I came across this 'Saying No' article on Zen Habits and thought I'd share it with you. It can be difficult to refuse people without being rude and it's even harder when you don't have the English ability to do it. Refusing with a simple 'no' can make you seem impolite; it's better to be less direct if you don't want to hurt anyone.
After the success of last week's love idioms exercise, I decided to write another idioms lesson for you based on expressions that contain the verb 'to work'.
I have written the meanings of the expressions at the top and then created some sentences that include the idioms. Can you work out which idiom belongs to each sentence?
After the success of last week's love idioms exercise, I decided to write another idioms lesson for you based on expressions that contain the verb 'to work'.
I have written the meanings of the expressions at the top and then created some sentences that include the idioms. Can you work out which idiom belongs to each sentence?
Hi everyone, here's some sports collocations for you!
Go is generally used for sports and activities ending in –ing (but not always).
"Let's go skiing this winter."
Do is generally used for individual sports and fighting sports.
"My son can do Judo."
Dating and relationships are an extremely popular topic for most students! So here's some idioms about them so you can talk about it even more! The idioms are written at the top. Which expression do you think goes in which sentence?
About a month ago we looked at animal idioms, now lets look at idioms that use parts of the body. For example,
"She was talking about medicine, but it all went completely over my head."
Nothing was thrown over somebody’s head! This is an expression meaning that something was too difficult for you to understand.
nerves (noun) are a group of long thin fibres that carry information or instructions between the brain and other parts of the body. A nerve is like an electric cable that passes electric current. When your hand touches a something hot, the hand sends the feeling to the brain through nerves.
You don't have to be a doctor to use the word nerve because it is used in a few natural English expressions you should know.
Take a look at this sentence which appears on businessweek's website report on an official visit by a US politician to China:
"U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner’s visit to Beijing is a “very encouraging” development that offers an “olive branch” to China ahead of a series of meetings."
A few useful introductory phrases for Beginner/Elementary students
In informal English people often greet each other saying: "what’s up?" This is not appropriate in all conversations. Below is a dialogue between two students, Andreas and Belinda on their first day at their English school. They are using language that is appropriate for everyday use. Can you guess the missing words?
Do you have a short fuse (become angry quickly)? There are times when we all blow our top (get angry). Here are some phrasal verbs that may be useful for the times when we get a little hot under the collar (get angry)!
