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Sunday, July 19, 2020
Adverbs and Prepositions
Adverbs are
words or groups of words which tell time,
place, frequency or manner.
I ate my lunch yesterday.
I ate at that restaurant last week. |
She went there.
She went downtown. |
Prepositions are usually followed by objects in prepositional
phrases. They
can also be used to indicate time, place, frequency, duration, reason, manner,
or to show contrast.
I ate my lunch at noon.
I ate in the cafeteria. |
She went to the store.
She walked into the house. |
*Do not use adverbs as objects of prepositions.
Incorrect:
|
Correct:
|
I went to somewhere.
I was busy at last night. John works in downtown. She came to home on yesterday. |
I went somewhere.
I was busy last night. John works downtown. She came home yesterday. |
Be careful with words such as home,
downtown, today, next/last week, etc.
which are sometimes used as adverbs and sometimes used as nouns.
As adverbs
|
As nouns
|
I will go back tomorrow.
She went home last night. Next week I will travel to Iowa. |
Tomorrow is another day.
They built a home in Oregon. Next week is my vacation. |
Labels:
adverbs,
Grammar,
prepositions,
Tenses
Some Tips For Improving Your English
So
my question to you is- What are your English goals for
this year? Are you ready to make some changes?
Like
the money and diet and health goals that many of us make each year,
improving
the way you speak English can really improve your life.
Have you
ever thought about how better communication skills can earn you more
money, make you more friends, keep you happier? Weird, huh?
Well,
it’s
true. Improving your communication skills, even in your native language,
can give you an advantage in your life. Just think what you could
do with better English.
Here
are a few tips for improving your English…
1. Read
Make sure
you are reading a variety of things in English. While reading doesn’t
help your pronunciation, it does help almost everything else.
Reading will
allow you to experience vocabulary and grammar in a real way and give
you the time to see it and think about it. I recommend that you read
a mixture of things. You could try a novel, a newspaper, a business magazine,
a health magazine, a textbook, or even a children’s book.
Read a
little from one or more sources everyday. People who read a lot get a deeper
understanding of English than those who don’t.
2. Listen
Listen to
English through TV, DVD’s, radio, podcasts, and audio books. As with reading,
you need to hear a variety of English to really be able to comprehend
all that is going on in life.
This
is especially important if you don’t live in an English-speaking environment.
3. Practice
Try
out new vocabulary. Many
people feel that they have a very limited vocabulary and find themselves saying
the same things again and again.
I
recommend that you pick up new words, phrases, and
common sayings from the books and audios that hopefully you are using everyday.
Write
a couple of these words or phrases down
in a special notebook everyday and challenge yourself to use them at least once
or twice that day.
Usage is the key! Just
knowing something doesn’t mean that it’s part of your personal vocabulary
bank. I always say that you need to experience a new word or phrase at
least 10 times before you “own” it.
Make a
goal for yourself to do some real, measurable things everyday. For example-
a goal of reading one newspaper article a day, listening to
Talk Radio on the way to work, and keeping a vocabulary notebook can have a
HUGE impact on your English.
Imagine how
your English could be this time next year if you just did a little something
everyday starting with today. So I give you this challenge to do
something (and hopefully it’s something fun) everyday that will improve your English.
1. Start your own
English language blog. Even
for
people
who don't have to write in English, writing can be a great way of properly
learning the kind of vocabulary you need to describe your own life and
interests, and of thinking about how to stop making grammar mistakes.
The problem most people have is that they don't know what to write about.
One traditional way to make sure you write every day in English
is to write an English diary (journal), and a more up to date way of doing
this is to write a blog. Popular topics include your language
learning experience, your experience studying abroad, your local
area, your language, or translations of your local news into English.
2. Write a news diary. Another
daily writing task that
can
work for people who would be bored by writing about their own routines in
a diary is to write about the news that you read and listen to everyday.
