Speakspeak

Build your English vocabulary: 10 alternative words for ‘thing’

Stuart Cook — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:25:00 +0000

The word ‘thing’ is ubiquitous, i.e. it’s everywhere. A good thing, a bad thing, many things, something, anything, everything; we use the word a lot.

And the reason thing is such a common word? Well, it’s a short and quick substitute that we can easily insert into a sentence when we’re unable to think of—or don’t know—the word we need.

So how can we better express ourselves by replacing thing with a more accurate or descriptive word?

Here are ten alternatives we can use:

1. a detail

He told us all the details of his life.
(He told us everything.)

2. a feature

The new Galaxy smartphone has many unique features.
(It has many unique things, many functions.)

3. an item

There are twenty items on the shopping list.
(There are twenty things on the list.)

4. an issue

There are many controversial issues surrounding the building of the shopping centre.
(There are many controversial things about the construction.)

5. a matter

This is very serious – it’s a matter for the police.
(It’s something we should inform the police about.)

6. a point

The minister made some good points during his speech.
(He said some valid and interesting things.)

7. a subject

The book covers many subjects.
(It contains many different things.)

8. a topic

The journalist writes about a wide range of topics.
(He writes about different things.)

9. a trait

Kindness and generosity are good traits.
(They are good things in a person’s character.)

10. an attribute

Stamina is a necessary attribute for a long-distance runner.
(Stamina is an essential thing to have.)

Eggheads, couch potatoes and tough cookies – 8 English food idioms

Stuart Cook — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 16:47:42 +0000

The number of categories for English idioms is seemingly endless. We have weather idioms, where we might hear that it’s raining cats and dogs; colour idioms (such as ‘green as the grass’ or ‘blue in the face’); animal idioms; money idioms … the list goes on.

Food, being as popular as it is, also provides its fair share of idioms.

The big cheese and the top banana are similar and indeed might describe the same person, but they’re not quite the same in meaning. A couch potato might be lazy, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad apple!

Below you can see eight fun and colourful food idioms from the guys at Kaplan International Colleges. If you’re a studious egghead when it comes to learning English, you may already know all eight of them!

Do you have any similar food idioms in your language? Let me know in the comments section below.

Chips vs. fries: the top 5 differences between American and British food vocabulary

Stuart Cook — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:16:25 +0000

In most cases Americans and Britons have the same words for speaking about food. A steak is a steak, apples are apples, and potatoes are potatoes. Most of the time it doesn’t matter which side of the Atlantic you’re on – you’ll be understood when you order your food and buy your groceries.

But watch out – sometimes there are differences. Let’s look at the most common.

Sweets vs. candy

We in the UK say sweets but the Americans call it candy. It’s also worth noting that sweet is a countable noun (plural sweets), while candy is both countable and uncountable.

Chips vs. French fries

Chips is British English, French fries American. If you ask for chips in the US, you’ll get what we call crisps in Britain! Confusing, eh?

British people often use the word fries, too because fast food chains in the UK such as McDonald’s and Burger King advertise the product as fries, not as chips.

‘Crisps’ in Britain, ‘chips’ in the United States.

Biscuits vs. cookies

A biscuit is British, a cookie American.

Aubergine vs. eggplant

Like much food terminology in Britain, the word aubergine was borrowed from French. The Americans say eggplant, which sounds funny to British people. Just to add to the confusion, it’s also known as brinjal.

Courgette vs. zucchini

Once again, there’s a difference. The British say courgette (from French). The Americans say zucchini (watch out for the spelling!), which you’ll also hear in Australia and New Zealand.

Want to test yourself on some other differences between British and American English? Try this quiz: British vs. American English: different words quiz

Better and better, more and more: repeating comparative adjectives to show change

Stuart Cook — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:31:26 +0000

Let’s take a look at the way English repeats comparative adjectives to describe a continuous change.

Change can happen to different degrees:

just once, moderately - The temperature fell yesterday.
dramatically - Sales of iPhones rocketed last year.
a lot / a little – My English improved quite a lot during the course.

