Brainstorming

In this post I want to look at how to use the phrase brainstorming correctly, for my YouTube video lesson on the subject click here.

For more lessons click here to go to my website.

Brainstorming is used, usually in business situations, to describe when a group of people come together to solve a problem.

Normally a problem is identified and then a group of people come together and think about the problem and express their ideas to fix the problem. How good or how bad the ideas are, is not important. A list is made of all the ideas and then best ideas are the ones chosen one to be used to solve the problem.

BECAREFUL some people think that the phrase brainstorming is offensive to people who suffer from epilepsy, however in a 2005 UK survey of epilepsy sufferers 95% said they did not find the word offensive.

Click here to go to my website for more:
www.smartlanguagesolutions.com

Question Tags

Question Tags.

In this post I want to talk about using question tags. To see my YouTube video on the subject, click here or click here to check out my website.

In English we use question tags as a way of moving a conversation on (i.e. keeping it going).

To use a question tag, we make a statement then we put a two word tag at the end of the statement, which we hope will make the other person or people in conversation with us continue the conversation.

For example:

Statement:
“It’s a beautiful day”

Question tag:
“Isn’t it?”

Answer:
“Yes it is. (or no it’s not)”

Q: “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”
A: “Yes it is”

Statement:
You’ve been to Spain

Question tag:
Haven’t you?

Answer:
Yes I have. (or no I haven’t)

Q: “You’ve been to Spain, haven’t you?”
A: Yes I have.

How to make a question tag.

The first part of the any sentence using question tags is a statement, and it is the statement that is the key to the question tag.
In our example statement, “It’s a beautiful day”, we can see that the first part of the statement are the words “It is”.
To make the question tag, we use these two words and do two actions to them!

The first action is to reverse the word order:
“It is” = “is it”

The second action is to change the verb from positive to negative, if the verb is positive, or from negative to positive if the verb is negative.
In this example the verb is positive so we change it to negative.
“Is” = “isn’t”

This then gives us the question tag; “isn’t it?”

“It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”


In our second example, the statement is:
“You’ve been to Spain”

So to make the question tag we take the first two words in the statement; “You have”, reverse the order, “have you” and make the verb negative “haven’t” which makes the question tag “haven’t you”

“You’ve been to Spain, haven’t you?”


If the sentence is negative, the same rule applies:

Example:
“You don’t like wet weather, do you?”

The first two words in the sentence are “You don’t”.
Applying the rule we reverse the order, “You don’t” = “don’t you”, now we make the negative verb positive, “don’t = do”, this gives us the question tag “do you”

Remember English is Easy, especially if your teacher is good!

If you would like to know more then click here to check out my website:
www.smartlanguagesolutions.com

How to use So and Neither

In this post I would like to look how to use “so” and “neither” to express agreement with someone.
If you want to see my YouTube video on the subject, click here.

For more lessons click here to go to my website

When someone makes a statement, you might want to agree or disagree with them. If the statement is a positive statement, and you want to agree with the statement then you use so, if the statement is negative, and you want to agree with it then you neither.

The positive statement:
I’ve got a new car.

You agree with it:
So have I

The negative statement:
I don’t have a TV

You agree with it:
Neither do I.

When we use so and neither, our answer must use a positive auxiliary verb.

So have I NOT So haven’t I
Neither do I NOT Neither don’t I

If we want to disagree with a statement then we use the opposite auxiliary verb from the original statement:

The positive statement:
I’ve got a new car

You don’t agree with it:
I haven’t

The negative statement:
I don’t have a TV

You don’t agree
I have

If you want to more lessons click here to go to my website:
www.smartlangaugesolutions.com

Using future will

In English we have five different future tenses;
Future will,
Future going to,
Present continuous used as future,
Future prefect simple and
Future perfect continuous
However the subject of today’s post is future will. Click here to see my mini lesson on Youtube about the subject.

First lets consider the construction of future will.

When we construct will in the future tense we use will + the infinitive, without “to”.

For example:
I think the team will win the game.

In this example you can see will + the infinitive of win, used without “to”

It is wrong to say:
I think the team will to win


There are three possible ways of expressing will in the future tense.

1) When we want to express a prediction

Example:
I think the team will win the game.