If you include your predictions for how you think the story will develop
(e.g. "I think Hillary will become president"), this can give you a
good reason to read old entries another time, at which time you can also
correct and mistakes you have made and generally improve what
you have written.
3. Sign up for a
regular English tip. Some
websites
offer
a weekly or even daily short English lesson sent to your email account. If
your mobile phone has an e-mail address, it is also possible to have the
tips sent to your phone to read on the way to work or school.
Please note, however, that such services are not usually graded very well to
the levels of different students, and they should be used as
a little added extra or revision in your English studies rather than as a
replacement for something you or your teacher have chosen more carefully as
what you need to learn.
4. Listen to MP3s. Although
buying music on the
internet
is becoming more popular in many countries, not so many people know that
you can download speech radio such as audio books (an actor reading out
a novel) and speech radio. Not only is this better practice for your
English than listening to English music, from sources like Scientific
American, BBC and Australia's ABC Radio it is also free.
5. Listen to English
music. Even
listening to music
while
doing something else can help a little for things like getting used to the
natural rhythm and tone of English speech, although the more time and
attention you give to a song the more you will learn from listening
to it again in the future.
6. Read the lyrics to a
song.
Although
just listening
to
a song in English can be a good way of really learning the words of the chorus
in an easily memorable way, if you want to really get something
out of listening to English music you will need to take some time to read
the lyrics of the song with a dictionary. If the lyrics are not given in
the CD booklet, you may be able to find them on the internet,
but please note that some lyrics sites deliberately put a few errors into
their lyrics for copyright reasons. Once you have read and understood
the lyrics, if you then listen and read at the same time, this can be
a good way
of
understanding how sounds change in fast, natural, informal speech.
7. Sing karaoke in
English. The
next stage after
understanding
and memorising a song is obviously to sing it. Although some
words have their pronunciation changed completely to fit in with a song, most
of the words have the same sounds and stressed syllables as in normal
speech. Remembering which words rhyme at the end of each line can also be
a good way of starting to learn English pronunciation.
8. Write a film, music,
hotel or book review. Another motivating
and easy way to make yourself write in English is to write a review for a
site such as Amazon or Internet Movie Database. Many non-native
speakers write reviews on sites like this, and if you have some
special understanding of the book, music or film due to your first language or
knowing the artist personally, that would be very interesting
for the English speakers who read and write reviews on the site.
9. Only search in
English. Switching
your search
engine
to the English language version of msn, yahoo, Google etc. can not only be
a good way of practising fast reading for specific information
in English, but could also give you a wider choice of sites to choose
from and give you an idea of what foreigners are writing about your country
and area.
10.
Read a book you've already read or seen
the movie of in your own language. Although most language learners
under Advanced level would probably
learn
more from reading a graded reader or something from the internet than they
would from reading an original book written for English speakers,
for some people reading something like Harry Potter in the original
can be a great motivator to improve their English. To make this easier for
you and make sure that it motivates you rather than just making
your tired, try reading a book that you already know the story of. This not
only makes it easier to understand and guess vocabulary, but you are also more likely to
remember the language in it. If you have not
read the book before, reading a plot summary from the internet can also help in
the same way.
11.
Read a translation into English. Another way
of
making
sure books are easier to understand is to choose a book that was originally
translated into English, preferably from your own language. Even if you haven't read the book in
your own language, you will find
the
English is written in a slightly simplified way that is more similar to how your
own language is written than a book originally written in English
would be.
12.
Skip the first ten pages. If you have
given up with
a
book in English or are reading it very slowly, try skimming through the first
ten pages or skipping them completely. The start of most books tend to be
mainly description and are therefore full of difficult vocabulary
and don't have a clear story line yet to help you understand what is
happening and to motivate you to turn the next page. If the book is still too
difficult even after the introductionary part is finished, it is probably time to give that
book up for now and try it again after you
have read some easier things.
13.
