Cambridge: a university / an university?
You were probably taught at school ‘an’ should be followed by a vowel (a,e,i,o,u) and a should be followed by a consonant:
an elephant
a car
Unfortunately, this is not always true!
Watch this video and then do the exercise.
The European Championships are well underway.
This time there are no British teams in the final, but there is probably a lot of English being spoken by supporters from around Europe in Switzerland and Austria. Here are some expressions we use to talk about the 'beautiful game'.
Its confusing, or it's confusing?
Do you know when we should use its and it’s?
The word it's is always used as a short form of it is.
‘It’s a red umbrella.’
'Marie decided to take up the violin.'
‘Take’ appears in many phrasal verbs. Here are several uses of the verb. In the future, we will be looking at other examples, but first try and memorise these.
Look - to look at something for a reason, with an intention.
'Try not to make too much noise.'
'Make' is a useful English verb that can often be found with the words shown below. These are all common uses of the verb 'make'.
Make a note of any new words and try to write them out in sentences and use them when you are speaking.
'Make' Collocations
The two phrasal verbs 'get up' and 'wake up' are similar, but different.
When your alarm rings in the morning you 'wake up' as you are no longer sleeping.
'Get up' means that you get out of bed.
'I wake up at 7am, but i don't get up until 7:30.'
This play on words is known as a 'Tom Swifty'. It is a type of pun (joke) that plays on the relationship between the adverb and an action spoken in the dialogue. The sentence is usually in reported speech. Tom Swifty is a character who appears in a series of adventure stories written by the author Edward Stratemeyer. The pun in this case is on the adverb 'abstractly' as modern art is sometimes abstract.
