And boredom leads to demotivation.

One way of making studying a little easier and more fun is to create a learning plan.

A learning plan will organise your studies and give you goals. If you achieve your goals you’ll then have motivation to keep studying.

What to remember when choosing things to include in a learning plan

• decide on three or four different learning activities
• choose activities that are short and enjoyable
• give yourself realistic targets for each activity
• spread your activities out over the week

So which activities should you choose? Here are some ideas for you. (I’m not saying you should do ALL of these things, but it’s a good idea to vary the type of activities you do.)

1. Set the number of words you learn

What to do
Learn a fixed number of new English words or phrases every day.

How to make it easier for yourself
Learning three or four new words a day is enough. If you really are an extremely busy person, then even one word a day is better than nothing.

Try to also learn words related to your new words (related nouns or opposites, for instance). That way you’ll greatly increase your vocabulary with minimum extra effort.

How often?
Once a day or every second day. Stick to a Monday-to-Friday routine for your ‘daily vocab’ learning: take Saturdays and Sundays off!

2. ‘Unlearn’ your typical mistakes

What to do
Think about mistakes that you often make: maybe your teacher always corrects you on the same mistake, or perhaps you always get the same grammar point wrong in tests. Say to yourself, ‘I’m going to STOP making this mistake; I’m going to UNLEARN this mistake’.

How to make it easier for yourself
On Monday decide which mistake you want to focus on for the week.
Spend a couple of minutes each day repeating the correct version to yourself (even just saying it to yourself in your head will work).
Focus just on this mistake; don’t try to do too much grammar at the same time.

How often?
One ‘unlearn’ per week. Spend one or two minutes on it per day.

This is the type of mental training you can do on the bus to work or school each day. You could even do it while waiting in the most boring place in the world - a queue at the supermarket .

3. Music / songs

What to do
Read the lyric of an English song that you like and try to understand the meaning.

How to make it easier for yourself
Google for the lyric and then try to sing along as you listen to the song.
If the lyric seems too difficult either 1) choose an easier song or 2) just concentrate on part of the song, perhaps the chorus or your favourite bit of the melody.

How often?
One or two songs a month is enough.

If you’re not a music fan, try rewatching your favourite film or TV comedy series in English. You’ll find endless English material on Youtube and similar video sites.

4. Study English together with friends

What to do
Meet up with a friend (or friends) and learn something together. You can revise English vocabulary you’ve learned, do homework together, or just help each other with grammar.

How to make it easier for yourself
Your ‘studying’ with a friend could simply take the form of speaking English together. You could have a fixed length of time once a week (30 minutes, say), when the two of you speak only English – no other language allowed!

Alternatively, if you want a bit more focus, you could choose an item of grammar or certain words and then swap sentences with one another: one person creates a sentence containing the word/grammar, the other person has to continue with a logical follow-on sentence or a sentence with the opposite meaning.

How often?
As often as you want. Friends are always fun to be with, aren’t they?

If you can’t meet up regularly you can use the Internet for friend-based learning. Get a group of friends together on Facebook or Google Plus and challenge each other with English questions or word games.

5. Grammar/vocab 15 minutes at a time

What to do
When doing grammar or vocabulary limit the time you spend learning each day. Don’t go crazy and study for hours!

How to make it easier for yourself
Either keep to a routine and learn at the same time every day, or find free pockets of time (on the bus, while waiting for someone, while sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, etc.).

15 minutes at a time is better than three hours once a week. That way you’ll stay fresh, the time will pass quickly, and you’ll remember more.

How often?
If you have time, do 15 minutes once a day (or twice if you have time).

6. Read a text or article

What to do
Read a short English text each week.

How to make it easier for yourself
Go to a quality news website and choose a section, topic or region that interests you.
Pick a short article in that section.
Don’t focus on understanding the whole article and every single word. Instead, make sure you get the general meaning of the text.
Enjoy reading the text, and approach it as you would an article in your own language, i.e. reading for pleasure and information, NOT for study purposes.
Choose four or five new words from the text and write them down with a translation in your language. Then learn these new words as part of your ‘daily vocab’ learning the following week.

How often?
One article a week is enough.

And the last and best point …

7.  Study English here on Speakspeak.com

What to do
Try doing some of the exercises in our Grammar exercises section.