Read a book with lots of dialogue. Opening up
books
before
you buy one and flicking through them to find one with lots of direct
dialogue in it has several advantages. If there is less text on the page due
to all the speech marks etc, this can make it easier to read
and easier to write translations on. Dialogue is also much easier to
understand than descriptive parts of a book, and is much more like the language
you will want to learn in order to be able to speak English.
14.
Read English language comics. Even more
than books
with
lots of dialogue, comics can be easy to understand and full of idiomatic
language as it is actually spoken. There can be difficulties with slang,
difficult to understand jokes and/ or dialogue written how people
speak rather than with normal spellings, so try to choose which comic
carefully. Usually, serious or adventure comics are easier to understand
than funny ones.
15.
Read English language entertainment
guides. Nowadays
most big cities in the world have an English language magazine and/ or
online guide to the movies, plays, exhibitions that are on in the city
that week. Reading this in English is not only good value, but it could
also guide you to places that English speakers are interested in and where
you might hear some English spoken around you.
16.
Read English language magazines. Like books,
if you
can
read two versions of the same magazine (Newsweek in your language and in
English, for example), that could make understanding it much easier.
17.
Take a one week intensive course. Although you cannot
expect to come out of a very short course speaking much better English than
when you started it, if you continue studying a little over the
following weeks and months, the knowledge you gained then will gradually
come out and mean that your level of speaking, listening etc. are better
than they would have been if you hadn't taken that course. This positive effect can still be
true up to a year later.
18.
Follow your intensive course up with an
extensive course. The
more time you can spend studying English the better, but studying periodic
intensive courses with a few hours of study a week in between is probably
better value for money than any other system as it gives your
brain time to subconsciously learn and start using the new language you have
learnt before you introduce the next new "chunk" of language.
19.
Supplement your group class with a one to
one class. Another
good way to combine two different kinds of classes is to study both in a
group class and one to one. Having a one to one teacher, even if just a
couple of times a month, will mean that you can be taught exactly
the language that you need, that you will have more time to speak, and
that you can have as much error correction as you like.
20.
Supplement your one to one class with a
group class. The
benefits of having a group class are often less clear to students, but they
include the fact that you will learn to deal with several people
speaking at once, have a chance to practice skills such as interrupting
people, and will hear a range of different viewpoints and topics.
21.
Teach your children or friends some
English. Recent research has
shown that elder children tend to be a couple of IQ points above
their younger siblings, and the most likely reason is that explaining
things to their little brothers and sisters gives them an intellectual
boost. In the same way, teaching someone lower level than you
the English you already know is a great way of permanently fixing that
knowledge in your own brain.
22.
Ask your company to start English lessons. Even if you don't
need to speak English at work, English lessons can be a fun and
reasonably priced way for your company to spend their training budget in a
popular way.
23.
Have English radio on in the background
while you are doing your housework. Even if you are not listening
carefully, it will help you get a feel for natural English rhythm and
intonation.
24.
Play English language learning games on
your Nintendo DS. Although
such games can have quite random language and are unlikely to improve your
ability to speak English on their own, the next time you hear
or read the same language elsewhere it will be really fixed in your brain by the
fact you have played a game with it in already. It is also a
nice way of taking a break from your other English studies while also doing some
English. To make sure it really is a break and to avoid wasting
time learning language from the game that is not much used in daily life,
don't bother writing down any new language you see in the game,
but just try to learn it from playing the game again.
25.
Say or think what you are doing in
English as you do your daily tasks. As you are doing your chores, try
creating sentences describing what
you
are doing, e.g. ‘I am unscrewing the ketchup bottle cap'. This gets you used to
thinking in English without translating, and can be a good way
of seeing what simple vocabulary that is around you everyday you don't know.
yet
26.