This means I am not 100% sure the team will win, but I am confident that they can win the game.

2) When we make a decision at the moment of speaking

Example:
I ask you, “Would you like to come to the cinema with me tonight?”

This is the first time you have heard me ask you this question and you decide your answer as I finish my question, so you answer

“Yes I will” or “No I won’t”

3) When we make a promise

Example
“I promise when I am elected I will lower the taxes”

As you can see will is used to express three different situations in English.

If you would like to learn more then click here to go to my website http://www.smartlanguagesolutions.com

The Phone!

My latest post on Youtube is about the phone, click here to see it.

I have two phones, one is in my house, it is my landline, the other is in my pocket.
The phone I keep in my pocket I take everywhere with me. Because I live in the UK I call this phone my mobile phone. If I wanted the phone number of the phone a British person takes everywhere with them I would ask them for their mobile phone number.

However when I go America I don’t call it my mobile phone anymore, I call it my cell phone. So if I wanted to ask an American person for the number of the phone they take everywhere with them I would ask them for their cell phone number!

If you would like to learn more, click here to go to my website www.smartlanguagesolutuions.com

Part of the car!

In this post I would like to look at six words that are used to describe the same three parts of a car depending on whether you are speaking British English or American English.
Click here and you can see the mini lesson I posted on YouTube.

The reason I decided to write about this subject is due to the amount of American and British movies and TV shows that are seen around the world and how ubiquitous the car is in movies & TV shows.

The first part of the car I want to look at is the space at the back, where we might put our shopping or bags (or where in the movies or on TV the “bad guy” or mafia hit man might put a body!)
In British English this space is called the BOOT, so a British person would say, “I put the bags in the boot”
While in American English this space is called the trunk, so an American would say, “I put the bags in the trunk”

The second part of the car I want to discuss is the front end, where the engine is. The piece of metal that covers the engine has, like the space at the back, two different words describing it depending on where you come from.
In British English this piece of metal is called the BONNET, so a British person would say, “The engine is under the bonnet”.
While in American English this piece of metal is called the HOOD, so an America would say, “the engine is under the hood”.

Finally for now, I want to discuss the matter of speed. When an English person wants you to go faster they would say “I want you to accelerate”.
However if an American wants you to go faster they would say “I want you to give gas”.

If you want more then click here to check out our website www.smartlanguagesolutions.com


Vocabulary:
Ubiquitous – To be seen to be everywhere at the same time
Shopping – Items bought in a shop and stored together for transport by an individual
Bad Guy – In a movie, TV show, book, play etc. the person who is the evil character.

In this post I would like to talk about the idiomatic expression, “Part of the Furniture”.
The other day while teaching an online lesson at Smart Language Solutions I was asked by a student, why, in English the expression “part of the furniture” is used to talk about people and not about the furniture. I have a short video lesson on the subject on YouTube and you can find it by clicking here.

At first glance it would seem that the expression “part of the furniture” would refer only to a piece of the furniture, and this would be the case when we are directly talking about the furniture. However in English when describing a piece of furniture we would normally name that piece of furniture

For example we went to a furniture store and bought a new sofa. When we got home and put the sofa home together we saw some screws on the ground and we realised that the screws were part of the sofa. As you can see here we say part of the sofa, and not part of the furniture!

So when we use the expression “Part of the furniture” we are not talking about furniture at all! In fact we use the expression, “part of the furniture” to describe a person.

When we say someone is “part of the furniture” it means that the person in question has been in a position in any organisation such as job or voluntary group for a long, long time.

So for example, you are in your job and there is one person who has worked in the company for a long time then we can that person is part of the furniture.
In other words, “John has worked in this company for 20 years, in fact John is here so long he is part of the furniture”
If you want more on this or any other English matter click here to visit my website, www.smartlanguagesolutions.com

In this post I want to address the use of “used to”. Click here for my YouTube mini lesson on the subject.

Before we talk about "used to" we need to quickly consider the uses of the present simple tense.
In English we use the present simple to express something that is a habit, or something that happens regularly.

For example: “She drinks a lot of coffee”

The present simple is also used to express something that is true.

For example: “The hotel is over there”

Once you are comfortable with the present simple it is possible to look at “used to”.

In English “used to” is used to express two types of past situations.

