'Americans celebrate Independence Day on July 4'
Here are the basics for using in, on, at, for and since in time expressions:
In - is used with parts of the day, months, seasons and years.
"What makes the Leaning Tower of Pisa lean?"
"It never eats!"
Explanation:
The key to understanding this joke is the word lean.
Lean has two meanings:
Lean (verb) means 'to slope to one side/ not straight' (as you can see, the tower isn't straight).
'I used to ski, but now I snowboard.'
'Fight / fought / fought'
Most English verbs take -ed for the past tense or past participle. The problem is that many verbs do not follow this rule. Here is a good list of irregular verbs for you to refer to.
Add this page to your favourites so you can quickly find out those tricky verbs as and when you need to!
'There goes your brother.'
English learners (and native English speakers) can get confused by these two words as they have the same pronunciation, but different spellings and meanings. Here's a review and a couple of hints to help you remember:
Their is a possessive adjective like 'her', 'his', or 'our'.
French phrases we use in English
The English language has taken 'loan words' and phrases from other languages which are now part and parcel of the language. Here are just a few examples of French expressions which we use in English.
Faux pas: An embarrassing small mistake. Usually used for social settings.
Stonehenge at sunrise.
The summer solstice, also known as ‘the longest day’, is celebrated this year on June 20, 2008. This day of the year has the most hours of daylight and shortest night. In the Northern Hemisphere it always occurs in mid-June, while in the Southern Hemisphere it occurs in December.
'The beautiful game!'
Do you know how to talk about football in English? Take our quiz!
The European Championships are well underway.
This time there are no British teams in the final, but there is probably a lot of English being spoken by supporters from around Europe in Switzerland and Austria. Here are some expressions we use to talk about the 'beautiful game'.
