When we learn English we find words that seem to be the same in most situations ….. but not all.

When can we use “nearby”?

From eltpics' opn flickr

In the following examples near and nearby have the same meaning:

• My sister lives near    (she lives a short distance from here)
• My sister lives nearby    (she lives near to where we are now)

Nearby cannot be used as a preposition in this way:

• The book is near the table  = correct
• The book is nearby the table = incorrect

Only near can be used as a verb:

• As the day of the exam neared the students got more nervous

Only near can be used as a comparative adjective:

• My brother’s house is nearer to the park than mine.
• The nearest shops are only 100 metres down the street

As an adjective nearby is used like this:

• I work on Fifth Avenue and my brother works in a nearby office ….. which is the same as saying  ”My brother works in an office near mine”

• For more English expressions go to Vocabulary INDEX
• Check other areas of English Grammar HERE
• Do more English language and grammar exercises

Grammar huh, who is it good for?

How many of you remember that song “War, who is it good for?” by Edwin Starr (1969)?

Well, when I was sent this article from Online College:

“The 20 Most Controversial Rules in the  Grammar World” at   https://onlinecollege.org

It made me think again about:

What grammar do we teach/learn?

• What, or whose, English do we teach/learn?
• or even, should we actually teach grammar?

I firmly believe that in the ideal language learning environment it is not essential to “learn” grammar. Most native English speakers of my generation never learnt English grammar, but we did acquire it naturally. The ideal learning environment is one where the “student” is totally emerged in the English language. Living with English speakers, watching TV and listening to the radio in English, reading English every day etc etc:

Learning English by living an English experience.

But most people can’t have that experience so it is useful to have a framework on which to build their language learning. Not all English teachers are good, in fact there are a lot of inaccurate and incorrect grammar lessons and exercises on internet, often on sites that appear on the first page of Google searches!

I personally believe it is grammatically incorrect to say: 

• I haven’t a pencil       it should be either:
• I haven’t got a pencil     or
• I don’t have a pencil      Why?

Because if “have” is a principle verb (like go, sit, say, write) we must use the auxiliary “do” to form the negative     or

If “have” is used as an auxiliary it is accompanied by the past participle of a main verb.

But this is just one area where “incorrect” grammar is used in many situations. English is a living language used by millions of people around the world. The English we use today is not exactly the same as 20, 50, 100 or 500 years ago. The English used around the world is not the same in England, United States, India, Nigeria or Australia. The English in Manchester is not the same as it is in Liverpool only 45km away.

English teachers have to teach the English that they are comfortable with and one that will help their students to communicate anywhere in the world.

• For more English expressions go to Vocabulary INDEX
• Check other areas of English Grammar HERE
• Do more English language and grammar exercises

Use “STAY” correctly in English language

Sometimes English language learners have problems in using the verb “To Stay” in the correct situations. This is often due to interference from their own native language.

Stay can be used in the following situations:

Stay in the sense of “not move”

• Johnny, I’m just going into this shop to buy a newspaper. Stay her near the door until I come out.
• OK, mummy.

• Lucky! Here boy! …… (His dog returns to his side) Good dog! Sit! Stay! (don’t move)

Stay in the sense of not leave, remain in a place.

• Mr. Smith: Gerard and Sandra I have to talk to you about your homework project. Can you stay for 5 minutes at the end of the class?
• Gerard: I’m sorry Mr.Smith, but we can’t stay because we have a Maths exam. If you want we could stay after school.
• Mr. Smith: OK. That’s fine. Let’s meet at 4.15 in my classroom ….

• Yesterday we went to John’s birthday party. It was very good. We stayed until three in the early morning.
• We didn’t go skiing last weekend. John was ill, so we stayed at home

• I heard that Leo Messi is going to play for Manchester United next year.
• No! that’s not true. He’s staying in Barça.

Stay in the sense of sleep somewhere

When I go to England I usually stay at my mother’s house ( I sleep there)

It’s very late, I think you’ve missed the last train. We have a spare bedroom, why don’t you stay here? (sleep at our house)

I don’t like staying in hotels when I’m on holiday, I prefer to rent an apartment. Then I can stay in bed all morning and have breakfast when I want to.

Go to Vocabulary Index HERE

For, During and While – Grammar Exercise 

For, during and while are all used to help us place an action or situation in the right time.

• During and For

For is used with a period of time, it tells us How long something goes on.

for twenty minutes      for a week       for a long time     for a year

For example:

• We stopped for twenty minutes to eat a sandwich.
• My wife is going to Belgium for a week.
• Where is Jim? I’ve been waiting for him for a long time.
• Are you coming home for the weekend?

During is used with a noun to say when something happens.

during the match     during the war      during the weekend

For example:

• Fred got a red card during the match.
• My grandfather was killed during the war.
• I’ll come and visit you sometime during the weekend

Notice time words like the morning, the afternoon, the winter we can normally use in or during

• It was snowing in the morning. ( or It was snowing during the morning)

You cannot use during to say how long  something continues.

• It snowed during 3 nights correct = It snowed for 3 nights

 See MORE English lessons

Practise with English exercises

What is the difference between through, along and across?

The English language sometimes has two words for something that is only one word in another language, through and across are examples.

