what's the difference? I'm studying English tenses, and in this period I'm studying the past. Today I've read about Past perfect and Past perfect continuous, and I don't understand the difference between these two tenses. I perfectly know how to form these verbs, but I need a clarification about the use of them. So, when do you use the first and when the second? This doubt has come into my mind this afternoon when I was thinking at this situation: I woke up and I looked out of the window. I noted that the sun was shining, but the ground was totaly wet. it had been raining all night. now immagine the same little description changing the last sentence with: it had rained all night. I don't understand the difference, please help me =) Fab

Interesting people Today I've knew a new friend! I was looking for a native speaker when I saw this English guy on the chat of a famous language exchange site. Reading on his description I thought that he was the perfect people with which to learn! I didn't know why, which characteristics or common interests suggested me to chose him. However I've told with him, and I think that he was very amusing! He told me about his life, hobbies and so on and I've done the same (it should be better to say I've tried to do the same ahah). So I've learnt that we have a lot of similarities and this made me happy because probably it can help each other to improve. This is a double exercise =) I'm trying to describe something that it's happened to me today and at the same time I'm trying to write using past tense! Waiting for your evalutation and correction, Goodnight to everyone, Fab

my friends, please, give me some advice ;) I belive that one of my major problems is my tiny vocabulary! It's frustrating sometimes to know perfecty what I want to say and realize that I don't know the words that I need. So I've to use turns of phrases, periphrases, or the longest descriptions to say the simplest concepts! now, all this, to ask you: Have you some advice, some tips, to enlarge rapidly the vocabulary? I've tried with TV series, but there are so many words that I don't know then i've to stop it continusly... Sure that you can help me =) Fab

Some thoughts before going to sleep This have been a very hard week. Wednesday I started a German course with 2 weeks of delay compared to the other students! In around 10 minutes my teacher gave me a little summary about all the vocabulary, grammatical rules and pronounce tips and... asked me to introduce myself! Naturally it's been a total failure, but in these 3 days I've studied a lot to close the gap to the others. Apart from that I've also studied some English! I improved a little my vocabulary and today I've red a little about Nouns (rules to form plurals, ecc) and Adjectives! During the next days i'll show you some exercises, hoping in your help =) Bye for now and goodnight, Fab

Exercises About Articles complete these sentences with a/an when it's necessary 1- Patrick is a Catholic but his wife is a Protestant 2 - You mustn't use a pen or a pencil on a disk 3 - She works as a nurse in a hospital in central London 4 - A giraffe has got a long neck and a small ears 5 - What's a nice box of chocolates! and what's niceflowers 6 - it's quite an interesting book 7 - We've walked three quarterof an hour 8 - It's a play of Oscar Wilde, a famous playwright 9 - I don't feel very well. I've got a cold, or maybe a flu 10 - He doesn't smoke cigars. He smokes a pipe Complete with The when it's necessary 11 - A cat is running after a mouse. The mouse is now going into a hole, and the cat can't catch it 12 - Mary, are the children in the bathroom? 13 - Do you take milk in your tea? 14 - Can you pass me the salt, please? 15 - Can you play the violin? 16 - Have you ever seen the pope? 17 - They come here by car 18 - look at the sky! it's so blue 19 - There were policemen everywhere 20 - Ben Nevis, the highest pick in Great Britain, is in the Highlands of Scotland 21 - Have you ever been to Lock Ness? 22 - Paris in the capital city of France 23 - The severn is the longest river in the U.K., but the most famous is the Thames. 24 - English Plain is in the south 25 - There are some hills in England, which are called The Downs 26 - it's raini on the western coast 27 - The gulf stream is a warm current flowing in the Atlantic Ocean

some grammatical doubts Reading on my grammar book i've learnt that with beverages like water,wine, ecc i mustn't use the article "the". Ex: L'acqua del mare... Sea Water... But if i want to say: L'acqua è fredda! How can i write it down? The water is cold; or: Water is cold? The second doubt is related to some words that never want the article if the subject of the sentence is using this places for their main function. for example: (bed, church, work, ecc) Now, my question is: If i want write: Luisa lavora come infermiera all'ospedale which of theese is the correct form? Luisa is a nurse in the hospital Luisa is a nurse in hospital

articles: a/an In Italian we say: Marco è Inglese. when i was talking in English I have to say: marco is English. or: Marco is an English. Can you tell me if there is a rule or some rules to undertand when the articole is needed? another question is: when can i use "one" instead "a"? for instance: One night marco was talking about... A night Marco was talking about... is there a difference between this 2 sentences? Bye all, Fab

Kind of "something" in a lot of situations i've heard this expression: a kinf of weird; kind of hard; ecc can someone tell me about its meaning and about the most common word that i can put after "a kind of"?

LabMeeting Hi there in this period i'm working on my thesis project in a laboratory. every week people that are working there organise a seminar to make the point regarding their data, conclusions, and so on. in this events i have to listen very carefully to understand all the informations, and now is so difficult for me to follow the discussion. however my problems are: A - the vocabulary: a lot of times i don't understand because in a single sentence there are different words that i don't know or that i don't recognise; B - i have to be partecipatory and ask questions or talk with the others aroud critics, probles or new ideas. the problem is that if i lost a part of the information, how can i make questions that have sense, or at least don't seems stupid? it's just a remark aroud my problem, but if you have some advice principally related to a good method to improve my lessic, fluency and listening, it's welcome! if you can also suggest me a little group of phrasal verbs that's very common or useful this can is a very important help for me ;) i hope that this thought is at least understandable, sorry for the mistakes, and bye for now ;)