Watch English language films with English
subtitles. For
people who can't understand a film without subtitles but find themselves
not listening at all when reading subtitles in their own language,
this should be the way of watching a film that you should aim for. If it
is too difficult to watch the whole film this way, try watching
the (usually important) first 10 or 15 minutes of the film with subtitles in
your own language, switch to English subtitles after that, and only switch back to subtitles in
your own language if you get
totally
lost following the story of the film.
27.
Watch films in your language with English
subtitles. If
you are finding English films with English subtitles too difficult or you can't
find English films with English subtitles in your local video
shop, this is a good second best option. Looking for local films with English
subtitles can also sometimes be a good sign of quality, as it
means the producers of the film are expecting it to be popular internationally
as well.
28.
Watch English films with subtitles in
your language. Again,
this is not as good practice as English language films with English
subtitles, but is more relaxing, can be easier to find suitable DVDs for,
and is also possible with VHS.
29.
Watch the same film or TV episode over
and over again. This
can not only save you money on DVDs, but will mean that you can really learn
the language without having to study it. Some comedies can also
get funnier the more you watch them, especially if you watch them with no
subtitles and so understand a little more each time you watch it.
30.
Be realistic about your level. One thing
that holds
many
language learners back is actually trying too hard and tackling something
that their brain is not ready for yet. Checking your level with
a level check test on the internet, by taking an English language test (FCE,
CAE, IELTS, TOEIC, TOEFL etc.), or by taking a free trial level
check and/ or lesson in a language school will help you find out what your
level is and so choose suitable self-study materials.
31.
Be realistic about your reading level. Most researchers
agree that people learn most when reading something they understand
almost all of. If there are one or two words per page that you
have never seen before, that is about the right level. If there are three or
more on every page, you should switch to something easier and come back
later.
32.
Read graded readers (= easy readers). These are books that
are especially written for language learners like you, e.g. Penguin Readers. Although it can be
difficult to find something as
interesting
as things written in newspapers or on the internet, in terms of learning
the language only people who need to read for their work or an exam
usually gain more from reading things written for graded readers.
Graded readers of classic books like Charles Dickens also have the benefit
of giving you a lot of knowledge about the literature, and culture
more generally, of English speaking countries in a short time.
33.
Read the whole thing with no help. Although
using a
dictionary
has been shown to help with both short term and long term learning
of vocabulary, the fact that using it slows reading down can stop some
people reading in English at all. Reading a whole book quickly through just
for pleasure from time to time will help you remember how fun
reading in another language can be.
34.
Read and learn everything. At the opposite
extreme,
it
can be hard work but very satisfying to get to the end of a book knowing that
you have learnt every word in it. See other tips on this page
to make sure it is a book that is easy enough to do this with and to ensure
that the vocabulary you learn is useful.
35.
Watching English children's films or TV
programmes. Although
some of the vocabulary you can learn from things made for children
can be a bit strange (lots of animal names and maybe animal noises,
including baby names for things), the fact that not only the language but
the structure of the story is simplified can make it an easy
and motivating thing to watch. Like good language learning materials,
the same language is also often repeated to make it memorable,
and the use of catchy songs etc. can increase this positive effect on
your memory.
36.
Read English children's books. This is very
similar
to
watching English children's movies, but with the added advantage of there being
more illustrations than adult books, which both helps you to understand
the story and makes the page brighter and more motivating to read.
37.
Keep a list of language to learn, e.g. a
vocab list. Even
if you don't often find time to go though your vocab list and it keeps on
building up, just the act of choosing which words you need to learn and
writing them down on a special list can help you learn them.
38.
Go through your vocab list several times
every day. If
ticking off words on a vocabulary list on the train to work is inconvenient
or embarrassing for you, you can keep your list of words to learn as an
entry in your electronic dictionary, as a mobile phone to do
list or as a text file in your MP3 player (e.g. iPod). Although the time spent
transferring the information between different formats like these may
seem wasted, in fact any time you spend using the vocabulary like this
will help you learn it.
39.
