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Vocabulary

In the news: Missing Plane

Average: 3.9 (27 votes)

In the early hours of Saturday morning, a jetliner carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew took off from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur for Beijing in China. The aircraft ceased all communications and its signal was lost above the sea as it approached Vietnam. The airplane has not been seen since and no confirmed wreckage has been found.

Fall Phrasal Verbs for Business English

Average: 3.9 (22 votes)

Fall out

To argue and disagree with someone.
"She left the company after falling out with her boss."

Fall through

For a plan or agreement to fail.
"John agreed to sell his car to Tom but the deal fell through. Now John needs to find a new buyer."

Oscar Winners

Average: 3.9 (13 votes)

The 86th Academy Awards were held last night in L.A. 

British director Steve McQueen's walked away with the biggest award of the night for 12 Years A Slave but Gravity cleaned up winning seven Oscars.

Leonard Di Caprio left empty handed as he lost out to Matthew McConaughey's, in the Best Actor category.

Noun or Adjective Quiz

Average: 3.8 (48 votes)

Adjectives are used ro give us more information about nouns.

A green chair. - Green is an adjective, it gives us more information about the noun, chair.

Adjectives are also used to modify pronouns. For example, It's the green one. Here the pronoun is 'one'.

We have to be careful when nouns are used in place of adjectives to give us more information about a noun. Compare these three sentences:

Find the mistakes

Average: 4.1 (26 votes)

Read through this short text. There are six mistakes. Can you find them? Write your answers in the comments section. Click on 'show answers' to find out.

"During the week my alarm clock goes out at 7am. I wake up, have a quick shower, dry my hairs and get dressed.

I get in the bus at 7:45. Its usually quiet so I can get a seat. Work starts at 9am but I like to arrive early. The first thing I do is take myself a cup of coffee and start reading my emails.

In the news: Treasure found in California

Average: 4.3 (12 votes)

A California couple out walking their dog have stumbled across rare, mint-condition gold coins said to be worth up to US$10m, _1_ in the ground. The 1,427 coins, which date from 1847-1894, were never in public use.

Before and After

Average: 3.5 (28 votes)

After

We'll make a decision after the meeting.

Here we have two actions, both are in the future.

Make a decision
Have a meeting

Which of these will happen first?

The meeting will be first and then the decision will be made.

Before

I lived in India before I met your mother.

Here we have two past events:

Meeting your mother
Living in India

Present, Past and Past Participle Verbs

Average: 3.3 (723 votes)

Last night I chose what movie we watched; today you choose the movie.

Chose is the past simple tense of choose.

The river is starting to freeze. Do you remember when it froze last year?

Freeze is the simple tense form of the verb. Froze is the past simple tense.

Hungry, Peckish, Starving and Famished

Average: 4.3 (26 votes)

Hungry? It's a word we use a lot. Here's how we can say a little hungry and very hungry in English. Time to build up your vocabulary.

Peckish

Peckish - to be a little hungry. This is a casual word, mostly used in British English.

"There's some biscuits here if you are feeling peckish."

"I'm starting to feel a little peckish. I'm going to buy a sandwich"

Reading and Vocab: Charles Dickens

Average: 4.1 (19 votes)

This month sees the release of a new film, 'The Invisible Woman', about the life of Charles Dickens directed by Ralph Fiennes. The film focuses on the writer's relationship with Nelly Ternan, but how much do you know about Charles Dickens? Read the following text and match the words in orange to their definitions.