Essentially:

Through

is used to talk about movement in an area which is accepted to be 3-dimensional (it has height, width and length) examples are:

• a room
• a doorway
• a forest
• a school
• a housing estate
• the sea (including depth)

Across

is used to talk about movement over a surface that is considered to be 2-dimensional (it only has length and width) examples are:

• a table
• a bed
• a park (not considering trees as important)
• a piece of paper
• the surface of a lake

Along

is used when we consider movement in a linear direction, we are only concerned with its length, examples are:

• a path
• a road
• a tightrope

Compare:

• I often cycle through the park at the weekend, it has really great cycle tracks through the woods (we see the park as 3-dimensional, the trees give height)
• I usually walk across the park on my way to work, it’s the quickest way.(we see the park as 2-dimensional, a surface)
• John quietly walked along the corridor to his bedroom. He didn’t want to wake up the baby.

practise Through Across Along Exercise HERE

 Phrasal verbs can be:

 Type 3

Form – verb + preposition + object

Examples: break into, pick on, turn into, get over

Phrasal verbs are an important part of English grammar using the same grammatical structures. With this type of phrasal verbs in English Grammar  it is not possible to separate the preposition from the verb.

• John Wilkins picked on little Mary
• John Wilkins picked on her

         But not

• John Wilkins picked little Mary on
• John Wilkins picked her on   

Type 4

Form – verb + adverb + preposition + object

Examples: put up with, do away with, come out in, come up against 

The phrasal verbs in this category have 2 particles. They cannot be separated from the verb.

• The government want to do away with tax on children’s food
• Fred came up against a serious problem of hacking on his computer
• She can’t put up with the students arriving late to class
• She can’t put up with them arriving late to class

It is important to practise understanding and using Phrasal verbs.

Sometimes an alternative to the phrasal verb may sound too formal:

 Example: put down (make someone feel inferior)

• The teacher likes making the students feel inferior

Is too formal for every day situations

• The teacher likes putting the students down

Is more usual between friends 

For more information about phrasal verbs look at Grammar of English phrasal verbs – type 1 and 2 or  here you can find an introduction to English Phrasal Verbs in the English language.

Go to Phrasal verbs Index

Go to English grammar lessons

Phrasal verbs can be:

Type 1

Form – verb + adverb (with no object)

Examples: Cut back, end up, go off, run out

With this type, the verb and adverb cannot be separated. 

We can say:

• We have run out of eggs

But not:

• We have run eggs out 

Type 2

Form – Verb + adverb + object

            Verb + object + adverb

Examples: find out, give away, put off, try on

If the object is a noun, the adverb can go before the noun:

• She wants to try on the dress

 Or after the noun:

• She wants to try the dress on

If the object is a pronoun (it, them, her etc) the verb + adverb cannot be separated, the adverb comes after the object:

•  She wants to try it on      is possible, but:
•  She wants to try on it      is not possible 

It is important to practise understanding and using Phrasal verbs.

Sometimes an alternative to the phrasal verb may sound too formal:

Example: put down (make someone feel inferior)

• The teacher likes making the students feel inferior

Is too formal for every day situations

• The teacher likes putting the students down

Grammar of phrasal verbs in English – type 3 and 4 

 Here you can find an  Introduction to phrasal verbs in English grammar. If you want to get some ideas of how to learn the English language well this article might be of interest.

See more Phrasal verbs in Phrasal verb Index

Go to English grammar lessons

This part of the English language is used to talk about the process of change, the period of adaptation to a new situation.

Example situation:

• In 2010 I was used to taking sugar in my tea and coffee.
• My doctor told me I should reduce the sugar I consumed.
• At first I wasn’t used to tea and coffee without sugar but slowly I got used to not putting sugar in my drinks. Now I am used to tea and coffee with no sugar

 but slowly I got used to not putting sugar in my drinks  ……. This explains that there was a process of adaptation from taking sugar in my drinks to not taking sugar.

•  Anne decided to get up early and do exercise before breakfast. At first it was difficult but she soon got used to it.

When you are accustomed to doing something you say that you are used to doing something .When it was an habitual action in the past that is no longer true now I used to live in London but now I live in Paris To see the difference between forms of USE

Go to English grammar lessons

Go to grammar EXERCISE for used to + infinitive here

 Used to is a form of English Grammar that we use to talk about an habitual action in the past that we don’t do now. The structure uses the past of the verb “to use”so questions and negatives are formed using “did”

• I used to live in London (now I don’t live in London)
•  John used to play rugby every weekend (now he doesn’t play because he has serious knee problems)
•  Mary didn’t use to speak French (but now she speaks French very well because she has lived in Toulouse for 5 years)
•  Did you use to have a lot of homework when you went to Primary school?

Compare with other uses of “use” in the English language:

use be used to and gerund correctly

Difference between use, used to, be used to

Go to English grammar lessons

There are different ways we can make suggestions in the English language.

“How about …?”  is one of these.

Its form is:

How about + gerund form of the verb

It is a question but does not require an answer.

Examples: 

• Stan : How about going to the cinema?
• Lydia: Not today, I’m too tired. Why not tomorrow?
• Stan : Fine.

Alica and Tanya are walking in the mountains. After two hours:

• Alice  : How about having a rest? I’m quite tired.
• Tanya: Yeh, I’m tired too. Let’s sit on those rocks over there.

Neil and Rebecca’s children are on school holiday next week.

• Rebecca: How about taking a day off next week?
• Neil       : Yes, it would be great to be with the kids. I have meetings on Monday and Tuesday but I should be able to take Wednesday off. Is that OK with you?
• Rebecca: Wednesday? Yes, perfect!  

Other ways of making suggestions are

Let\’s …… for suggestions

Why don’t we ……..? why don\’t we make a suggestion?

We could ………

There isn’t one form that is better than another. Choose one and try and use it when you speak, write etc. Be careful to use the correct form of the verb.