punctuate quotations in English. Today we will

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Lesson #141 (Part 1): American Vs British Punctuation: How To Use American English Quotation Marks

📙 “… my mother has not gone into details. She chiefly communicates with us by means of telegrams, and her telegrams are rather inscrutable. They say women don’t know how to write them, but my mother has thoroughly mastered the art of condensation. ‘Tired America, hot weather awful, return England with niece, first steamer decent

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Lesson #139: Mini-Lesson Monday (Part 2): All About The Unmissable Conjunction ‘And’

đŸ‘±â€â™€ïžïž ‘I like books and dolls and friends and babies and bicycles and holidays …’ These were the words of a lovely 5-year-old girl called Lois I met several years ago. I still remember her excited face looking up at me as she shared some of her ‘favourite things’. I was reminded recently of Lois’ enthusiasm

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Lesson #139: Mini-Lesson Monday (Part 1): All About The Unmissable Conjunction ‘And’

đŸŒș “It’s the Magic and— and Mrs. Sowerby’s buns and milk and things,” said Colin. – Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911). Before we dive into today’s lesson, I have a question for you: is the quotation above, taken straight from an English classic, grammatically correct? Whether you answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’, why do

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Lesson #138: Common Mistakes Corrected: Apostrophes, Possessive Pronouns And Possessive Apostrophes (It’s vs Its)

Is it ‘its’ or ‘it’s’? If you have ever asked yourself that question, you are in the right place! Even if you are uncertain of the answer, know that by asking that question, you show more awareness of the possibility of making a mistake here than many people do – native English speakers included –

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Lesson #137 (Part 2): Understanding The Differences Between ‘Borrow’ And ‘Lend’ (Through Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Woodlanders’)

Part 2 of our lesson looking at the differences between ‘to lend’ and ‘to borrow’. ✍ ‘to borrow‘: This verb means to take something from another person with their permission and consent, usually for a short period only. For example, we borrow books from the library – we don’t own them, neither does the library

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