Convert your vocab list to English only. One way to stop
yourself translating and therefore increase your speed of comprehension
and production is to learn all your vocabulary without the use
of your own first language. Ways you can write a vocab list in only English
include with synonyms (words with the same meaning, e.g. "tall" and
"high"); with opposites ("high" and "low"); with
pronunciation
factors
such as number of syllables (the number of beats, e.g. three for "de- ci-
sion") and the word stress (the syllable that is pronounced louder and
longer, e.g. the second syllable in "baNAna"); and gapped sentences
(e.g. "I am not _________________ in science fiction" for the word "interested").
40.
Cross out and delete. Crossing out
or deleting
words,
sentences or whole pages that you have learnt can be a great motivator,
and save your list of things to learn becoming too big to handle.
41.
Throw everything away and start again. One of the things that
can put most people off learning is a stack of half finished books or a
huge list vocabulary waiting to be learnt. Simply getting rid
of all that and starting again with something new from zero can be a great
motivator and get your studies underway again.
42.
Label things in your house or office with
post-its. The
easiest vocabulary to learn is the vocabulary of things you see and use
everyday. If you can write the names of things around you on slips of paper and
stick them on the real thing, this is a great way of learning
useful vocabulary. If you can leave them there over the following
days and weeks, this is a very easy way of revising the vocabulary
until it is properly learnt.
43.
Label a drawing. For people
who can't put labels on
real
things, the next best option is to take a photo of a real place in your life
like your office, print it out, and then draw lines to all of the things
you can see in the picture and label them in English with the
help of a dictionary. You can do the same thing with places you pass through
everyday like the station. Because you will see the same thing again and
again, it should be easy to really learn the words for those things.
44.
Keep a diary in English. This is a
popular method
of
making sure you use English everyday for people who don't often speak English and
can't think of things to write about. The fact that you are writing
about real things that have happened to you means that any words
you look up in the dictionary will be vocabulary that is useful for you and
easy to learn.
45.
Online chat. The closest thing to speaking for people who
don't have the chance to speak English is online chat, as you have to
think and respond quickly, and the language is short and informal
just like speech.
46.
Listen to the radio news in English. You can make this easier
by reading the news in English first, or even just by reading
or listening to the news in your own language.
47.
Read an English language newspaper. Freebie newspapers
like "Metro" in London are usually the easiest to understand, followed by
mid-brow titles like "The Daily Express" or "The Daily Mail"
in English. Popular newspapers like "The Sun" are more difficult because of
the idiomatic, slangy use of language and the number of jokes in the
headlines and articles.
48.
Write fiction in English, e.g. short
stories. For people who
find writing a diary about things that happen to them everyday
boring, the best thing is to let your imagination go and write about
whatever comes into your head. The advantage of this is that if you can't think
of how to say something in English, you can just change the
story to something that is easier to explain. Perhaps the easiest way to start
writing fiction in English is with a diary, changing any details
you like to make it more interesting and adding more and more fantasy as
the weeks go on.
49.
English language exercise videos. This is
quite similar to how babies learn, by listening, watching and copying. It is
also good for your health!
50.
Learn a famous speech or poem in English
by heart. Although
you may never hear or get the chance to say exactly that line, having one
memorable example of an English grammatical form in your head can make it
much easier to learn other examples of the same grammar as you
hear them. It is also something you can practice over and over without
being as boring as grammatical drills.
51.
Get tipsy (= a little drunk) before
speaking English. This
can not only improve your fluency while you are drinking, but can also improve
your confidence in future days and weeks by showing you that
you can communicate what you want to say.
52.
Use a dictionary while you are watching a
movie. Films
often have the same words many times, so if you look up important words the
first or second time you hear them, you should have learnt them
by the end of the film. It is easier to use a dictionary if you watch with
English subtitles.
53.
