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In the news: Lego, Shell and Greenpeace

Average: 4.3 (16 votes)

Lego is "letting kids down" by putting sales above the environment because of its _1_with Shell, say Greenpeace, the environmental organisation.

The charity is launching a global _2_ to get Lego, the children's toy manufacturer, to drop the oil giant, Shell.

More than 16 million Shell-branded LEGO sets have been sold or given away at petrol stations in 26 countries. Greenpeace believe Shell is using Lego to _3_ its image.

How to describe objects

Average: 3.7 (63 votes)

Learning English means hearing many new words you've never come across before. When you talking to someone and say a word you don't know it's important for you to find out what it is. Here's how we can ask for the meaning of a noun and how we can describe objects. This exercise will help you learn a few useful expressions as well as reviewing your vocabulary. How many of these objects do you know?

What's a pen? It's something we use to write with.

Talking about jobs

Average: 3.5 (35 votes)

'What is your job?', is grammatically correct but not usually the way we ask someone's occupation. Instead we ask, 'What do you do?' or the longer form, 'What do you do for a living?'

Some common ways to answer are:

 

Tooth and bite idioms

Average: 3.6 (25 votes)

Even if you are not a football fan, you have probably heard that Uruguay’s Luis Suarez is in big trouble for biting a player during a World Cup game.

The present tense verb is bite:
Do you want a bite of my apple?

The simple past tense is bit:
The dog bit my foot.

The past participle is bitten:
Have you ever been bitten by Luis Suarez?

Same sound, different meaning

Average: 3.4 (210 votes)

Some words have the same sounds as other words, but they have different meanings and spellings.

Take a look at these examples and then take the quiz.

Won / One

He won a new car in a competition.
I have one brother and two sisters.

See / Sea

It's too dark to see anything. Turn the light on.
She went for a swim in the sea.

In the news: Starbucks to pay for workers' college

Average: 3.6 (22 votes)

Starbucks, which is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 23,187 stores in 64 countries, is offering its workers _1_ college degrees.

Any of the company's135,000 employees who work at least 20 hours per week will soon be able to _2_ college at Arizona State University (ASU) Online. Starbucks employees can choose among 40 online courses, _3_ from retail management to electrical engineering.

How to talk about football

Average: 2.9 (18 votes)

The 2014 World Cup is well underway in Brazil. Here are some expressions that will help you talk about football in English.  

1) I missed the Brazil game. What was the score?

2) England have to win this game to go through to the next round.

3) If they don't win they will go out.

4) Who scored for Japan?

5) I can’t believe the referee didn’t give a penalty.

6) He was miles offside!

7) That was never a foul – he dived.

8) Who did you think will win? What do you think the score will be?

Should Have + Past Participle

Average: 3.6 (173 votes)

We use should have + past participle to talk about things we regret.

I got really wet walking home last night, I should have taken an umbrella.

The speaker did not take an umbrella when she went out last night so she got wet. She regrets that she did not take her umbrella.

Regret (verb/noun) is to feel sorry about something that happened or did not happen in the past.

I should have called you sooner.

You should have spoken to me before deciding.

And, Or & But

Average: 3.4 (57 votes)

Conjunctions are used to groups of words, phrases and clauses together. The most common conjunctions are and, or and but.

And

And means also, added to:

Please speak slowly and clearly.

She plays piano and guitar.

Or

Or is used to introduce another possibility:

Shall we go to the cinema or bar?

Are you interested or not?

Suffix: -ever words

Average: 4.5 (11 votes)

Most English wh- words can take the suffix -ever.

Whatever
What+ever

anything, everything or anything:

We do whatever we like.
He'll wear whatever you tell him to.
They usually go out on Friday evenings to a bar or whatever.

Whenever
When+ever

every or any time:

I smile whenever I think about her.
He goes to the gym whenever he has time.