Hum...Those Darn Confusing English Words!

Here are some words that both non-natives and natives find confusing. During my 20 years of

 teaching English, I have often seen this confusion myself. Let's take a stab at these, shall we:

*Affect is a verb as in "She was affected by her parents's divorce."

*Effect is mostly a noun as in "We should wear sunscreen to protect our skin from the effects of the sun."

*Than is used for the comparison of two things as in "The population of Denmark is taller than the Japanese."

*Then is used to illustrate a period of time when something happens in succession "First I climbed the tree, then I picked the apple."

*There shows us where something is or to express a place as in "There is the ball over there by the bucket."

*Their is a possessive pronoun as in "Their (the designers) clothing line for the fall is highly anticipated."

*They're is a contraction for "they are" as in "They're from Indonesia and are standing over there, while their children were born here."

*Your is another possessive pronoun as in "Don't leave your bike in the street unattended, because someone will steal it."

*You're is another contraction for "you are" as in "Everyday you wake up, you're one day older."

*Whose is a possessive pronoun as in "Whose car is this?"

*Who's is a contraction as in "Who's going to the party tonight?"

*To is a preposition as in "I went to the store."

*Too is an adverb of degree as in "Sometimes students like to talk too much."

*Two is a number as in "They finally decided where to eat out of the two restaurant choices given."

*Accept is a verb as in "She accepted his apology after he suddenly snapped at her."

*Except can be used as both a preposition and a conjunction, depending on how the sentence is     structured and the context. It's a preposition as in "All the eggs except one broke."
                                         
*It's a conjunction as in "He would buy the suit, except that it costs too                                                    much."

W: http:// www.englishteachinghoboken.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/english_teacher_analita
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/analitamulligan
Email: eslandwritingandliterature@gmail.com








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Want to Improve Your Speaking?

                            Here are Some Simple tips to Improve Your English Speaking: 1) Of course, the best way is to immerse yourself in a native speaking environment and engage in as many interactions as you can. Shyness shouldn't be an excuse, and keep in mind that the more you speak the less shy you'll feel as you become accustomed to speaking. 2) Listen to a variety of English programs and English accents. This will train your listening skills and you will also learn different English expressions. Better yet if you can record these programs, play them back, listen and take notes. Then, you can practice saying these expressions. 3) Also record your own speaking voice. In this way, you'll get a much better idea about how you speak. Is your speaking pace natural sounding, or too slow or fast and if your pronunciation is clear, your grammar is accurate and your vocabulary is appropriate or if you need to work on any or all of these. 4) Speaking of pronunciat
Read more

Effective use of Body Language

Image
Some of these tips have been taken from the American Management Association and Columbia University's and Harvard University’s Business Schools. The effective use of body language plays a key role in communication. Many of our communication trainings have an aspect of body language to them. Here are ten tips for powerful body language:   1. Research at Harvard and Columbia Business Schools shows that simply holding your body in expansive, “ high-power” poses (leaning back with hands behind the head and feet up on a desk, or standing with legs and arms stretched wide open) for as little as two minutes stimulates higher levels of testosterone —the hormone linked to power and dominance—and lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. Try this when you’re feeling tentative but want to appear confident. In addition to causing hormonal shifts in both males and females, these poses lead to increased feelings of power and a higher tolerance for risk. The study
Read more

Reading Strategies!

PREDICT: Try to figure out what might happen next. VISUALIZE: Picture the people, places and events being described. CONNECT: Connect what you are reading to other texts and the real world. QUESTION: (Self-Questioning): Ask questions about the material you are reading. This is crucial for the continuous development of ideas. CLARIFY: Investigate and Identify the main points and summarize. EVALUATE: Judge the story and the actions of characters. This is also important to develop your creativity and opinions.
Read more