After That

Sunday

Sing Along with the English Department

Find out the songs chosen for our Sing Along activity by clicking on the image below

Wednesday

Do vs Make

Click the pic below if you want to know more

Passive Trivia Jeopardy Game Jeopardy Game 2
Exercises 1 Exercises 2 Exercise 3

Try now this interactive video lesson about the passive voice.

Conditionals

Do you want to know more? Click here

Rewriting conditional sentences

Rewriting conditional sentences 2

Sunday

Compound Nouns

Words can be combined to form compound nouns. These are very common, and new combinations are invented almost daily.

They normally have two parts.

The first part tells us what kind of object or person it is, or what its purpose is.
The second part identifies the object or person in question.

You may have noticed that the compound noun can be written either as a single word (toothpaste), as a word with a hyphen (ccoking-oil), or as two words (paper clip). There are no clear rules about this. A good rule of thumb is to write the most common compound nouns as one word, and the others as two words.

The rules on whether to put a hyphen, a space, or nothing between the words in a compound noun are inconsistent. For example:

inkwell , ink well , ink-well
fulltime , full time , full-time
waterbottle , water bottle , water-bottle

It is best to use a spellchecker or a dictionary to see what versions of the word are acceptable.

Noun Suffixes

Noun Suffixes

Suffixes are affixes that attach to the ends of the base forms of words to create new words or new forms of words. Suffixation is a type of English derivation that creates new words. In addition to the agent suffixes -er, -or, and -ar, other derivational suffixes also result in the creation of agent nouns. Derivation suffixes create new agent nouns, nouns that identify the person performing an action or, in other words, names for people.

The following suffixes are more noun suffixes that create names for people:
-ist – person
-ian – of or belonging to
-ess – denoting female persons
-ar /-er/-eur/-ier/-or/-ur – agent

For example, affixing -ist to the base form of the noun art results in the new noun artist, meaning someone who creates art, and affixing -ian to the base form of the noun library results in the new noun librarian, meaning someone who works in a library.

Friday

The Use of Articles

English has two articles: the and a/an.
The is used to refer to specific or particular nouns; a/an is used to modify non-specific or non-particular nouns.
We call the the definite article and a/an the indefinite article.

the = definite article a/an = indefinite article

For example, if I say, "Let's read the book," I mean a specific book.
If I say, "Let's read a book," I mean any book rather than a specific book.

Here's another way to explain it: The is used to refer to a specific or particular member of a group. For example, "I just saw the most popular movie of the year." There are many movies, but only one particular movie is the most popular. Therefore, we use the.

"A/an" is used to refer to a non-specific or non-particular member of the group. For example, "I would like to go see a movie." Here, we're not talking about a specific movie. We're talking about any movie. There are many movies, and I want to see any movie. I don't have a specific one in mind.

Let's take a closer look at the use of the articles in English.

General rules:

a/an before singular countable nouns mentioned for the first time
a/an before some expressions of quantity
the before proper nouns (eg rivers and mountain ranges)
the before superlative adjectives
the before singular countable nouns when we have a specific thing in mind
no article before countries, languages, cities, etc
no article before people or things in general

Ex 1 Ex 2

Be Used To & Get Used To

Exercise 1 Exercise 2 Exercise 3

Tuesday

Gerunds and Infinitives

There is no quick and easy way to learn gerunds and infinitives. It takes years of practice and familiarity with the English language. Sorry about that! Over time, you will begin to use the right verb combination.

Basically, some verbs are followed by gerunds, some verbs are followed by infinitives, and some verbs can be followed by gerunds or infinitives. Native speakers do not think about the difference. But English learners have to memorize the hundreds of different verb combinations. Here are a few tips.

Tip Number 1: you almost always find a gerund after a preposition. For example, “She is afraid of flying.” In this sentence “of” is the preposition and “flying” is the gerund. You cannot say “She is afraid of to fly.” An infinitive cannot be the object of a preposition, only a gerund can. You could say, “She is afraid to fly,” but in this sentence, the preposition “of” is gone.

Tip Number 2: When you are talking about an activity, you usually use a gerund. For example, “I stopped smoking.” You can describe many activities by using “go” before a gerund. “Let’s go shopping,” or “We went skiing.”

This is only a simple introduction to a complicated grammar topic. Take a look at the lists here and here.

Let's see how much you know already. Exercises

Sunday

Sit or Seat

What is the difference between Seat and Sit?

Seat : (noun)

( 1 ) A thing made or used for sitting on

She rose from seat to welcome me. ( 2 ) Place where one pays to site in a vehicle or in a theatre etc…

There are no seats left on the flight.

Book four seats for the concert.

( 3 ) Place where something is based or where an activity is carried on

In India, Delhi is the seat of government.

Seat : (verb)

( 1 ) Make something / someone sit

I seated the girl next to her mother.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please be seated.

I seated myself on the sofa.

( 2 ) Have seats for (a specified number of people)

This is a hall that seats 567 persons.

Sit : (verb)

( 1 ) Be in a position in which the body is upright and resting on the buttocks either on a seat or on the ground

Please sit on the chair.

She was sitting next to the door.
( 2 ) (Of clothes) fit the body well

The dress sits well on her.

The coat sits badly across the shoulders.

( 3 ) Be a candidate for an examination

He will sit for the test tomorrow.

Tuesday

Reading Exam 2nd Term

Click on this link

Saturday

Grammar Revision Exercises

Extra Practice

Grammar Revisions

Rephrasing Practice 1Rephrasing Practice 2Rephrasing Practice 3
Tense Resources
Simple and Continuous Tenses
Cumulative Tense Review
Tense ChartQuestions
Used to
Direct and Reported Speech
Modal Verbs
Conditional Sentences
The Basics of the Passive Voice
The Passive Voice with reporting verbs
Have/ Get something done
Gerunds and Infinitives
The article
So and Such
The Comparison
Prepositional Phrases
Prepositions

Monday

Relative Clauses

Relative sentences are sentences which work as adjectives and sometimes can be replaced with one of them. Like the adjectives, sometimes they define the noun they go with (A), and sometimes they only give additional information about it (B).
Ex: (A) The books which are interesting are best sellers. The interesting books are bestsellers. (Los libros que son interesantes son bestsellers. Los libros interesantes son bestsellers)
Ex: (B) Shakespeare, who was born in Stratford, wrote Hamlet. (Skakespeare, que nació en Stratford, escribió Hamlet)

We use relative clauses to give additional information about something without starting another sentence. By combining sentences with a relative clause, your text becomes more fluent and you can avoid repeating certain words.

The information they give can be necessary or additional and this separates the sentences into two types too:

A.- Defining relative clauses: those which give information absolutely necessary to define the noun and recognize it. Ex: The man who lives next door is a doctor. (El hombre que vive al lado es médico.)

B.- Non-defining relative clauses: those which give information that can be interesting or new but never necessary to define the noun, that’s why we place them between commas. Ex: My sister Mary, who studied law, works in New York. (Mi hermana Mary, que estudió derecho, trabaja en Nueva York).

The relative clause is placed just after the noun it modifies.
Ex: My brother, who works as a doctor, studied in Salamanca. ( non-defining) The boy who lives next door is a doctor ( defining)