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Phrases

How to talk about future situations

Average: 3.5 (32 votes)

Future Real Conditional

The future real conditional describes what the speaker will do in a specific situation in the future. Although we do not know what will happen in the future the future real conditional is called 'real' because it refers to a possible action that could occur.

Lesson by Tristan, teacher at EC Malta English school

Collocations - Make, Do, Have

Average: 3.7 (23 votes)

Collocations are groups of two or more words that generally go together.
In English, we say:

I'm going to make a cup of tea.
He's doing nothing at the moment.
I’m having a good day!

Make tea, do nothing and have a good day are examples of collocations.

Be/Get used to

Average: 3.2 (156 votes)

The structures be used to and get used to are used to talk about being accustomed to something or getting accustomed to something. Get used to talks about the process. Be used to talks about the result.

When Giovanni moved to London from Italy it took him long to get used to the cold. For Ivan, who moved from Moscow to London, the cold was not a problem because he was used to it.

Colour Idioms

Average: 1.9 (191 votes)

Idioms are figurative expressions which make learning a language fun and interesting. All languages have their own idioms. There are thousands of idioms in English. This quiz tests your knowledge of idioms related to colours.

Choose from the list of idioms to complete the sentences:

Polite Requests

Average: 3.4 (255 votes)

Asking to do things – asking for permission

There are many different ways of making polite requests in English. If you don't want to sound rude when speaking English, then you need to know how to make a request in a polite way.Requests in English are usually made in the form of questions

Question Tags

Average: 3.7 (91 votes)

Question tags are a type of question that are used to confirm information we already know about or to show surprise.

Question tags are formed with an auxiliary verb and the appropriate personal pronoun. They take the same auxiliary as the statement or if there isn't an auxiliary in the statement they take 'do/does' in the present simple or 'did' in the past.

The Causative

Average: 3.5 (258 votes)

We use the causative in English to say that we have arranged for someone to do something for us.
He had his jacket cleaned.
(He didn't clean it himself.)
The causative is formed with 'have + object + past participle' The past participle has a passive meaning.

Questions and negations of the verb 'have' are formed with do/does or did in the past simple.
Did you have your camera fixed?

Travel Phrasal Verbs

Average: 3.9 (26 votes)

A phrasal verb is a verb made up of a verb plus one or more particles (e.g. of, in, up) that modify or change its meaning. For example, the phrasal verb “give up” means “stop doing”, which is different from the meaning of the verb “give” when it stands alone. Phrasal verbs are some of the most common verbs used in everyday English. Here is an exercise using phrasal verbs for travel situations.

First match these phrasal verbs to their meanings:

Finite and non-finite verbs

Average: 3.3 (109 votes)

Verbs express an action or make a statement about a person or thing.

John gave Sarah a present.
Sarah was very surprised.

A finite verb is a 'working' verb with a subject; it can be any tense. A non-finite verb which is also called in infinitive verb has no subject and can't be in all the tenses.

A non-finite verb can be:

Affirmative and Negative Tags in Short Forms

Average: 3.9 (20 votes)

When we reply to a statement we can put an affirmative or negative tag at the end of our comment. This short tag takes the form of a question. An affirmative comment has a negative tag and a negative comment has a positive tag.

Lesson by Tristan, English teacher at EC Malta English school