In the three examples above we have used verbs (fell, rocketed, improved) to show the change. However, when we want to express continuous (and often big) change, we can use two comparatives adjectives separated by and.

Take a look at these examples:

My uncle grew fatter and fatter over the years.
As Microsoft grew, Bill Gates got richer and richer.
The balloon got bigger and bigger and then burst.

In each example above we used a comparative adjective (fatter, richer, bigger), followed by and, and then repeated the comparative.

‘More and more’ for longer comparatives

We don’t repeat comparative adjectives that are used with more; we simple say more and more:

Things are getting more and more expensive.
This books gets more and more interesting with every chapter.
He spoke for over an hour and his explanation got more and more complicated.

Here’s a short quiz for you to test yourself. And don’t forget – keep visiting Speakspeak.com and your English will get better and better!

Instructions:
Change the adjective in brackets into a comparative and use and to express continuing change:

Confusing words: near, close

Stuart Cook — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 20:59:09 +0000

When used in the sense of ‘not far’ or ‘a short distance away’, the adjectives near and close have the same meaning and are interchangeable.

We can say:

His house is very close. ✓ or
His house is very near. ✓

Where’s the nearest shop? ✓ or
Where’s the closest shop? ✓

Which town is nearer? ✓ or
Which town is closer?

Be careful of exceptions (as usual)!

There are some cases when near and close are NOT interchangeable. (You were expecting that, weren’t you?)

Here are some of the most common exceptions that more advanced learners of English would be expected to know:

Close near

We use close to talk about people’s relationships with one another:

They’re a close family
My dad was closer to his brother than to his sister.
Mike and I are very close friends.

Close is also used in the following collocations:

a close encounter
The mountaineer Joe Simpson has had several close encounters with death.

a close race
After a close race, Obama won the election.

a close finish
It was a close finish – only a tenth of a second separated the two runners.

Near close

a near miss
The asteroid passed 27,700 km from the surface of Earth – a near miss.

in the near future
The volcano could erupt in the near future, according to scientists.

in the near distance
We could see someone in the near distance.

OK? I hope my explanation leaves you closer to understanding the usage of these adjectives. Or has reading this left you close to tears with frustration?

Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below.

10 (some tongue-in-cheek!) DOs and DON’Ts for online learning

Stuart Cook — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 13:13:23 +0000

Have you ever thought about doing an online learning course?

Well, the chances are that if you’re a regular visitor to this site and do our grammar and vocabulary exercises, you already are an online learner.

You may even be doing a longer, more formal e-learning course set by a university. In that case you’ll know about the challenges of learning at home and being on your own with just a computer screen for company.

Here’s a nice infographic from allied.edu – The dos and don’ts of online learning. The don’ts, as you’ll see, are tongue-in-cheek and are not to be taken seriously. And the dos? Well some, such as ‘have access to a computer’, may seem a little obvious. Other points, though, such as knowing how to manage your time and working in a peaceful and uninterrupted place, are sound advice.

Feel free to leave a comment below if you’d like to tell us about your experiences with online learning.

Does I’d mean ‘I had’ or ‘I would’?

Stuart Cook — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 07:23:34 +0000

The contraction I’d can mean either ‘I would’ or ‘I had’.

If you’re unable to understand the meaning of I’d (or he’d, she’d, we’d, etc.) from the context of a sentence, try looking at the verb form that follows it:

would is followed by the bare infinitive (infinitive without to)
would can also be followed by the perfect infinitive (have + past participle)
had is followed by a past participle.

Watch out for sentences containing ‘d better!

Here’s the explanation in the form of an infographic:

For more examples sentences and a full explanation of the rule see: grammar explanation of ‘d = ‘had’ or ‘would’.

If you want to test yourself, try this exercise: practice exercise ‘d = ‘had’ or ‘would’.

