📙 Grace’s disposition to make the best of everything, and to wink at deficiencies in Winterborne’s menage, was so uniform and persistent that he suspected her of seeing even more deficiencies than he was aware of … ‘… It reminds me so pleasantly that everything here in dear old Hintock is just as it used […]
Lesson #240 (Part 2): How to fix the most common punctuation mistake in English Read More »
As a proofreader and a tutor, the most common mistake I see on a daily basis is the misappropriation (placing in the wrong places) of apostrophes (‘) in English. Even native English speakers make this mistake from time to time! If you have been reading my Lessons for a while, you may remember that I
Lesson #240 (Part 1): How to fix the most common punctuation mistake in English Read More »
📙 ‘As though a rose should shut And be a bud again.’ – Thomas Hardy, Far From The Madding Crowd (1874) 🥀 … If you have been around native English speakers enjoying a casual conversation, you are likely to have heard them use the word ‘like’ often when making a comparison of some kind. ✒️
Lesson #196: ‘As If’ vs ‘As Though’ through Hardy’s ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ Read More »
📙 ‘He and his family had been weary when they arrived the night before, and they had observed but little of the place; so that he now beheld it as a new thing.’ – Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) … Although the principle of this lesson is a simple one, namely: ✍️ RULE: A singular
Lesson #179: Agreement Between Subject and Verb Form – 7 Rules to Avoid Common Mistakes Read More »
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
As mentioned in our Mini-Lesson Monday this week, I would like to address some common mistakes that I sometimes see English language students making. One mistake I encountered in a few places was a tendency to mix up the verbs ‘lend’ and ‘borrow’. I met even advanced English speakers who tripped up on these two words. There are
As mentioned in the previous post, where I quoted from Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), here is a short list of vocabulary to help with understanding the same passage. 🍃A quick question: how did you find the text? Was it challenging in terms of vocabulary? Did you understand most of it? ✨Did you enjoy his
In my previous post, I offered a few pointers to help English students get started with classic literature. Can I recommend some good classics to start with? Of course! When I conducted a bookshelf search, I immediately came across Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), one of Thomas Hardy’s early works and a good choice for most
Lesson #117: Starting to Read English Classics? (Part 1) Read More »