Learn and use the phonemic script. Although
there
are
many sounds in English, there are even more spellings. By learning the phonemic
script and writing vocabulary down with it, you can both add
another stage to your vocabulary learning that should help you learn it more
thoroughly, and improve your pronunciation. It can also make things
easier for you by stopping you trying to pronounce different spellings of
the same pronunciation different ways.
54.
Learn some spelling rules. Many people
think that
English
spelling is random, but in fact most words follow some kind of rule, e.g.
the "magic E" that changes the pronunciation of "mad" and "made".
55.
Record your own voice. For people
who don't have
much
or any correction of pronunciation from a teacher, recording yourself and
listening back makes it easier to hear whether you are really
making the English sounds that you are trying to or not.
56.
Use computer pronunciation analysis. Although
most
programmes
that claim to tell you when you are pronouncing correctly or not don't
actually do that, listening many times and seeing how your voice
changes as you try to match the sounds and waveform given by a pronunciation
CD ROM can be good practice and more motivating than just recording
your own voice.
57.
Learn as many words as you can of one
category, e.g. animal words. Learning
similar words together can both expand your overall vocabulary and make
them easier to learn by forming links between the words in your
brain.
58.
Take holidays abroad. This is not
only a good
opportunity
to speak English in situations where you really have to make yourself
understood in order to live, but it is also a good motivator to study
English seriously in the weeks and months before your trip. If possible,
also try to use English even when you could use your own language,
e.g. when you pick a guided tour of a museum or historic place or when you
book a flight on the internet, and try to avoid package tours.
59.
Draw pictures of the words you want to
learn. Especially
if you are artistic, this can be a better way of learning vocabulary
than writing translations or example sentences.
60.
Find a foreign boyfriend or girlfriend. No tips on how to do
this here, but everyone agrees that getting or even just looking
for a date in English can be a great motivator to improve your language
skills.
61.
Arrange a conversation exchange. Swapping
lessons
and
conversation with someone who wants to learn your language can be a good
alternative for those who aren't looking for romance, or can sometimes
lead onto dating for those who are!
62.
Sign up for an English language exam. Even if you don't need
to take an exam and don't want to or can't take a special course
to study for it, paying to take an exam like TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS or FCE can
really motivate you take your English studies seriously.
63.
Model your accent on one particular
actor. e.g. try to speak like Robert De Niro. Students who say they want to sound
more like a native speaker have the
problem
that native speakers don't sound all that much like each other. Choosing one
model can make the task of improving your pronunciation more
clear, and is quite fun. Doing an impression of that person also makes a good
party trick.
64.
Use an English-English dictionary. Trying to
use a
bilingual
dictionary less and switching to a monolingual one can help you to stop
translating in you head when you are speaking or listening, and other useful English vocabulary
can come up while you are using the
dictionary.
65.
Occasionally talk to or e-mail your
friends in English. Many
people find this a bit false or embarrassing, but if you think of it as a
study club and set a particular time and/ or place, it is no different
from studying maths together.
66.
Go to an English or Irish pub. As well as
having a
menu
in English and being a good way of finding out something about the culture of
English speaking countries, you might also find there are free
English language listings magazines, English language sports on the TV and/ or foreign
people you can speak to.
67.
Buy a speaking electronic dictionary. Although
most
electronic dictionaries
are not as good as paper ones for the amount of information
they give you about each word, some of them have the very useful
function of saying the word with the correct pronunciation.
68.
Learn your electronic dictionary
vocabulary list. Most
electronic dictionaries also have a button which you can push to see the last
30 or more words you looked up. By deleting words you decide
are useless or you have already learnt from this list, you can use it as a
"to do list" of words to learn that you can look at several times a day
in the train etc.
69.
Switch operating system to English. Changing the operating
language of your mobile phone, video recorder etc. to English can be an
easy way of making sure you use the language everyday.
70.
Set goals. Deciding how many hours you want to study, how
many words you want to learn or what score you want to get in a test are
all good ways of making sure you do extra study
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