‘Smoke-free’ doesn’t mean ‘smoke freely’, and Russia gets a smoking ban

Stuart Cook — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 09:35:05 +0000

In the news recently there have been some interesting things about tobacco smoking. We’ve also had some questions about smoking in our English forum, so in this post I’ll be taking a look at some smoking-related words.

Russian ban on smoking

A BBC article last week announced that Russia is to ban smoking in public places. Over the next year or so it will become illegal to smoke in public buildings (or even outside the entrances), on public transport, and in restaurants.

The Russian ban surprised me a great deal. Although several EU countries have already introduced restrictions on smoking, I didn’t expect Russia to follow their example so soon. Some countries from the former Eastern Bloc (the Czech Republic and Poland, for instance) seem hesitant to outlaw smoking. Tobacco companies are very wealthy and influential: could it be that their lobbyists are swaying governments’ decisions away from banning smoking?

You can read the BBC article about the Russian smoking ban here.
For listening practice there’s also an excellent podcast – ‘Russia’s new smoking ban’.

‘Smoke-free’ doesn’t mean ‘smoke freely’

Mamoru Tanahara, a member of our Learn English Community on Google+, recently discussed the meaning of ‘smoke-free’.

Mamoru says that the inclusion of the word free confuses him into thinking that ‘smoke-free’ means ‘smoking is allowed’. No, it doesn’t mean that. Smoke is derived from a noun here so the adjective smoke-free actually means ‘free of smoke’ – that is, ‘no smoke’. (Just think of tax-free shopping, which means ’free of tax’, i.e. there’s no tax to pay.)

Smoke freely, on the other hand, would mean ‘smoke as you wish, where you wish’. Here is Mamoru’s post.

Smoking-related vocabulary

Here is some of the vocabulary you can learn from reading the BBC article and listening to the podcast:

fags: slang word for cigarettes (British English)
a heavy smoker: someone who smokes a lot
smoke-free: free of smoke; a smoke-free bar, a smoke-free campus
a craving: an uncontrollable need to do something (e.g. to smoke)
a smoking ban / a ban on smoking: a law that does not allow smoking
to light up: to light and smoke a cigarette
to smoke like a chimney: to smoke a lot
to stub out a cigarette: extinguish a cigarette by pushing the remaining part on to a hard surface, such as an ash tray
to be addicted to smoking: unable to stop smoking even though you want to
passive smoking: breathing in the smoke of other people
to go up in smoke: (an idiom) to be unsuccessful, to fail.

What are your views on smoking – do you think it should be banned in public places?
Perhaps you’re from Russia. If so, what is the reaction to the ban there? Please leave a comment below.

Confusing words: they’re, their, there

Stuart Cook — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 07:59:08 +0000

English learners often have a problem with they’re, their and there because these words have the same pronunciation despite having different spellings and meanings.

We call words like this homophones.

Here are some typical mistakes with they’re, their and there:

~~I saw there daughter yesterday~~.
I saw their daughter yesterday. ✓

~~The children were ill last week but their fine now~~.
They’re fine now. ✓

~~Please wait their for me~~.
Please wait there for me. ✓

Example sentences

Do you live in London? How long have you lived there?
Jack and Jill are quite wealthy. Their kids go to a private school.
Pete and Liz have two kids; they’re eleven and nine.
Can you see that sign over there?
Tigers are carnivores. Their food includes deer and antelope.

Want to test yourself? You can see a they’re, their, there exercise here.

8 ways of saying ‘approximately’

Stuart Cook — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 08:07:43 +0000

If we want to say that a number, quantity, time or price is ‘quite accurate but not exact’, we have several options in English.

The most formal way of expressing ‘not exactly’ is approximately; the most common in spoken English is about.

Here’s a list of eight words and phrases that we can use, with example sentences:

A coffee costs about $3.
How much will it cost, more or less?
He earns somewhere in the region of 30K.
Inflation is roughly 3%.
She’s fifty or thereabouts.
I’ll be there round about three o’clock.
It’s not far – 20km or so.
Today’s flight will take approximately two hours.