How to make it easier for yourself
Once again, don’t go crazy and do exercise after exercise, hour after hour.
As part of your learning plan set yourself the target of doing four or five grammar exercises per week.
Choose exercises covering grammar that you have problems with.
If you make mistakes, make a note of the problems then go back and try again a day or two later.
If you have a recurring problem with a particular aspect of grammar, contact me, Stuart, here on Speakspeak and I’ll do my best to answer your question and suggest further study or exercises.

Conclusion

Remember, whatever learning plan you create for yourself, these should be the rules:

• create realistic and achievable targets
• learn for short periods at a time
• vary your study activities
• stick to your plan.

Good luck!

If you found this article interesting and helpful please use the ‘like’ and ‘plus’ buttons below and share it with friends. Thanks!

Related posts:

1. Seven ways to make learning phrasal verbs easier
2. Business English – quickly and easily
3. (Effective) reading to increase your English vocabulary

We’ll see a simple rule that tells us whether we need so or such in a sentence. You can then test yourself with the quick exercise below.

Meaning

So and such both show an extreme state:

• He’s so tall.
• It’s so cold today.
• It’s such a big country.
• She’s such a nice lady.

Rule

Here’s the simple rule:

We use so if we follow with just an adjective or adverb.
We use such if we follow with a noun.

Here are some examples to illustrate the rule:

• Chinese is so difficult to learn. ['so' + adjective]
• He always drives so quickly. ['so' + adverb]

• Chinese is such a difficult language to learn.
  [Here we used 'such' because we followed with a noun, 'language'.]

• The weather is so nice today.
  [The noun 'weather' comes at the start of the sentence. We therefore used 'so'.]

• It’s such nice weather today.
  [Here we used 'such' because the noun 'weather' comes later in the sentence.]

! Compare the following two sentences, which mean the same:

• The room was so cold that I had to put my coat on.
• It was such a cold room that I had to put my coat on.

So … that / such … that

When we want to express that the extreme thing or situation has a consequence, we can say
so … that
and
such … that.

The structures are as follows:

so + adjective + that
so + adverb + that
such + adjective + noun + that

Here are some examples:

• He’s so tall that he can’t find clothes to fit him.
  [He's extremely tall; the consequence is that he can't find clothes to fit him.]

• It was so cold that I needed three sweaters and a jacket.
  [The consequence of the cold is that he needed three sweaters.]

• It’s such a big country that it takes the train three days to cross it.
  [The consequence of the extreme distance is that the journey takes a long time.]

So many / so much / so few / so little

We can also use so with many, much, few and little:

• There were so many people in the shopping centre. It was horrible.
• He’s got so much money.
• There are so few teachers in the area that the school has to employ unqualified people.
• I had so little time for lunch that I only managed to finish the soup before I had to leave.

Now try this quick quiz to see how well you can use ‘so’ and ‘such’:

If you found this article helpful, please share it with friends and click the ‘like’ and ‘plus’ buttons below. You can also leave a comment or ask a question. Thanks.

See more: Confusing Words

Related posts:

1. Confusing words: although, though
2. Confusing words: convince and persuade
3. When an adjective—not an adverb—should follow a verb

Both speak and talk suggest that a person is using his voice, or that two or more people are having a conversation.

We can say:

• speak to someone
• talk to someone
• speak to someone about something
• talk to someone about something.

‘Speak’ is more formal

One of the main differences is formality. Speak is a little more formal than talk, and is often used in polite requests:

• Hello, could I speak to David Thompson, please? [formal, on the telephone]
• I’ve got a complaint: I want to speak to the manager. [formal, in a restaurant or shop]

Talk is a little less formal and is more common in spoken English:

• What on earth are you talking about? = ‘you are not making sense’ or ‘you are not being truthful’.
• I was talking to* Tom yesterday. He told me about his new house and job.

* Speak to and talk to are used more often than speak with / talk with (mainly in British English).

When to use ‘speak’

In some idioms and fixed phrases:

• Speak your mind = to say exactly what you are thinking, in a direct way
  Come on, speak your mind! We want to know what you’re thinking.
• Speak up [often on the telephone]
  Could you speak up please? I can’t hear you.
• Generally speaking [when generalising]
  Generally speaking, better quality food costs more.
• Speak about / Speak in public [to address an audience, to make a speech]
  The professor spoke about fair trade in Asia.

If a noun comes after speak, it must be a language. We say:

• speak English NOT talk English
• speak Russian NOT talk Russian
• speak a language NOT talk a language.

