We are middle-class people

In the Writing Workshop series, we work together to improve our writing skills: to learn how to write better and more correctly in English. How would you combine the following information to write one sentence only?

Incidentally…

In one of his comments, Philipp wrote: P H You sum up the British position perfectly. Economic and cultural integration is wonderful but, do we want to become part of a federal Europe? Well, the answer is clearly no from the UK. I am yet to be convinced that much of the rest of Europe … Continue Reading

Fish expressions

There are lots of expressions with the word “fish” in English and today we are going to have a look at some of them.

The server is down

In this post we’ll have a look at a very short exchange between a customer and tech support about a server problem. Let’s first start with the word “server”…

Which preposition to use with “corner”? At, in, or on?

In the Confusables series, we talk about English words and expressions that are easily confused with one another because of similarities in spelling, pronunciation, and/or meaning. This is a question I am commonly asked by my students. Even if there seems to be quite a bit of variation in usage, I think understanding the difference … Continue Reading

My daughter is as stubborn as a mule

In the Writing Workshop series, we work together to improve our writing skills: to learn how to write better and more correctly in English. The following text contains some mistakes and is not very well written. Let’s see if we can correct the mistakes and improve the text… My daughter, who has only 8 years … Continue Reading

Writing Workshop: a housewarming party

In the Writing Workshop series, we work together to improve our writing skills: to learn how to write better and more correctly in English. You see below a poorly written text with quite a few mistakes. Our task for this workshop is to spot the mistakes and write a correct version of the text. My … Continue Reading

Borrow or lend?

I quite often see my students confuse “borrow” with “lend”, but they really shouldn’t! As you will see, the difference between “borrow” and “lend” is simple and clear. Let’s look at a simple scenario: You have bought a new TV and now you don’t have enough money to pay your rent. So you ask your … Continue Reading

How to get hitched! (A pronunciation and vocabulary lesson)

Hitch is a 2005 American romantic comedy film. It was written by Kevin Bisch, directed by Andy Tennant, and starred Will Smith, with Eva Mendes, Kevin James, and Amber Valletta as co-stars. In this film, Smith plays Alex “Hitch” Hitchens, who is a professional dating consultant. He teaches men how to start a romantic relationship with women…