Welcome to Part 2 of our Lesson on homographs! In Part 1 we already looked at what homographs mean (quick reminder: they are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings and often different pronunciations). We also covered some key homographs in the English language, starting with those word pairs that share the […]
How familiar are you with homographs? 🤔 You might not recognise at first what a homograph means, but you have probably been using them (or at least noticing them) without even realising it! Homographs are basically words that are spelled the same but have different meanings. ✍️ Sometimes these word pairs are related because they
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
Since yesterday (April 21st) was the 205th anniversary of Charlotte Bronte’s birth, I thought it would be nice to have a look at some of the personal letters that she wrote during her lifetime. 📚 Most people remember her for her classic Jane Eyre (1847) or even Villette (1853), both of which considered what life
Lesson #218: Learning From A Letter – Charlotte Bronte’s words to her Aunt Read More »
📗 Arthur had passed the village of Hayslope and was approaching the Broxton side of the hill, when, at a turning in the road, he saw a figure about a hundred yards before him which it was impossible to mistake for any one else than Adam Bede, even if there had been no grey, tailless
Lesson #216: Seven Nouns with Identical Singular and Plural Forms in ‘Adam Bede’ Read More »
📘 ‘Lady Carbury, having finished her third letter, threw herself back in her chair, and for a moment or two closed her eyes, as though about to rest. But she soon remembered that the activity of her life did not admit of such rest. She therefore seized her pen and began scribbling further notes.’ –
Lesson #213: On Anthony Trollope (and 3 Easily Mistaken Verb Forms) Read More »
Every time Easter approaches, I am reminded of a short story, The Selfish Giant (1888), written by the Irish poet and playright Oscar Wilde. As I was rereading it today, I was impressed again by how splendid and eloquent his writing is, while being easy to read. In fact I think its language is even
As an intermediate or advanced level student of English, it can be hard to learn new vocabulary without understanding how to use them correctly in a sentence. For that reason, students are often encouraged to read more and more, but that in itself can become an overwhelming experience without the right kind of support from
Here we continue the story of Margaret Hale on her return to her parents’ country home in Helstone (a fictional village, probably based in Hampshire, England). … 📗 # FROM GASKELL’S NORTH AND SOUTH And walk Margaret did, in spite of the weather. She was so happy out of doors, at her father’s side, that
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,