1) An action that happen in the past, that was a habit or happened again and again, but no longer happens.

Example: “She used to drink a lot of coffee, but now she doesn’t”

2) When something was true in the past but no longer is.

Example: “There used to be a hotel over there, but now it is an apartment block”.


Don’t confuse “used to” with “get used to doing something” which is used to express when some action becomes normal for us.
Also don’t confuse “used to” with “to be used to doing something” which is used to express when something is normal for the speaker.

For more on learning English click here to go to my website www.smartlanguagesolutions.com

Recently I was listening to the radio and there was a discussion on what had happened on the stock market that day. The people involved in the conversation started to use some stock market slang, slang that is frequently used on radio and TV broadcasts and in the print media and I realised that it might be interesting to look at some of these terms, you can get more information from my YouTube mini lesson by clicking here.

The short list of stock market slang terms I am about to share with you is just that, a short list, it is not complete but it is a start.

When you go to the Wall St. district of New York you will see a big brass statue of a bull. Traditionally the terms bull is used to describe one market situation and the term bear describes a different market situations, these two words are the most commonly used stock market slang terms.

A bull or bullish market is when stock prices go up

A bear or bearish market is when stock prices go.

Another typical term used in the market is, crash.
In fact you might hear the term or read the phrase “today the market crashed”.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the market lost all of the value of its shares, rather it means that the market value dropped by 10% or more in one days trading.

Another interesting slang term is V Rally, this happens when stock traders, usually on the floor of the stock market, sell a large amount of stock. What should happen at this point is a drop in the price of shares, the market should become bearish. However rather than falling all the way the market becomes bullish, i.e. goes up again. This bull trend normally occurs because of online trading.
So the term V Rally comes from the V shape that happens on a graph when the market goes down and then back up again.

Finally for now, let’s look at the market slang “All the boats rise”. This happens when the market is bullish and as a result the majority of stocks rise in value regardless of their true market worth. The phrase “all the boats rise” comes from the world of the sea.
If you have every been to a harbour and the tide is out all the boats will be low down by the harbour wall, however as the tide comes back in all the boats, regardless of size will come up to the top of the harbour wall again, and this is where the phrase “all the boats rise” comes from.

For more click here to check out thewebsite, www.smartlangaugesolutions.com

In this post I want to talk a little about one of my favour subjects, the difference between US (American) English and UK (British) English.
Check out Youtube (click here) to see what I am talking about.

I want to talk about the world of university education. People who are studding for a degree in university in both countries are called undergraduates, or either undergrads or grads for short. If you complete your degree and continue to the next level of university education you are called a postgraduate student.
The purpose of this post is to look at how undergraduates are called through the years of study.

In British English when you are in your first year of university you are called a:
1st Year undergraduate
While in US English you are called a:
Freshman (for both male and females)

In British English when you are in your second year of university you are called a:
2nd year undergraduate
While in US English you are called a:
Sophomore

In British English when you are in your third year of study at university you are called a:
3rd year undergraduate
While in US English you are called a:
Junior

In British English when you are in your fourth year at university you are called a:
4th year undergraduate
While in US English you are called a:
Senior

Before I finish for this post a let me give you a tip on an import difference between British English and US English, one that could save you hours in lifts in tall buildings.
What in American English is called the first floor, is in British English the ground floor!
So in American buildings and Lifts you will see, first floor, second floor, third floor and so on.
While in UK buildings and lifts you will see ground floor, first floor second floor and so on.

Hope this helps, for more information click here to check out my website, www.smartlanguagesolutions.com

The Present Perfect

Today I posted a short video on Youtube (which you can see here) explaining the uses of the present perfect tense.

Present Perfect is used to express three different situations in English, but before I address the uses of the Present Perfect, lets look at the construction of the present perfect.

The important thing to remember when constructing the present perfect is that we must use the past participle (third form of the verb) so we have to make sure we know all our irregular verbs, and they are something I can’t teach you!

Construction positive sentences in the present perfect:

I you we they + have + past participle + the rest of the sentence
I have been to see Michael

He she it + has + past participle + the rest of the sentence
Mary has been to America

Construction of a negative sentence in the present perfect:

I you we they + haven’t (have not) + past participle + the rest of the sentence
I haven’t seen Michael

He she it + hasn’t (has not) + past participle + the rest of the sentence
She hasn’t been to America

Construction of a question in present perfect:

Have + I you we they + past participle + the rest of the question
Have you seen Michael?