When to use ‘talk’

In the following examples, only talk is correct:

• talk sense
  I always listen to him: he talks a lot of sense.
• talk nonsense
  I agreed with you earlier but now you’re talking nonsense.
• talk rubbish
  He’s talking rubbish again. Don’t listen to him!
• talk business [to discuss business things, to negotiate]
  Let’s have some lunch, then we’ll talk business.

! Be careful – sometimes ‘talk’ and ‘speak’ are both wrong:

• tell the truth NOT speak the truth or talk the truth
• tell a lie NOT speak a lie or talk a lie
  
• tell a story NOT speak a story or talk a story.

Now try this quick quiz to see how well you can use ‘speak’ and ‘talk’:

If you found this article helpful, please share it with friends and click the ‘like’ and ‘plus’ buttons below. You can also leave a comment or ask a question. Thanks.

See index: Confusing Words

Related posts:

1. Confusing words: during, for and while
2. Confusing words: although, though
3. Confusing words: travel, a journey, a trip, a voyage

To understand what transitive and intransitive verbs are, it’s first necessary to understand what the object of a verb is.

Take a look at these two simple sentences:

• My mother likes tea.
• My mother laughed.

‘My mother’ is the subject in both sentences. In the first sentence ‘like’ is the verb and ‘tea’ is its object. ’Like’ is therefore a transitive verb, because it has an object.

In the second sentence, the verb is ‘laugh’. It has no object and is therefore an intransitive verb.

So, we have the following definitions:

• a transitive verb has an object
• an intransitive verb has NO object.

Now let’s go into more detail about transitive and intransitive verbs by looking at what can follow them in a sentence.

Transitive verbs (and what follows them)

When a verb is transitive it always has an object. It is incorrect to use a transitive verb without an object.

The object of a transitive verb can be:

1. a noun
Tom sold his house.  /  They drank the beer.

2. a pronoun
He sold it.  /  He kissed her.

3. a clause
He asked his friend to help him.  /  She knows where I live.

Transitive verbs with two objects

Some transitive verbs, such as ‘lend’, ‘give’ and ‘buy’ can have two objects. In the sentence I brought her some wine both ‘her’ and ‘wine’ are objects. Here are three more examples:

• He gave his wife a birthday present. (‘his wife’ and ‘a birthday present’ are the objects)
• They cooked their friends a meal. (‘their friends’ and ‘a meal’ are the objects)
• Mary poured him a glass of wine. (‘him’ and ‘a glass of wine’ are the objects)

Intransitive verbs (and what sometimes follows them)

When a verb is intransitive it never has an object:

• The man appeared.  (intransitive verb = ‘appear’)
• I sneezed.  (intransitive verb = ‘sneeze’)
• My uncle has just died.  (intransitive verb = ‘die’)
• The bomb exploded.  (intransitive verb = ‘explode’)
• The match ended.  (intransitive verb = ‘end’)

However, some intransitive verbs can be followed by a prepositional phrase or an adverb:

• I fell off my bike.  (prepositional phrase = ‘off my bike’)
• The ball rolled away.  (adverb = ‘away’)

A few intransitive verbs must be followed by something (either a prepositional phrase or an adverb). These are often verbs for describing movement:

• The plane spiralled out of control.  NOT only The plane spiralled.
• The rocket hurtled towards the planet.  NOT only The rocket hurtled.
  (Although intransitive, the verbs ‘spiral’ and ‘hurtle’ need to be followed by something. They cannot be used alone.)

! Tip: You can recognise an intransitive verb because it never has a passive form. For example, you’ll see that ‘bite’, which is transitive, can be used passively. The intransitive verb ‘fall’, however, cannot:

• The dog bit me.  (active)
• I was bitten by the dog.  (passive)
• I fell off my bike.  (active)
• The bike was fallen off.  (passive)

There are some transitive verbs which cannot be made passive —the verb ‘afford’, for example—but there are very few of these.

Both transitive AND intransitive

Some verbs have multiple meanings and can be transitive or intransitive, depending on the sense in which they are used. Here are some examples:

• grow (transitive, ‘to produce food’) He grows his own fruit and vegetables.
• grow (intransitive, ‘to increase in size’) My son is growing.

• ring (transitive, ’to call someone’) I rang her yesterday.
• ring (intransitive, ’to sound, make a noise’) The doorbell rang.

