Archive for 'English Vocabulary'
Untranslatable Words in English Posted by Gary Locke on Feb 14, 2019
As you may know, Transparent Language publishes blogs dedicated to many different languages. One of the great things about my job is that I have the pleasure of reading them all. One topic which appears on many of these pages is the untranslatable word. German is loaded with them, but I’ve seen the subject come…
Offering, accepting and refusing in English Posted by carol on Jan 31, 2019
Hello, dear readers! How are you feeling today? Would you guys like to learn key phrases in English today? So I am going to make you an offer you can’t refuse! Communicating something at a basic level in a foreign language is a great achievement, but the ability to do that in a colloquial manner or…
English Superlatives Posted by Gary Locke on Jan 3, 2019
Pictured: The Grand Canyon. But, really, it’s the grandest canyon, don’t you think? In English, if you want to describe something, you use an adjective. There essentially are three types of adjectives – simple, comparative, and superlative. The most basic examples would be big, bigger, biggest. I ate a big sandwich, my sister ate a…
End of the year vocab Posted by carol on Dec 31, 2018
Good evening, dear readers! How was everybody’s Christmas? And what about you plans for New Year’s Eve? With all of these December festivities, how about we cover some end-of-the-year related words so you can practice while you celebrate? december Christmas is celebrated on December 25th january People say that January 1rst is international hangover day!…
Should English Idioms be Modernized? Posted by Gary Locke on Dec 6, 2018
PETA, the animal rights organization, has proposed that we should reimagine some common English phrases to be more respectful of other species. They argue that phrases such as “I killed two birds with one stone” are as cruel as any hate speech. Similarly, a British researcher believes that, eventually, meat-based metaphors and sayings will be…
Phrasal verbs for phone calls Posted by carol on Nov 30, 2018
Hello! Who am I speaking to? Last month, we covered here on the blog some words related to using your phone in English. Today, we are moving one step further to take a look at some phrasal verbs that refer to phone calls. Although it is undeniable that text messaging has become one of the…
The English Word of the Year, 2018 Posted by Gary Locke on Nov 21, 2018
The editors of The Oxford Dictionaries, published by the Oxford University Press, have selected toxic as the 2018 English word of the year. It is a brilliant, if somewhat controversial, selection. In a year of intense divisiveness in the English-speaking world, it is easy to see why this word, and its association with all that…