Often my students ask me why English has notoriously difficult spelling, and naturally, my response to them is: it’s because of Vikings. You see, back in 1066, a French-speaking dude from Normandy invades England and, on setting down his beret in these fair green lands, sends word to his mates (presumably via a young lacky who had to endure weeks of stormy seas and possible scurvy because, unlucky for the messenger, WhatsApp hadn’t been invented yet). England’s surprise new leader tells them that, dudes, this place is pretty cool - you should all come and live here. (In French of course). And ..read more

 There’s an old poem that goes like this: Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to give the poor dog a bone. When she came there, the cupboard was bare, and so the poor dog had none.  Don’t worry - it gets weirder. We can determine two things from these lines: firstly, there are some very strange poems out there, and secondly, one of the meanings of ‘bare’ is empty (unfortunately for the dog in this poem) or basic and simple (see the title of this post). Similarly, we can use this word to mean devoid of clothing; hence, we have ‘barefoot’, ‘bare-chested’, and so on. 'Bare' shoul ..read more

Smile! The 20th of March is the International Day of Happiness. In honour of this cheerful occasion, we’ll be looking at some common English words and expressions about happiness, which will hopefully leave you feeling like a ‘happy chappy’.   Up, Up and Away If you say you’re on cloud nine, it doesn’t just mean you’re just happy - it means you’re ecstatic, elated, or thrilled (all synonyms for very, very, very happy), or you could say, ‘blissfully happy’ (a common adverb-adjective collocation). Sarah was on cloud nine because it was her last working day before her holiday. Unfortunatel ..read more

English has its fair share of confusing words (that’s ‘fair’ as in reasonable, not ‘fare’ as in fee). This often has to do with the fact that many English words sound the same or have the same spelling, but have a different meaning. Another reason is because the words have a similar, but not equivalent, meaning, or entirely the opposite meaning. (I often joke with my students that we ran out of words and had to reuse the ones we had). But never fear, we’re here to guide you through this morass of linguistic confusion in our series about troublesome English words. Let’s start with this perturb ..read more

Love is in the air! And no, that doesn’t mean it’s a bug you can catch (although it is contagious, so beware). 'Love is in the air' is an expression used in English, especially in February when lovebirds everywhere celebrate Valentine’s Day and, by extension (especially when you forgot to buy a gift on the 14th), Valentine's Month. And no, ‘lovebirds’ aren’t birds in this context, although there is actually a species of parrot by that name (which conjures up an image of two such colourful creatures enjoying a tete-a-tete over fine wine at a romantic café). In this post, we’ll delve into some ..read more

Student Newsletter #3 ELC students share tips for Cape Town visitors   Welcome to Cape Town! In this newsletter, we're going to give you very good advice, which has been tried and tested by us, ELC students, to help you adapt to Cape Town and have the best time. Get out of your Comfort Zone We all come from different countries and varied cultures, and we understand that you need a bit of time to feel comfortable in a different country, so take your time to adjust but don’t forget to try new things and embrace the great experiences Cape Town has to offer, from shark-cage diving to cultural ..read more

Hello and welcome to our second ELC student newsletter. In this issue, we would like to share some of the insights we have gained from living and studying English in this incredible African metropolis. We hope you enjoy it! Why visit Cape Town? Cape Town is a beautiful city and hosts many tourists every year from different places around the world with different cultures. That’s why we can call Cape Town the centre of Africa. Where else can you start a trip from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, or ascend one of the world’s seven natural wonders? (See a pic of Table Mountain below). Annually ..read more

As this is the first official post of 2024, we’d like to take the opportunity to wish our readers a happy New Year. One year ends; another year begins. On that note, why do we say ‘another’ year and not ‘other’? Well, if you were wondering, you're in luck because that’s the subject of today’s post.  Other/another + noun Have a look at the sentences below and identify which one uses a singular noun and which has a plural noun. I lived in another country. I lived in other countries. If you said that ‘country’ is the singular noun and ‘countries’ is plural, you are correct. 10 bonus point ..read more

Love it or hate it, AI is here to stay. A lot of folks are talking about ChatGPT and if you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of it. There are loads of exciting ways that this new platform can be used in language learning and in this post I have a chat with ChatGPT - my new  ‘virtual buddy’ - to understand more. What is ChatGPT? ChatGPT is built on ‘Generative Pre-trained Transformer’ architecture. This basically means that it has the ability to generate human-like responses to whatever you type. In the same way that we’re training AI to drive us safely around th ..read more

It’s that time of year again. The time when, for a good month or so, we shop - and eat - ‘til we drop. Then January comes around and we vow never, ever to do it again. Indeed, there is something inexplicably inviting about a fresh start. Like getting a new haircut, or a new car (the former for the poorer of us), January greets us like the smell of new car seats (or expensive salon shampoo).  The cynics among us might say that New Year’s resolutions are just a way to justify our hedonistic ways. Ate an entire gingerbread house in one sitting? That’s okay. Come January I’m going to start m ..read more