Has + he she it + past participle + the rest of the question
Has she been to America?

Using the present perfect

There are three standard (and easy to understand) uses of the present perfect in English

The present perfect is used to express an action that started in the past and continues until now.

For example: you have been reading this blog for a few minutes.
This sentence tells us that your action (reading the bolg) started in the past, and continues to now.

We can also use this construction to talk about an action that started in the past and goes on to now, but is not happening at this moment.

For example: I have been teaching English for twenty years.
This sentence tells us that twenty years ago I started teaching English and I am still teaching. But what it also shows is that the action teaching English is not something I do all the time, but rather it is something I do sometimes, but also something I HAVE DONE for twenty years

The present perfect is also used to talk about an action in the past that is finished, but we are not interested in when the action happened.

For example:
I have been to America.

This sentence tells us that I have been to America, but it does not tell us when. It is not important when.
If we wanted to say when we went to America, we would use the past simple
I was in America last year.
You can see from the past simple sentence we use a time point (last year).

The last use of the present perfect is to express an experience

For example:
I have eaten snails!

This sentence tells us about an experience in the past. If I wanted to tell you when I eat the snails I would have to use past simple.

Tom: I have eaten snails

Mary: Oh really, when was that

Tom: A few years ago in France

There you have the basic rules and uses for present perfect tense. For more information click here to go to my website www.smartlanguagesolutuons.com

Using Like

Today I put up a video on YouTube (which you can see here) giving a short outline of uses of the word like.

Like is a word that can be a verb or a preposition. The good news is that it is not too difficult to figure out when we are using like as a verb or when we are using like as a preposition.

Using like as a verb:
When we use like as a verb it always has a subject.
Like as a verb can be followed by “another verb + ing” or by “to + verb”, and has two different meanings.

Examples:
Like + verb + ing

I like writing early in the morning.

In this sentence we have the subject “I” followed by the verb like followed by another verb write + ing.

This construction is used to express when the subject of the sentence enjoys (or does not enjoy something)

Mary doesn’t like listening to the news.
This sentence shows us that the subject of the sentence (Mary) does not like listening to the news

They like swimming at weekends.
This sentence shows us that the subject (they) like swimming

Like + to + verb

I like to read books

In this sentence we have the subject “I” followed by “to” followed by the verb.
This construction is used to express when the subject of the sentence wants to tell about their habits or preferences.

Mary likes to drink coffee
This sentence shows us that the subject of the sentence (Mary) has a habit of drinking coffee.

We like to go to the cinema on Saturdays.
This construction shows us that the subject of the sentence (we) have a preference for going to the cinema on Saturdays.


Using like as a preposition

When we use like as a preposition it always has an object after it.

The weather today is like yesterdays

This sentence shows us that the weather today is the same as the weather from yesterday.

The sentence construction is; the weather “the subject” followed by “like” followed by the “object”.
All sentences using like as a preposition follow this construction.

Your car does not sound ok, just before mine broke down it sounded like that.

Jane is wearing a dress like Kate’s

Using like in a question

When we use like in a question we are asking for a description, impression or a comparison.

When we use like to ask for a description or an impression we cannot use like in the answer!

Q: What is the weather like?
A: Its sunny and warm

Q: What are the exchange rates like today?
A: The dollar dropped on overnight trading so its no too good for our trip to the US.

When we use like to ask for a comparison we can use like in the answer!

Q What is John like?
A He is like Richard but has darker hair

Q What is Hamburg?
A Its like most North German cities but has a big lake in the city centre.

BE CAREFUL: The word liking is a noun and is used to describe a feeling of attraction or love or fondness.
Don’t confuse it with like as a verb or preposition!

For more information click here to go my website www.smartlanguagesolutions.com

British English, Irish English, American English and more!

I have a dictionary, yes a whole dictionary full of the differences between certain words and phrases used in British English and American English!

Some of the more amusing ones for me are:

UK English Tap = where the water comes from
US English Tap = where the beer comes from

UK Trunk = what you put your clothes in before we had suitcases
US Trunk = the space at the back of the car for shopping

Of course as well as differences between standard British English and standard American English there are differences between the English spoken in different parts of the UK!

