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  • Gecorrigeerd
    First of all, what a wonderful piece of text! I'm so happy for you that you're at the stage in your development that your tongue wants to dance in English! Studies show that it's very beneficial to practice your speaking, even if it's just to make the English muscles of your tongue stronger, rather than comprehension. It will have a very positive impact on your fluency.

    To take the next step in your writing ability: I have the feeling that you wrote this text by just writing the words inside your head, as if you were speaking them. That's a great activity! It improves your informal English and can help you improve the accuracy of your spoken English. If you want to practice your formal writing skills (for example, if you want to write stories or you want to use English at university or write formal letters) I recommend introducing a structure to your writing. Practice thinking about what you want to say before you start typing and think about what the essential information you want your reader to understand. I also recommend trying to spend as much time reading as you are spending writing. Let me know your level and I can recommend some reading books.

    Grammar exercises that will really improve your work: look up conjunctions and how to use them

    "Sometimes I speak English with people that don't know the language

    I want to write another entry, I don't (1) know why but right now I feel kind of inspired. Sometimes it happens to me(2). For example, the other day I had spent many hours (3) listening to YouTube (4) videos in English, so when my mom called me, I (5) felt the need to speak in English and began to talk to her in English. It was a little weird because she doesn't understand almost anything (6+7) of English (well, just a few isolated words) and some(8) other times I like talking to my friends in English but (9) this is a little better because some of them can understand what I say, but (9) even if the don't understand what I say, they(9) know that I'm just trying to practice so (9)they don't care if they don't know what I'm talking about, (9) they just let me talk, (9)I love them because they are very understanding. "

    (1) There's no glue to hold these two sentences together. They both have a subject and a verb so they don't need to be joined and they must seperate. You can choose to add some glue (words like and, but, also, so, although - aka conjunctions). Or it may feel more natural to put a full stop (a period in US English) and let them be separate.
    (2) This is a very short sentence. In conversation it sounds normal. In written English it puts a lot of emphasis on the sentence. When you read a full stop you have to pause. You've got a pause before and after "sometimes it happens to me" which makes it sound very dramatic!
    (3) What a beautiful example of the past perfect! You used 'had spent' to show that you watched the videos before your mum called you and it makes your work very easy to understand and very sophisticated - well done!
    (4) It's a name so it's got to have capitals
    (5) You don't need a comma here. It's natural to pause there in conversation for emphasis but there's no grammatical reason for it & may be confusing for your reader.
    (6) I disagree with the other teachers, I think it sounds fantastic making the verb negative and the adjective positive. I'm certain that "she doesn't understand anything" is far more common that "she understands nothing". So well done!
    (7) The tricky thing is that we've got a modifier here: almost. If you want to use almost you'll have to use "she understands almost nothing" which sounds very formal and I don't like it very much! Or, what feels more natural to me, would be: "she doesn't understand much" or "she doesn't really understand anything". The important rule is you can't use almost + anything.
    (8) In written English we use words like and (conjunctions) as glue to join two sentences that have similar ideas and fit together easily. But this second sentence is a totally new idea! They don't link together. You were talking about your mum and now we've got a totally new example about your friends! I need some time to get ready for the change so add a full stop (a period) to show me you're giving me a new idea.
    (9) As a reader, I can only breath when you give me a full stop (a period). You've added lots of glue (conjunctions) and lots of commas and you wont let me breathe! Haha! Try to look at this really long sentence and see if you can cut it up so it only has one glue word (conjunction) per sentence. This is the difficult skill that will make you a considerate writer to your reader.
    (10) that is the perfect choice of word! I'm so glad that your friends are understanding and that they support your development!

    I know this is a lot of information. I'm very passionate about helping people improve very quickly - every word counts! If you have any questions about it let me know. It's a fantastic essay and I want to read more!
    0 gestemd
    11 augustus 2019
    1
  • Beantwoord
    You can check the words that fit with "range" according to the oxford collocation dictionary here: http://www.freecollocation.com/search?word=range. Generally speaking, wide + range is the preferred option. In exams it would be marked as an unnatural choice. I'm sure native speakers sometimes use it, they often get away with 'mistakes' non-native speakers are penalised for in exams.
    0 gestemd
    11 augustus 2019
    0
  • Beantwoord
    You can check the words that fit with "range" according to the oxford collocation dictionary here: http://www.freecollocation.com/search?word=range. Generally speaking, wide + range is the preferred option. In exams it would be marked as an unnatural choice. I'm sure native speakers sometimes use it, they often get away with 'mistakes' non-native speakers are penalised for in exams.
    0 gestemd
    11 augustus 2019
    0
  • Beantwoord
    1 or 3. It needs to be active because the subject is the course. Theres very little difference in meaning between 1 & 3 but i think 3 is more commonly used. Will is usually used for predictions, and the present simple is usually used for timetabled events.
    0 gestemd
    26 december 2018
    2
  • Beantwoord
    Ooh great question! Are you doing relative clause practice? The trouble is there's a mistake in the first part! The first part should be: The bird was healed. It wanted to go home to the jungle. So if we change this mistake repeated in your second sentence, then it's correct! "The bird was healed. It wanted to go home, which is in the jungle." or, like Carol has shown, you can make the other part the relative clause "The bird, which was healed, wanted to go its home in the jungle." This is a much more natural way to say it.
    0 gestemd
    11 oktober 2018
    0
  • Gecorrigeerd

