Modal verbs are often difficult to learn because they can be used in a variety of situations. They are used with other verbs to express ability, obligation, possibility, and permission.
Let's take a look at some uses.
Can is used with ability ("I can speak English") and possibility ("I can come too").
Being able to spell well in English will improve your reading and writing fluency. It will also help with vocabulary and comprehension.
Spelling is especially important for the written section of IELTS, TOEFL and ESOL English exams. You will lose marks for poor spelling; it will also make it harder for you to get your point across.
Do you agree? How important is being able to spell English words to you?
Take a look at this email sent by a manager to his employees. Pay attention to the orange idioms which all relate to the body. Do you know what they mean?
Note: The tone of this email is informal for a business correspondence. I have used a lot more idioms than you would expect to find in an email. I would not recommend using so many in real-life!
Colleagues,
Collocations refer to words that usually go together. For example, basic collocations are make and do:
We say, I made a mistake, not I do a mistake.
We say, I do my homework, not I make my homework.
Margaret Thatcher, the British female prime minister, has died after a stroke aged 87.
She was elected Prime Minister in 1979 and served for 11 years until she was forced to step down by her party in 1990.
A Soviet journalist called her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.
No one, nobody, none, nothing, neither and no are all examples of negative pronouns. Negative pronouns indicate the non-existence of people or things.
Which one we use depends on the subject of the sentence. We do not use another negative in a clause with nobody, no one or nothing. e.g "I don't do nothing."
A: Hey! Have you ever seen the cartoon, The Simpsons?
B: Duh! Everyone has seen The Simpsons!
A: What does Homer Simpson say when he makes a mistake?
B: He says "d'oh"!
D'oh is an example of an interjection. Homer says d'oh when he makes a mistake or something does not happen in the way he had planned.
Which is the best way to answer this question?
Question: Where did you go?
Answer: I go to school.
Answer: I went to school.
The correct answer is I went to school. We must use this answer because the question uses the past tense, did. Our response has to use the past tense too i.e. I went.
This joke is based on the double meaning of spotted.
Dalmatians are white dogs with black spots. The Dalmatian dog in the cartoon has black spots on his body. When something has spots on it, we can say it is spotted: he is a spotted dog.
These two expressions are very similar, they both basically mean if something happens. The main difference in use is grammatical.
The meaning of these two sentences is the same.
She took an umbrella, just in case it rains.
She took an umbrella in case of rain.
In both cases, she took an umbrella because it may rain later.