Transitive/intransitive verbs in dictionaries

A good Advanced Learner’s English-English dictionary will always tell you whether a verb is transitive or intransitive. You may see them marked [T] and [I].

By understanding what transitive and intransitive verbs are, you will get the most out of your dictionary and become a more versatile speaker with a wider range of vocabulary and improved grammar accuracy.

If you found this article helpful, please share it with friends and colleagues. Thanks!

Related posts:

1. Seven ways to make learning phrasal verbs easier
2. How to learn the right words. It’s all in your dictionary!
3. When an adjective—not an adverb—should follow a verb

Is there a difference in meaning?

No, there isn’t. Although and though have the same meaning and are interchangeable in most cases.

Here are some examples which show us how we can use either word:

• Although/though the sun was shining, it was very cold.
• He disagreed with us, although/though he didn’t tell us.
• The house is lovely, although/though the garden is a bit small.
  

When are ‘although’ and ‘though’ NOT interchangeable?

There are three cases when you can use though but NOT although:

1. at the end of a sentence (used in spoken English):

• He disagreed with us. He didn’t tell us, though.
• The house is lovely. The garden is a bit small, though.

2. with ‘as’  as though (meaning ‘as if’):

• It sounds as though/as if you had a nice holiday.
• He acted as though/as if nothing was wrong.

3. with ‘even’  even though:

• Even though Arsenal played well, they lost the game.
• I took my coat, even though it wasn’t cold.

! Remember that although is a little more formal than though. We often use although in written English and though in spoken English.

! Even though is a stronger form of although.

Got it? Now test yourself with this short exercise:

If you found this article helpful, please share it with friends and click the ‘like’ and ‘plus’ buttons below. You can also leave a comment or ask a question below. Thanks.

See more: Confusing Words

Related posts:

1. Confusing words: convince and persuade
2. Confusing words: travel, a journey, a trip, a voyage
3. Confusing words: during, for and while

In British English the floor of a building at street level is called the ground floor. The floor above it is the first floor and the floor below is called the basement.

In American English, however, the floor at street level is usually called the first floor. Go up one floor and you are on the second floor (which, of course, is the first floor for the British). The floor below street level is called the basement, the same as in British English.

One or two of my American friends tell me that in public buildings in the US it’s also possible to call the street-level floor the ground floor, like in Britain.

Storey, storeys / story, stories

Another important word to consider here is storey. This word describes the level (height) of a building and the total number of its floors. Thus we say that a building has eight storeys, or is an eight-storey building (don’t forget the hyphen there, please!)

From the word ‘storey’ we get single-storey and multi-storey buildings. Just to make it more confusing, storey is often spelled story (plural ‘stories’) in American English.
  
If you found this article helpful, please click the ‘like’ and ‘plus’ buttons below and share it with friends. Thanks!

Related posts:

1. Homophone quiz

I suppose it’s a good time of year to look at these words, as the spring and summer holiday seasons will soon be starting for many people.

Travel

(noun) The noun ‘travel’ is a general word, meaning to move from place to place, usually over long distances.

We can say: travel news, air travel, food and travel, space travel, business travel, a travel agency.

• Air travel is getting more expensive.
• The magazine is a food and travel guide.

We can also say travels, which is a plural noun:

• Where did you go on your travels?
• Jack Kerouac wrote many books about his travels.

‘Travel’ is also a verb:

• I travel 20 km to work every day.

Journey

(noun) A ‘journey’ means moving from one place to another, especially in a vehicle. It is a single piece of travel. A journey can also be a regular thing.

Here is an example. Let’s say we go from London to Leeds then back again. That is two journeys (London to Leeds is the first journey, Leeds to London is the second journey).

We can say: a bus journey, a train journey, the journey to school, my journey to work.

Be careful with the plural: journeys NOT journies.

• How long does your journey to work take?
• Did you have a good journey?
• Did you have a good travel?
  

Trip

(noun) A ‘trip’ describes the whole process of going somewhere and coming back. (It is more than one journey.)

Once again, let’s go from London to Leeds then back again. As I said above, that is two journeys, but it is one trip.

Some examples: a day trip, a round trip, a round-the-world trip, a boat trip and a business trip. We say go on a trip.

• We went on a three-week trip to Scotland.
• He’s gone on a business trip to Germany.
• Let’s go on a trip to the mountains this summer!
• The trip there took three hours. The journey there took three hours.

