Archive for 'English Vocabulary'
ESL Lesson: My Neighborhood Posted by sasha on Jun 27, 2017
A great way for beginners to practice speaking more English is to introduce people and places that are familiar. You probably know how to introduce yourself and your family members. Can you introduce the places in your neighborhood? We’ll teach you how in this ESL lesson: My Neighborhood. Watch the video and practice saying the…
Hat’s Off to English Speakers! Posted by Gary Locke on Jun 22, 2017
English speakers wear several unique hats, all created within a few years of each other in the 19th century. You can tell a lot about a person by the hat they wear. In many cases, a hat will tell you where someone is from, what team they root for, their hobbies, interests, and even how…
Berry, Berry Good! Posted by Gary Locke on Jun 15, 2017
If you need a reason to celebrate summer, look no further than the four objects in this picture. Last week I made a delicious and refreshing strawberry dessert and, as I hulled and sliced up the fruit, I began to wonder…Why do we call a strawberry a strawberry? This, in turn, led me to wonder…
Top English Abbreviations from Latin Posted by Gary Locke on Jun 7, 2017
We rarely speak in Latin today, although a few fragments and quotes have made their way into everyday English usage. Many of us will invoke carpe diem when setting out to seize our day, or at least have a second dessert. There are occasions, however, when an abbreviation, taken from Latin, is commonly used when…
DARE to Learn American English Posted by Gary Locke on May 25, 2017
What if I told you that American English is so diversified that there are different words and phrases for the same thing not only from region-to-region, but even from neighborhood-to-neighborhood? Let me introduce you to one of the most remarkable dictionaries of the English Language. The Dictionary of American Regional English, or DARE, documents and…
English Vocab for Drinkers Posted by Gary Locke on Apr 21, 2017
Learning English isn’t easy. It’s a complicated, sometimes almost incomprehensible language with rules that rarely seem to make any sense. In fact, it sometimes seems that English was made up by people who were drunk. Which brings me to the subject of today’s blog. The English language is filled with colorful words and phrases for…
Why I, I Wonder? Posted by Gary Locke on Apr 14, 2017
In the English language, I is the nominative singular pronoun, used in reference to oneself, and it is always capitalized. No other language singles out and capitalizes this pronoun, only English. We don’t capitalize any other pronoun, me, my, mine, we, us, our… The question is – why? The most obvious answer is because English…