Usually, when we say something in English, we’re making either a positive sentence: “My cat likes eating cake.” or a negative sentence: “My cat doesn’t like it when I play guitar.” For both these sentences, we’re 100% sure about these facts: 100% sure it’s true   100% sure it isn’t true “My cat likes …” ⇿ ”My cat doesn’t like …” But what if you aren’t sure? What if you need to express something in the middle? That’s when you need to express uncertainty in English. How to express uncertainty in English There are four main ways we can express uncertainty in English: Phrases like ..read more

We use reporting verbs to report what somebody said — to tell someone what another person said. Let’s look at an example: Barry: “My five-year-old son can definitely fix your broken shower.” You could report what Barry said using “say”: Either directly: “Barry said, ‘My five-year-old son can definitely fix your broken shower.'” Or indirectly: “Barry said that his five-year-old son could definitely fix our broken shower.” But there are so many other words for “say” in English. We use different reporting verbs to give different messages about what someone said. Compare these examples: “Barry cla ..read more

OK. We’re going to talk about negative adverbials in English. But first, let’s start with Madonna and a line from her song “Into the Groove.” So what’s happening here? “Only when I’m dancing can I feel this free.” Why did she say “can I feel” and not “I can feel”? She’s not asking a question, so why the “can I …” question form? Welcome to the world of negative adverbials in English, also known as negative inversions. They’re so common that even ’80s Madonna used them. But why does Madonna use one here? Why doesn’t she just say, “I can only feel this free when I’m dancing”? Good question. And ..read more

You know what’s quite surprising? The fact that a lot of English learners, even high-level English learners, still get confused about the difference between “job” and “work.” I mean, “job” vs “work” — simple, right? Well, they look simple, but it’s quite surprising how they behave. Generally speaking, there’s one big difference between “job” and “work.” And there are also lots of useful little phrases with “job” and “work.” So what are we waiting for? Let’s check it out! Check what out? The difference between “job” and “work” in English, of course! What else? The main difference between “job ..read more

Quick! Answer the question! What can you do with your eyes? Most people would probably answer that question by saying, “Duh. You look with them!” And that’s definitely true. But there are loads of different ways we can look at something — and that means that there are loads of different verbs for “look” in English. You can look at things for a long time. You can look at things for a short time. You can look at things like you hate them, and you can look at things like you love them. If you want to describe the different ways you can talk about looking at things in English, then … … keep lookin ..read more

There’s a lot of furniture vocabulary in English. I mean, furniture is a big part of our everyday lives, right? So let’s take a walk around your home and learn the names of furniture in English! Furniture in the bedroom bedroom furniture OK. Look at your bedroom! What’s the most obvious thing in the room? It’s the bed, right? While I was researching this post, I realised something: We spend more time touching our bed than we do touching anything else. That’s got to be true, right? I mean, we spend a third of our lives in bed. More if we’re ill or hungover or just feeling really, really lazy. O ..read more

Before COVID, I never thought I’d spend so much of my week looking at graphs. But now, we’re all obsessed with them. Watching the numbers go up and down, watching them reach new highs and new lows. Describing trends (how numbers on a chart or a graph change over time) is something we’re doing more than we used to. But describing trends isn’t just about COVID. We see trends in our lives every day. Maybe you’re talking about how much giraffe medicine your company’s sold this month, the value of carrot cake on the stock market or how often you see your neighbour walking around the garden without ..read more

Today, you have a choice: Do you want a quick overview of how to use articles (a, an, the) in English? Click here. Do you want some new and unusual ways of thinking about articles in English? Read on! A couple of new ways of thinking about “a” and “the” Back in 2017, I wrote this book: (Get your copy here.) And here’s my favourite image from this book: One of the reasons I like this image so much is that it shows you how language works in one simple picture. Remember, language isn’t a “thing.” It’s not a machine that has moving parts and all you need to do is get the right parts together an ..read more

Do these sentences sound weird to you? “We did a lot of activities last weekend.” “I saw so many amazing artefacts at the museum.” “After I left the building, the woman whose cat you looked after last year and who played the piano for your sister’s birthday came up to me and asked me the time.” These sentences are not incorrect … but they sound a little strange, right? A little unnatural. So what’s the problem? Well, these sentences need what we call placeholder names. “But what on Earth are placeholder names?” I hear you say. And to that, my friend, I say, “Good question! I shall answer tha ..read more

OK. Look at yourself! I guess you can probably name most of the parts of your body that you can see (and some of the ones you can’t see). But how many idioms can you make from your body parts? In English, there are LOTS of idioms that use parts of the body. Here are 75 of the most common body idioms in English. How many did you already know? Body idioms: Parts of the head Body idioms with “head” To head off This means “to start a journey.” Maybe you’re going on a short trip: “I’m just heading off to the shops. Do you want anything?” Or maybe it’s the biggest journey of your life! “We’re walki ..read more