Voyage

(noun) Voyages are less common nowadays. A ‘voyage’ is a very long trip, usually at sea or in space:

• At the age of twenty-three, Sir Francis Drake made his first voyage to the New World.
• A voyage around the world often took four or five years.

The French Bon voyage! translates into English as Have a good trip! or Have a good journey!

I hope that’s clear. Here’s a quick exercise for you to test your understanding:

If you found this article helpful, please share it with friends and click the ‘like’ and ‘plus’ buttons below. You can also leave a comment or ask a question. Thanks.

See index: Confusing Words

Related posts:

1. Confusing words: during, for and while
2. Confusing words: convince and persuade

A homophone is a word that sounds the same as another word but has a different meaning.

Sometimes the words are spelled the same, such as ‘lie’ (not telling the truth) and ‘lie’ (lie on the bed).

In other cases, the two homophones may be spelled differently, such as ‘nose’ (he has a big nose) and ‘knows’ (he knows the answer).

Now try this quick homophone test. Be careful, some are more difficult than others!

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. I always read comments and try to reply to them all.

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After ‘persuade’ we use the structure
to + infinitive:

• I persuaded them to stay for another drink.
• He persuaded her not to take the job.

After ‘convince’ we cannot use a verb infinitive. We say ‘convince someone that‘:

• She convinced the police that she was telling the truth.
• He convinced her that it was the right thing to do.

Both of the above sentence would also be correct without ‘that’:

Meaning

There can also be a subtle difference in meaning between ‘convince’ and ‘persuade’, as seen here:

Although Robert finally persuaded his girlfriend to move abroad with him, she was not fully convinced that it was the best thing to do.

In the example, Robert’s girlfriend was persuaded (to move) but was not convinced (that it was the correct decision). So, we can see that when we persuade someone to do something it doesn’t always mean that we have also convinced that person.

One more thing is worth mentioning about ‘persuade’ and ‘convince’. If we are absolutely sure about something, we say I’m convinced:

- Are you sure he’s innocent?
- Yes, I’m convinced. NOT I’m persuaded

Some related words:
convincing (adjective)  It was a convincing argument.
persuasive (adjective) Marta can be very persuasive when she wants.
persuasion (noun) He used his powers of persuasion.

If you have any questions about ‘convince’ and ‘persuade’, please leave a comment below. I always read comments and try to reply to them all.

Have you understood everything? Here’s a quick exercise for you to test yourself:

Related posts:

1. Confusing words: during, for and while

• ‘a‘ before words beginning with a consonant
  (‘b’, ‘c’, ‘d’, ‘f’, etc.);
• ‘an‘ before words beginning with a vowel
  (‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’, ‘u’).

So we say: a banana, a pear, a blue sky, a huge house
and:
an orange, an egg, an open window, an interesting film.

But there is a problem here. Based on this rule, we would have to say ‘a hour’ and ‘an one-week holiday. Both, however, would be wrong. It should be ‘an hour’ and ‘a one-week holiday’.

So, it is not enough to look at the first letter of the word. The thing which we have to consider is the pronunciation of that first letter.

A more accurate rule is therefore:

Here are some examples to illustrate this, using letters which can have both a vowel and consonant sound:

• a house (the ‘h’ in ‘house’ is pronounced /h/)
• BUT an hour because the ‘h’ in ‘hour’ is not pronounced

• a happy man (the ‘h’ in ‘happy’ is pronounced /h/)
• BUT an honest man because the ‘h’ in ‘honest’ is not pronounced

• an umbrella (the ‘u’ in ‘umbrella’ is pronounced as a vowel)
• BUT a university because the ‘u’ in ‘university’ is pronounced like a ‘y’

• an office (the ‘o’ in ‘office’ is pronounced /o/)
• BUT a one-way street because the ‘o’ in ‘one’ is pronounced /w/.

Be careful with abbreviations:

• a Member of Parliament
• BUT an MP because the ‘m’ here is pronounced /em/.

Some other examples of abbreviations being preceded by ‘an’:

• an MBA
• an NGO
• an RAF pilot
• an SOS signal.

This is all we have to remember: the use of ‘a’ or ‘an’ is determined by the sound that follows. We don’t need to think about whether the first letter of the next word is a consonant or vowel.

The rule applies to both written and spoken English.

Related posts:

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2. 10 tips for when to use capital letters
3. How to spell words containing ‘ie’ or ‘ei’