Gateway to Grammar: Phrasal verbs using “drop”
Thanks for dropping by! The main verb “drop” pairs up with a few prepositions and makes phrasal verbs in the English language
Gateway to Grammar: Phrasal verbs with “Call”
Phrasal verbs (or split verbs) are verbs that are made of more than one word. Many of the most common phrases in English are phrasal verbs! Why? Because the English are awkward.
Gateway to Grammar: English Prefixes and Suffixes
You can really help yourself learning English by learning the building blocks of our weird little language.
Gateway to Grammar: Possessive S
Would you say “the butt of the duck”, or “the duck’s butt”? Native English people would always say the duck’s butt.
Gateway to Grammar: Preposition and verb pairs
There are some prepositions and verbs that are so in love they always go together. These are preposition and verb pairs and you should respect their relationships and never separate them!
Gateway to Grammar: Should I take grammar lessons? Normally no…
Should I have English grammar lessons? The answer to that is almost always no.
Gateway to Grammar : English adjective order
This is a tricky one. You can add loads of adjectives together in English to describe one thing, but there is a very strict order that the adjectives come in.
Gateway to Grammar: Common English Interjections
Not all English is spoken how our dear Queen would recommend. In fact, a lot of every day English is contractions and slang. Most of all we use a lot of “Interjections”, noises or words used to show surprise, interest, or emotion about what your conversation partner is saying.
Gateway to Grammar: Understanding time in English
Do you want to explore Halloweens you have had before? Do you want to show, how great Halloween was 3 years ago? Let’s explore how to use time flags in English.
Gateway to Grammar: The Oxford Comma.
Using the Oxford Comma is a choice, but I would argue it is a choice that makes a lot of sense, and can avoid some very strange misunderstandings.
Gateway to Grammar: It’s or Its?
Are you having trouble remembering whether you should be using “It’s” or “Its”? Join the club. Native English speakers, and in this case at least one native English teacher, struggle with it too. It breaks the rules and confuses us all. Buckle up as we go through the gateway to Grammar Town!
Gateway to Grammar: They’re Their or There?
The English language is full of Homophones: Words which sound the same, but have a different spelling and meaning.
Gateway to Grammar: Modifiers - How to make a banana “slightly meaty”
Are you tired of saying “very” big, or “a little bit” small? Let’s get a little bit more creative with out modifiers. Modifiers are words that change the value or intensity of an adjective or adverb. Let’s expand our knowledge of modifiers.
Gateway to Grammar: He / She / It - Where does the ‘S’ fit?
There are many tenses (grammar for time) in English. I am going to teach you one phrase that will help you more than anything else when it comes to English grammar!
Gateway to Grammar: Articles in English
To stop the confusion at the start I don’t mean news or magazine articles, articles in English grammar are “a”, “an”, and “the”. There are some simple rules of what they are and when to use them.
Gateway to Grammar: The Present Perfect Tense - A Presently Perfect Poem
This week we are looking at the present perfect tense. The present perfect is used to describe things that started in the past and are still happening now. For things that are finished we use the past simple. Times that started in the past and are still happening now: Today, This week, This year, “yet” etc. We also use the present perfect when something has just finished, but the effects are still active such as “I have been running all day, that’s why I am so tired”.