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Common Phrasal Verbs

2/9/2021

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​[The following excerpt comes from Grammarly.com. Link to the article appears below.]

"If you’re 
learning English, phrasal verbs may seem intimidating at first—but they become quite simple and useful when you learn to use them appropriately. A phrasal verb is just what it seems: a phrase consisting of a verb and one or more other sentence components, such as a preposition or an adverb.

What makes phrasal verbs tricky is that they are inherently idiomatic and cannot be easily understood by the individual words that make up the phrase. When you encounter phrasal verbs at work or out in the world, they can be difficult to contextualize. The best way to get comfortable with the many different phrasal verbs used in American English is to simply 
dive into—investigate—some of the most common ones." 

To continue reading and to review some of the more common phrasal verbs used in English, click on the link below:

30 Common Phrasal Verbs



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Simple Past Tense

2/4/2021

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"​The simple past is a verb tense that is used to talk about things that happened or existed before now. Imagine someone asks what your brother Wolfgang did while he was in town last weekend.
  • Wolfgang entered a hula hoop contest.
  • He won the silver medal.
The simple past tense shows that you are talking about something that has already happened. Unlike the past continuous tense, which is used to talk about past events that happened over a period of time, the simple past tense emphasizes that the action is finished."

To read more about the Past Tense, how to formulate it, how to make it negative, and how to make a question, click here. 

To practice the past tense, click on the following: 

Past Tense Practice 1
Past Tense Practice 2
Past Tense Practice 3


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Modals for Advice

1/26/2021

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​The following excerpt is from ELC Study Zone: 

​These three verbs are modal verbs.
  • should
  • ought to
  • had better
Modal verbs are helping/auxiliary verbs that express ideas like ability, advice, and obligation. Many modal verbs have more than one meaning. They are always followed by the simple form of a verb.

For example:
Amanda should go to the doctor.
This shows that we think it is a good idea for Amanda to visit the doctor.

To learn about Modals for Advice and to practice using them correctly, click on the following links:

Modals for Advice Practice Exercises 1
Modals for Advice Practice Exercises 2 





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Modals

12/7/2020

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What are modal verbs?
​

Modals (also called modal verbs, modal auxiliary verbs, modal auxiliaries) are special verbs which behave irregularly in English. They are different from normal verbs like "work, play, visit..." They give additional information about the function of the main verb that follows it. They have a great variety of communicative functions.
Here are some characteristics of modal verbs:
  • They never change their form. You can't add "s", "ed", "ing"...
  • They are always followed by an infinitive without "to" (e.i. the bare infinitive.)
  • They are used to indicate modality allow speakers to express certainty, possibility, willingness, obligation, necessity, ability

To read more about modals or to practice using modals, go to My English Pages.com

Here are some other links to practice exercises:
  • Perfect English Grammar
  • English Page








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The Past Perfect

12/1/2020

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​"The past perfect is a verb tense which is used to show that an action took place once or many times before another point in the past.

The past perfect is formed using had + past participle. Questions are indicated by inverting the subject and had. Negatives are made with not.
  • Statement: You had studied English before you moved to New York.
  • Question: Had you studied English before you moved to New York?
  • Negative: You had not studied English before you moved to New York."

To learn more about the Past Perfect tense and to practice using this tense, click HERE. 







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The Present Perfect Tense

12/1/2020

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The Present Perfect tense is all about "unspecified" or non-specific time in the past. This can be very confusing. The Present Perfect can be used in several ways. 1) It may be used to describe your personal experience. For example, you might say, "I have seen that man before." Or, "I have never been to Florida." 2) You can also use the Present Perfect to talk about change that has happened over time. For instance, you might say something like this: "Cell phones have become a necessity to many people." Or, "My English has gotten better since I started taking English classes." 

Those are two ways that we commonly use the Present Perfect tense. To review other usages of this tense, click here.

Click on the links below to practice the Present Perfect Tense.

Present Perfect Practice #1
Present Perfect Practice #2




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Grammar Tip: Lie vs. Lay

11/23/2020

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"All languages have their confusing words…words that sound the same, look the same, or have the same meaning. Especially confusing are words that have similar forms (for example, in different verb tenses) but are not used in exactly the same way (the present and past tense of “read,” with two different pronunciations, comes to mind). In my opinion, the irregular verbs “lay” and “lie” rank at the top of the list in terms of confusing forms and usage." 

To continue reading this article from esllibrary.com click here. 



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The Present Continuous

10/18/2020

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"The present continuous (also called present progressive) is a verb tense which is used to show that an ongoing action is happening now, either at the moment of speech or now in a larger sense. The present continuous can also be used to show that an action is going to take place in the near future. Read on for detailed descriptions, examples, and present continuous exercises." 

To continue reading about the Present Continuous tense and to practice using this tense, click HERE



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The Future Tense

9/29/2020

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"Many languages have one form to speak about the future, but there are four ways of using the future tense in English! These can often cause some confusion, so here are brief and basic explanations of the most common uses for each one.

Which form of the future tense should you use?"To keep reading this article about the Future Tense, click HERE

Here are some more thoughts on the Future Tense (from FluentU):
"Consider this: right now, we’re in the present. In a minute, we will be in the future. You read those sentences, and now that is all in the past.

Crazy, right? Everything that has not happened yet is part of the future.

It might happen after a few seconds, a few years or even after hundreds and thousands of years. It is hard to think about things that will happen that far ahead…but it is very easy to talk about them.

Talking about the future makes it possible to make plans and predictions, create schedules and wonder what the weather will be like this weekend.

To speak about the future in English, you need to learn some important facts about the English future tense. 

To read about 6 Surprising Facts About the English Future Tense, click HERE! 

To practice using the Future Tense, click on the links below:
​
Future Tense Practice 1 
Future Tense Practice 2
Future Tense Practice 3



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Pronouncing -ed (past tense) verbs

9/23/2020

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Click on the link below to review and practice the -ed endings. Included are explanations and examples of the three possible "ed" ending pronunciations (t, d, id). 
​
Free online pronouncing "ed" endings lessons and exercises.

Also, be sure to check out the video below which will help you review the three endings. 


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    My name is Craig, and  I've been teaching English for many years. I initially created this site for my students, but all English learners are welcome. I hope you find something helpful to you. Feel free to leave suggestions or ideas in the Comments section under any entry. 

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