A couple of days ago we had a request for a lesson on poetry. I'm sure most of us have terrible memories of poetry-writing in school. I remember my teacher telling me to write a poem with no instructions on how to form one. "Just try" was her instruction...not very helpful. Can you imagine a piano teacher telling a student to "just try and play the piano' without any guidance on notes, keys or timing and expect a student to be magically able to play?
Take a look at these idioms. They all use clothing vocabulary.
So it seems that there is a little disapointment that yesterday's exercise on singing songs in English did not actually include a song for you to sing. Let's put that right. Here is a classic Beatles song, suggested to us by Grivna, a regular user of this site (thanks, Grivna). The lyrics are included in the video.
I studied Spanish in high school and Japanese in college, so I understand that learning a foreign language is not easy. One thing that has always helped me is to memorize song lyrics. That way, you can learn new vocabulary and practice grammar while having fun. If there is a good melody, I guarantee you will never forget what you learned! I know that I will never forget Shakira's "Estoy Aqui" or SMAP's "Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana". So be sure to find the lyrics online if there is something you don’t understand.
Here are some idioms that you will only here in the UK:
Usually used after a set of simple instructions and has the same meaning as the phrase "and there you have it". It shows that something will be successful:
'To access the site, simply enter your password here and Bob's your uncle..'
When something's very cheap, it is as cheap as chips:
'These shoes are only ten pounds a pair - cheap as chips!'
Every month we ask our newsletter readers to send in their questions to Tim, our teacher at EC Brighton, our English language school in Brighton, about the English language. Here are your questions:
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Thanks to Kate Kapustina for this question:
Read through these ten example sentences. They all contain common mistakes made by English learners. Do you know what is wrong with each sentence?
To send someone to Coventry is a British idiom meaning to ostracise someone, usually by not talking to them. When we send someone to Coventry we avoid them intentionally or prevent them from taking part in the activities of a group. This is usually done as a form of punishment for having done something to upset the group.
Complete the sentences with the prefixes and suffixes below. You will only need to use each prefix / suffix once.
-able
-ist
-ing
-ive
im-
-ic
un-
-ment
-ful
-ient
Don't include the dash (-) when you type in your answer and only type in the prefix/suffix - not the whole word.
A few days ago I posted a lesson on having a healthy lifestyle. Today my thoughts are a little similar, but different. Today I'd like you to think about having a healthier mind. I'm talking about _1_ TV! Well, at least if we can't completely stop we should consider _2_ on the amount we watch.
