My English blog

       After "make" a bare infinitive, ie the base form of the verb is used   

He made the students do their homework

My father made me wash the car

Be careful! This is not always the case!    When make is used in passive form, an infinitive should be followed by it 

                         The students were made to attend the class

The children were made to clean up their room

You can win (in) a game, a race, a battle, an argument etc, and you can win a prize, money etc

You can beat a person that you are playing/arguing/fighting etc against

e.g. : My friend usually wins when we play poker

e.g. : My friend beat me at poker the first time we played

Both verbs are irregular

beat - beat - beaten                                     win - won - won

Saying "0" in numbers

Depending on the context, we can pronounce zero in different ways

          0-2  in football matches : Two nil

   in tennis: Thirty love    30-0 

in phone numbers: 6047721  six oh four

in a number: 0.4    nought point four / zero point four

in temperature:   0 C     zero degrees

English vowels:   a-e-i-o-u

Ther are two words in English language that have all five vowels in order

a) Abstemious which means: not taking much food or drink; moderate

ex: He is a very abstemious person, you can never see him feeling no pain

b) Facetious Which means intended to be amusing, often inappropriately

ex: she kept intrupting our discussion with facetious remarks, and we lost the topic about which we were speaking. 

Near can be used as a preposition. Near to is also possible with the same meaning, but less common

e.g. : We live near (to) the station

I put my bag down near (to) the door

she was near (to) despair

Near (to) can be followed by an -ing form

e.g. : I came very near (to) hitting him

These two words have the same pronunciation

The adjective principal means :main, most important

e.g.: What's your principal reason for wanting to be a doctor

The noun principal means : headmistress, usually in Britain, of a school for adults

e.g. : If you want to leave early you'll have to ask the principal

A principle is a scientific law or a moral rule

e.g. : Newton discovered the principle of universal gravitation

In reply to a negative question, YES suggests a positive verb, and NO suggests a negative verb

Pay attention to the following examples

Haven't you written to Mary? Yes ( I have written to her) l

Haven't you told her about us ? No ( I haven't told her about us ) l

Didn't the postman come this morning ? Yes, he did

Didn't he bring anything for me? No, he didn't

Thanks is more informal than Thank you

Common expressions are : Thank you    NOT  Thanks you

Thank you very much NOT Thanks you very much BUT Thanks very much

Thanks alot       NOT   Thank you alot

Thank God    NOT   Thanks God

If you have any problem in any area of grammar, let me know to explain it here for the very own sake of you

English people save words when writing messages; follwing are helpful guides for writing English SMS

 c   u  l8                                  see you later      

r u cumin 2da                          Are you coming today      

tx 4 a gr8 party                      thanks for a great party      

just 2 let u no                          just to let you know      

wil u b hr Thu eve?                   will you be here Thursday evening      

RUOK?                                    Are you Ok      

got ur msg                                 Got your message     

wil b @ bbq @ 9                       Will be at berbeque at 9     

tu bsy atm, tlk l8r                      too busy at the moment, talk later     

if Uv tym, send pix o kids            If you have time, send pictures of kids     

need mo infmtn                            need more information