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Understanding Verb Tenses in English

Following up with our explanation about verbs, in this article I will address this topic that has proven to be quite challenging for English students, verb tenses. Besides showing the action or state of being in the sentence, the verb also indicates the time this action took place.

There are some languages (Thai for example), where the verb has basically one form, no matter if the sentence is about the past, the present, or the future, the verb is the same. In these cases, extra words – Tomorrow, yesterday, now and so forth – indicate the time. This is not the case in English. In this language, six different verb tenses express time, and each of these tenses places the action or the state of being at a point in time.

Three of the six English tenses are called simple and the other three are called perfect. My intention here is not to go deep into their construction, but rather to touch upon the basis of each. Will address each one in detail in further articles, although I will go further into the present perfect tense as it is so common.

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Establishing Foundations. Main Verbs and Auxiliary Verbs

In my previous article, I introduced you to a topic you might not have ever heard, so it is time to remember some basic grammar to complement our understanding of verbs. This will be a refresher for English students that have been learning for a long time, as well as an introduction to new students that are just starting out. Let’s talk about the main and auxiliary verbs.

What are they?

The main verb is also called the lexical verb or the principal verb. This term refers to the important verb in the sentence, the one that typically shows the action or state of being of the subject. Main verbs can be on their own, or they can be used with a helping verb, also called an auxiliary verb.

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What Verb Should I Use? Linking Verbs and Action Verbs

A verb in a sentence is like a set of tires in a truck. Let’s say you load your truck with ideas that you want to deliver to another person. You can be certain that without a good set of tires, those ideas will never get to its destination. That is what verbs do, they are the vehicle that takes what you want to say from one point to another. Every sentence needs one, and you need to start using one if you want to do anything with it. There are different types of verbs, and in this article, I will explain you two different types of verbs and when to use each of them. These are linking verbs and action verbs. Let’s get started.

Linking verbs express a situation or a state rather than an action or a process. They consist of several types of verbs. With these verbs, math intersects with English in a way, because these verbs are like a giant equal sign placed in the middle of your sentence. For example, you can think of the sentence

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Difference Between Learning English Online or in the Classroom

Difference-Between-Learning-Online-or-in-the-Classroom

With so many options to study English online, you might be considering whether this option is good for you, as it is far more flexible. Back in the day, when thinking about learning online, the first thing that would come to mind is presentations or quizzes, activities that we would have to do on our own and then compare to a pre-established answer. Nowadays, however, there is another very important element in online learning, the live, synchronous one.

Live learning allows the teacher to connect with students and engages them more by adding a human element. It is especially good for learners who are not self-taught or who are used to the traditional model of education where they have a teacher in front of them. This element is particularly important in any course, as it gives the teacher the chance to give feedback and correct students in a way it is not possible through a quiz.

In many ways, live online lessons are similar to traditional face-to-face classes, as the teacher can present information and interact with a group of students in real time. In other ways, however, there are some important differences. Let’s take a moment to explore them.

In this context, the first difference is classroom management. In a physical classroom, the teacher is free to move the learners around and group them as he/she feels fit. This gives them the freedom to engage students with activities where they can interact with each other. In an online setting, it is up to the teacher to create activities that have the same amount of engagement between them, usually through different online resources. This is paramount in the case of lessons one-on-one where the student-teacher interaction is direct.

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Am I Speaking in The Right Way? 3 Types of English to Use in All Situations

I mentioned in the last article about the existence of different types of grammar, and yes, In English, there are different types of grammar. The use of one over the other will greatly depend on the context and situation we are. Some of the types we can mention are historical (how language has changed through the centuries), comparative (the similarities or differences between languages), theoretical (studies the essential components of any human language), and so on.

I can see you scratching your head already and thinking if you should have studied Italian instead, but don’t despair. Although there are different types of grammar, you only have to know two of them in order to improve your speech and your writing.

Descriptive grammar gives name to things – the parts of speech and parts of a sentence. When you learn descriptive grammar, you understand what every word is (its part of speech) and what every word does (its function in the sentence). To put in in simple terms, it is a set of rules that are based upon how a language is actually used.

Be careful though, if you study it beyond a certain point you will find yourself saying things like “balloon” is the object of the gerund, in a gerund phrase that is acting as the predicate nominative of the linking verb “appear”. Trust me, you don’t want to get to be in this position. However, there is one important reason to learn some grammar terms, and that is to understand why a particular word or phrase is correct or incorrect.

