How do you pronounce a number of English words that end in -age like village, mirage, camouflage, page, assuage etc? A number of words in English end in -age such as village, mortgage, courage, luggage, baggage, assuage, manage, garage, mirage, Read more…
Collocation, in the English language, is a natural combination of words that are usually found and used together. Some examples are “superior to”, “debate on”, “go on foot”, “diagnosed with”, and “prefer to” etc. Your ability to speak and write in Read more…
Polygamy is a general term for the practice of having many partners. Itās a common misconception that polygamy means one man married to multiple wives. The real term for that arrangement is polygyny, which is the practice or condition of having Read more…
Some words in English look very alike, except for a letter added to either of them or that makes a difference in the middle position. These words carry different meanings. Some of such pair of words are ‘artiste’ and ‘artist’, Read more…
In my last English class, while talking about Hilda Baci’s success as the longest cooking marathon holder, I told my students that ‘chef’ is pronounced almost exactly as ‘shelf’, except that the ‘l’ in ‘shelf’ is not pronounced. Try it. Read more…
The English language can sometimes be tricky, especially when it comes to choosing the correct verb forms. Two such verb forms that often cause confusion are “were” and “was.” These past tense forms of the verb “to be” may seem Read more…
Today, we’re going to dive into the fascinating world of trafficāthe bane of our existence and a constant companion (especially for people who live in Lagos) on our roads. Traffic is a word we use every day, but do we Read more…
In English, there are some fixed expressions that are followed by ‘to’ and verbs in their present participle (that is, verbs like going, reading, singing, cooking, helping, having, being, etc) instead of to-infinitive such as to go, to read, to Read more…
Other things being equal, if you look in a mirror, you’re going to see yourself–your reflection. That’s the idea about reflexive pronouns. Reflexive pronouns end in -self or -selves depending on whether theyāre singular (-self) or plural (-selves). Reflexive pronouns are myself, yourself, himself, Read more…
If it is easy to say rapport /rƦ’pÉĖr/ without the ‘t’ sounding, then you can pronounce words like depot /Ėdep.ÉŹ/ and debut /ĖdeÉŖ.bju/. Pronounce depot just like ghetto, and debut like fable – except that the second syllable in debut sounds Read more…
