Today's lesson is from Danica Steyn, teacher at EC Cape Town English school
Read through these ten example sentences. They all contain common mistakes made by English learners. Do you know what is wrong with each sentence?
To send someone to Coventry is a British idiom meaning to ostracise someone, usually by not talking to them. When we send someone to Coventry we avoid them intentionally or prevent them from taking part in the activities of a group. This is usually done as a form of punishment for having done something to upset the group.
Here's another chance to make sure you know how to correctly form questions. All you have to do is choose the correct question for each given answer. We had a similar exercise last month called ' Which question is best?' - when lots of you said you got 10/10. Can you get them all right again. Let us know how you did.
I have an Intermediate level exercise for you today. Which questions are the best match for the answers? I don't think these questions are too difficult as long as you read all the questions carefully.
Let me know how you did. Who got 10 /10? Also, tell me which questions you find confusing and myself, or another helpful user, will explain the solution. Let's help each other out as much as we can. If you can explain another person's problem, do it!
Go team!!
Make a mistake? Do a mistake? Take a mistake?
Which is the correct verb to use with 'a mistake'. I hope you said 'make'. But why is that right? Well, the fact is that the verb and noun combination just sounds right in English.
The difficulty for English learners is that these 'collocations' must be learned, usually without any rules to help them remember. Collocations are best understood and learned through practice.
When you refer to something as 'the bee's knees', it means that it is of excellent or very high quality.
The origin of this expression is largely unknown, although there are a number of theories. Some people believe that it is a reference to the fact that bees carry pollen in sacks on their knees, and that the expression therefore alludes to this concentrated goodness. Others maintain that the saying is just a corruption of the word 'business'.
This month's joke is based on the double meaning of the idiom put one's foot down:
1 - To put your foot down - To act firmly / To tell someone strongly that they must do something or that they must stop doing something:
"You can't just let him do what he wants, you'll have to put your foot down."
What do you like to do in your spare time (free time)? What activity makes you happy? Let's use 'swimming' as an example.
As you know, you can say "I love swimming" or "Swimming is my favourite activity".
Today, let's take a look a new phrase that you can use which shows your favourite activity:
Here are some sample sentences using English idioms. After you read the sentences, see if you can match each idiom with the definition.
1. After he was cut by the team, he turned over a new leaf and started working out.
2. I couldn't believe he actually passed himself off as a native speaker.
