Knowing your nouns, verbs and adjectives is a key part to learning a new language and especially when taking a timed exam.
Practice your skills with this quick quiz.
Whenever you learn a new word check out if it has an association noun, verb or adjective. For example: to weigh (verb) , a weight (noun) , heavy or light (adjectives)
Know your nouns and verbs.
Tag questions are questions added to a short sentence, usually at the end, to engage the listener, check understanding or confirm that an action has heppened.
Tag questions are very common in natural English and they can also have distinct meaning according to the tone used with the tag, a rising tone and a descending tone can communicate very different meanings from the question asked as you will find out in this podcast.
Common tags include: Won’t you? Wasn’t it? Don’t you? Haven’t you? Wasn’t it? Wouldn’t you? Isn’t it? Isn’t there? etc.
Listen to the tag question examples we use in the podcast.
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It’s so nice to be polite isn’t it? When we ask direct questions, especially to people we do not know very well, we can come across as being too abrupt or even as rude, something we would like to avoid at all costs.
In this podcast we will explain how to easily change direct questions into more polite forms, very useful to avoid any sticky situations.
Polite questions are particularly useful when we need to ask for confidential or sensitive information, where a direct question would probably not elicit an answer, such as, ‘How old are you?’ or ‘How much do you weigh?’ etc.
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Take a look at these questions and find the right tense to fit the context.
You find a simple explanation after each question.
When you have done it once, do it again but QUICKER ! How fast can you go ?
Find the correct tense
When you feel comfortable with the quiz try a podcast to see if you can follow the conversation. In the podcast A Few Days in New York you can hear the speaker using the Simple Past and Present Present abundantly.
How quickly can you answer these questions?
Watch out for the timer at the bottom of the page.
What do you know about adjectives ?
Firstly, in English the adjective is often placed before the noun (It is a serious problem, I have brown eyes etc), but it is placed after the verb to be (The food is terrible here).
Secondly, there are many different endings;
| – able | comfortable |
| – ous | serious |
| – ive | protective |
| – ent (-ant) | confident |
| – ful | careful |
| – less | careless |
| – ic | specific |
Now try the quiz.
Do the quiz several times and try to do it in 2 minutes.
Adjectives(i)
Know your adjectives