I had a friend of mine come up to me the other day here in London and asked me to buy something from him for a “score”
I looked at him and said “what’s a score?” he said “a score is £20”

In future I will do some small posts showing the differences between the various different forms of English!

By the way, I would not recommend using the word “score” when your in England and want to talk about “£20” just say “£20”, but if someone offers to sell you something for a “score” well now you know!

For more information check out my website just click here

Phrasal Verbs - Break Down

Today I posted a video on Youtube (which you can see here) explaining a little about phrasal verbs.

A phrasal verb is when we take a verb and either an adverb or a preposition and combine them to make a new combination that is slightly different in meaning from the original verb meaning. In fact depending on the context of the sentence the phrasal verb may well have more than one meaning!

I looked at the verb BREAK and the adverb DOWN and gave two examples;

1) The accountant took the companies figures and broke them down.
In this example we see that the phrasal verb combination of break and down refer to a specific noun (in this case the figures) and as a result the meaning, is to separate something into its component parts

To break something down = To separate something into its component parts.

2) I was driving to work when my car broke down.
In this example we see that the same phrasal verb combination refer again to a specific noun (the car) and how it is no longer working.

To break down = To no longer work correctly.

As you can see from these from these examples phrasal verbs can be very difficult.
It is almost impossible to learn phrasal verbs by using a formula in the way you would if you were learning a grammar tense.
The most important thing to remember it that phrasal verbs can only be formed by combining a verb with an adverb or a verb with a preposition.
There are some great free lists of phrasal verbs which explain their combination and their meanings and you can find some on my website by clicking here.
But the bottom line is you will have to sit down and learn them, just like you did when you were learning your irregular verbs!

My top two learning tips are:

1) Start with sector specific learning, what area do you work in? What area are you studding in? Learn these verbs first, then move to the general phrasal verbs

2) When you come across a new phrasal verb, pay attention, the context it is used in will help you figure out the meaning. Then remember it!

I will do some more phrasal verbs here soon. In the mean time click here to visit my website http://www.smartlanguagesolutions.com/ for some online English learning.

Present Simple

Today I posted a new video on YouTube you can see it here. Today I gave a very basic outline of using the present simple tense.

In the video I explained that in English we use the present simple to describe three different situations:

1) To say when something (an action) happens again and again, or is a habit.
For example, “Mary gets up at 6 every morning”
This tells us that Mary gets out of bed at 6, this is something she does every day, again and again. However it does not matter how far apart the action is in time, as long as it happens again and again.
So it is also ok to say, “John goes to Spain every year”.
This tells us that once a year John goes to Spain, but it also tells us that John does the action again and again, and this why we use the present simple

2) To say when something is true at this moment.
For example, “That dog is big”, this tells us that the dog is a big dog!

3) To say when something is true for a long time
For example, “They don’t eat meat”, this tells us that at this moment it is true that they don’t eat meat, but it also suggests that a long time ago they did!

When we construct the present simple we have to remember to use the letter “s” or the ending “es” when we use either, he, she or it.

Positive Construction:

I, you, we, they + verb + rest of your sentence.
You read the newspaper everyday.

He, She it + verb + s + rest of your sentence.
She reads the newspaper everyday

Negative Construction:

I, you, we, they + don’t + verb + rest of your sentence
I don’t drink wine

He, she, it + doesn’t + verb + rest of your sentence
The car doesn’t run on diesel

Question Construction

Question word + do + I, we, you, they + rest of your sentence + ?
When do they leave the office?

Question word + does + he, she, it + rest of your sentence + ?
Why does Mary have John’s car?

Don’t worry about too much about adding “s” “es” or ”ies” because the rules are very easy:

Put “s” at the end of most verbs
Thinks, eats, speaks

Put “es” at the end of verbs that end in “ss” “ch”, “x” and “o”
Kisses, Washes, Does

Put “ies” at the end of verbs that a consonant + y
Carries, Worries

We use adverbs of frequency in present simple too!
Never Sometimes Always

I hope this gives some extra information to the short video clip on Youtube.

For more information check out my website by clicking here, or going to http://www.smartlanguagesolutions.com/