Stage 05

Many English learners have trouble with prepositions. Using the incorrect preposition can completely change the context of a sentence and cause the speaker problems. So the correct use of prepositions is vitally important in English. For example, the difference between “to” and “at” in the context of throwing a ball could save your life. If …

As mentioned in this week’s Tip of the Week, we’ll be going over a couple words that can cause confusion for English learners- ‘for’ and ‘since.’ Let’s start with a basic difference by defining each word: ~We use ‘for’ to talk about a period of time. So when you think of time phrases like “ten …

There are two main types of determiners: specific and general. Let’s look at specific determiners first. The definite article — ‘the’ — is a specific determiner. If we say ‘the table’, it is assumed that both the speaker and the listener know which table is being talked about. Demonstratives form another group of specific determiners: …

Before we go on, let’s take a step back and look at what we’re dealing with here. The Active Voice communicates that the subject does the action, while the Passive Voice communicates that the subject receives the action. We form the Passive Voice by using the verb ‘to be’ and a past participle. For example: …

We use the passive voice when the subject in the sentence receives the action, as opposed to the active voice, when the subject does the action. It is called the ‘passive voice’ because the subject is not active, therefore it is not doing the action. We form the passive voice by using the verb ‘to …

There are other ways that we can make our answers shorter. In normal spoken English, we often use these short answers because it is easier than giving a complete sentence and it is more natural. When you are learning a language it is better to practise with full sentences because you need to learn how …

We use the ‘Zero Conditional’ to talk about things that are generally true. Its construction is «If + Present + Present or Imperative». For example «If it rains, I take an umbrella.» Or, «If you come home late, be quiet.» Notice that the first example communicates something that is generally true and the second communicates …

Let’s look at a sentence in the active voice: ~Hank wrote the script. In the active voice, the subject does the action. Hank, the subject, does the action to the object, the script. Now let’s look at that same sentence in the passive voice: ~The script was written by Hank. Now the script is the …

If we say that someone is ‘bored’, it means that their mood is one of boredom – they are not stimulated by what is happening (‘I’m so bored today, I need to do something different’). If we say someone is ‘boring’, however, the sentence takes on a much more personal, critical tone. This describes the …

There are different ways to explain when we use the present perfect tense. We can use it when an action is finished but the time is not finished. For example, «I have played tennis this week». In this example we we are not playing tennis now, but this week is still in progress, so we …