Less and Fewer
The difference between less and fewer is difficult to remember, even for native speakers. Less should be used with uncountable nouns and fewer with countable nouns. e.g There were fewer women at the party than last week. I think you should put less sugar in your coffee. My brother owns less books than I thought [...]
Posted by Aidan under English, Grammar & Common Mistakes | Permalink | No Comments »Common Mistakes With Irregular Verbs
One of the difficult things about learning English is the amount of irregular verbs. Most students learn the common irregular verbs (go, went, gone) but students often make mistakes with some of the other verbs that they don’t realise / don’t remember are irregular. For example I used to hear students often say: My friend [...]
Posted by Aidan under English, Grammar & Common Mistakes | Permalink | No Comments »The Word: Up
Up is a word that can be used in lots of different ways in English. I came across an email that lists some of the different uses of up. It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we [...]
Posted by Aidan under English, Grammar & Common Mistakes | Permalink | No Comments »Atmosphere
Atmosphere is a word that Japanese speakers seem to want to use a lot when they’re speaking English. I often heard students say that they liked something because it had a “comfortable atmosphere.” This is not an expression native speakers would use very often. Certainly you don’t use “atmosphere” when you are talking about a [...]
Posted by Aidan under English, Grammar & Common Mistakes | Permalink | No Comments »Geos Bankruptcy
Before I got a job in Japan, I researched the big English schools. Most of them offered the same pay, but they had different holidays and hours. They also had different reputations. There were lots of teachers who complained about the working conditions at Nova. Of the big English schools, ECC had the best reputation [...]
Posted by Aidan under English, Grammar & Common Mistakes | Permalink | No Comments »