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Why Should I Learn Grammar? 3 Tips to Learn Grammar in a Modern Way

In the middle ages, grammar meant the study of Latin, the language educated people used to study. In fact, grammar was so closely associated with Latin that the word referred to any kind of learning. These days, however, it refers to the study of language, specifically, how words are put together. For some teachers, it means a set of standards that you must follow to speak and write “better”. This definition of “better” is quite subjective, as it changes according to the audience, purpose, and situation.

The study of grammar is a must, but it needs to be taking care of in a very intelligent way. Although it is true that structure is required to make progress in the language, there’s a tendency in classrooms of teaching grammar rules in a way that a student cannot relate the content with real situations. For example. Let’s say you want to learn the simple past. You will obviously need to do some grammar exercises to understand how to use it. However, if you are asked to write the bio of your favorite basketball player, you will feel passionate for doing the task, and you will start using the structures way often, I can tell you that.

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5 Tips To Improve Your Spoken English

If all English students of the word could give their opinion about what they think the area they are struggling the most, that would certainly be speaking. Often times, they are afraid of speaking to their teacher, not to mention to other people. They may think they don’t have the skills or experience to use spoken English, but without using it they will never gain those skills or experience. This can become in a vicious cycle and one you need to get out from fast if you want to see improvement. In my lessons I always allow students to use the language freely without pressuring them to produce perfect language. You need to know you WILL make mistakes in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, and the correction of those mistakes is what will make you grow. Once you understood that and have the correct attitude about it, you can use the following tools to practice your spoken English and improve it.

Recordings and Transcripts.

Recording yourself is one of the best ways you can check whether your pronunciation is right or not. If you have a private teacher, you can write down the words you don’t understand in class and then, with your phone, ask the teacher to record himself pronouncing those words. This is something I do a lot in my lessons and have seen tremendous improve in my students due to this. Another alternative for you to practice is taking an English video you like and writing words and phrases from that video; then, you record yourself with your phone pronouncing these same words and you compare your pronunciation with the video.

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5 Strategies to Improve Your English Reading Skills

Reading is your bridge to learn more about the English language and culture. In essence, it is perhaps the most essential skill for beginning language learners to develop. Let’s face it, in this post alone you will be reading over ______ of words. Given that, you can imagine you will be reading thousands every single day. Besides that, you will notice that by improving your reading comprehension skills, other skills such as speaking, listening and writing will start to develop as well, so it is fair to say improving your reading skills is a wise decision to make.

Now, in order to take advantage of all the possibilities available, it is not enough to be literate. In order to have academic and professional success, you need to learn how to read well. An essential skill for all English students is the ability to obtain the necessary information from a text in order to deliver a response. This response could be anything from ordering food, talking about an article in the newspaper, or something as critical as giving an answer in an exam. This is an essential reading skill, and in this article I will show you the strategies to achieve it.

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7 Reasons why you should learn English

It is widely known that English is a universal language and almost a requirement to success. Whether is to get the promotion you have always wanted, travel the world or expand your horizons, it is a powerful tool that will open new doors of opportunity for you. This is no secret to anyone as most students recognize the benefits of understanding English, but still, learning ANY a language is a challenge in itself. Teaching your brain to think in a whole different way (which you have to do if you want to become fluent) takes some serious effort and commitment, and it is normal to see students doubt about whether they should continue or not. When faced with such decision, use this list to remember yourself why you started learning in the first place and why it is worth it.

1. It is the language of the world

Over 50 countries list English as either their native mother tongue (the US for example) or as their official language. This makes English your way to communicate with the world. Think about a time where you were traveling abroad and you could not speak the local language. If you have done this before, you know how scary it can be. Maybe you need to find a bus stop or the nearest restroom, and you need to do it quickly. It is in these situations where having even a small knowledge of the language could do wonders for you. Although English is only the third most-spoken language by native speakers, the fact that over 1 billion people can communicate in English to some extent can make you quite confident you will be able to communicate in most circumstances.

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10 Great TV shows for English Language Learners

Learning from context is key to become fluent in English. This means to be exposed to the language as most as possible, and we all know how hard it is to balance this with our everyday lives. The most practical way of doing so is by combining English with an everyday activity. This way, we won’t feel we are studying but rather having a good time, and this is when TV comes into play.

Now, I am not pretending you to learn English by only watching TV, but I can assure you that by doing so you will have much more motivation to learn as you will be using English as a part of your life. You will also learn a lot more about the culture behind the language, since TV shows ordinary people using ordinary language in regular contexts such as school, at the gym, travelling, at the supermarket, etc.

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