    Firstly, what a brilliant essay. This is beautifully written and extremely detailed. You tell the story well and it is easy to understand and follow what you're saying. It is very accurate! I had to look very carefully for mistakes! I love the subject of your essay too (pronunciation is my specialist area) and I agree, it is so hard! If someone doesn't think it's difficult then get them to write down what you say when you say these words: hot, hut, heart, hurt, hat. I bet they find it hard, if not impossible! Let me know if you want to book a lesson for this, it's my favourite thing in the world to teach. I think the best way to learn it is by visualising the shape of the mouth, and then having a bit of a work out to practice (learning to speak a new language is just like teaching your tongue to dance a new dance!)

    You've got a couple of spelling mistakes:

    - subject

    - responded

    - subject

    - practising (practice - noun, practise - verb)

    - immediately

    - English (always needs a capital letter)

    In terms of grammar I found it really hard to find any mistakes! Here's a piece of information I hope is new for you:

    - We usually use "many" and "much" in negative sentences or questions - not in positive sentences. eg. "We haven't got much water, we don't have many eggs" in positive sentences we use "a lot of" or "loads of" (less formal) eg. "We have a lot of water, we have loads of water"

    You've used some amazing vocabulary in this essay and the grammar is highly accurate! I hope I have given you some new information and you can use it to correct your essay yourself. I'd love to see the corrected version if you'd like to leave a comment.


    Best wishes,

    Katherine

    0 gestemd
    10 oktober 2018
    2
  • heeft gereageerd

    Hi Mira! Great question! It's great that you're looking at the language in such great detail!

    You absolutely can use it in the past tense.

    "I spent hours choosing which job to take, I can't believe I got two offers at the same time! I wrote loads of pros and cons lists, but in the end I just went with my gut. The people at Centre of English Studies just seemed like much nicer people!"


    I hope this helps,

    Best wishes,

    Katherine

    0 gestemd
    4 oktober 2018
    0
  • Beantwoord
    You can use all of them! In slightly different ways. If you're looking for a coursebook, Outcomes Upper Intermediate has a good section on vague language like this in unit 15. So so (I usually use this when someone asks me how I'm feeling and I'm not feeling very good. I'll shake my hand and say so so. It means "not bad" or "ok". I usually only use it when I'm not ok but I don't want to say something negative) More or less (usually I use this when replying to other peoples closed questions. "Do I need 500g of pasta?" "Yeah, more or less" and it means approximately. Another great phrase for this is "give or take" Ish (not ich! You can add this to a time to say it's a approximate, for example "I'll meet you at 12.30ish" = about 12.30, but not exact. You can also add it to an adjective like "It's a greyish blue colour" = it's a bit grey and a bit blue
    0 gestemd
    4 oktober 2018
    0
  • Beantwoord
    Ooh! Great question! I love idioms! Don't be wise after the event! <- this is not a phrase Don't make a fuss after the event! <- also no, sorry Don't fuss around after the event! <- nope, sorry! Don't beat a dead horse! <- stop talking about it! Although usually we use it when we want to apologise for continuing to talk about something. Especially in Britain. "I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I still don't understand what happened, could you explain it again?" - Thanks for the history lessons! <- Ooh I love this phrase! It's very rude though. Probably said by a teenager or someone who is passive aggressive. If my brother is telling me all the mistakes I've made I might snap and say "Thanks for the history lesson!" but what I mean is "SHUT UP!" - That's old news! <- I already knew this. For example: Friend 1: Did you hear that Jack broke up with Clara? Friend 2: That's old news! They posted it on Facebook three days ago! But have you heard who Clara is going to ask out? I hope this helps, I completely agree with what Summer's said and it's always good to get more examples! Best wishes, Katherine
    0 gestemd
    4 oktober 2018
    1
  • Beantwoord
    To make passive sentences first you've got to identify your subject and your object. The subject is the person or thing do the activity. In my lessons I usually use coloured markers, I wish I could use colours on the discussion boards! In your first sentence your subject is "He"(him) and your object is letters. You need to start your sentence with the object: The letters Then you need to replace the main verb with be and copy the tense exactly has been writing = has been being Then add the 3rd form of the main verb afterwards has been being written So lets put our sentence together! The letters has been being written. Oh no! There's a mistake! "He" is singular but "letters" is plural so we need to change has to have The letters have been being written. At the end if you want to include the subject you can add "by him" but usually the subject is not very important - that's why we changed it into the passive voice! Can you do the second one on your own using this guide? I'll correct it if it's not right. Let me know if you have a question about this, I look forward to seeing your second sentence rewritten! Best wishes, Katherine
    0 gestemd
    4 oktober 2018
    1