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Posts by ESL Lessons

Future continuous tense

May 9, 2011 - 1:08 pm

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The future continuous tense (also called future progressive tense) is made with will / shall + be + -ing. Affirmative I will be working. They will be working. You will be working. Negative I will not be working. They will not be working. You will not be working. Question Will I be working? Will they [...]

Simple future tense

May 8, 2011 - 12:59 pm

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The simple future tense is made with will / shall + infinitive without to. Affirmative I will come. She will come. Negative I will not come. She will not come. Question Will I come? Will she come? The simple future tense is used to talk about future events which we cannot control. It will be [...]

The past perfect tense

May 7, 2011 - 12:14 pm

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The past perfect tense forms are made with had + past participle. Affirmative I had written a letter. She had written a letter. Negative I had not written a letter. She had not written a letter. Question Had I written a letter? Had she written a letter? Uses The past perfect tense is used to [...]

The past continuous tense

May 6, 2011 - 12:08 pm

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The past continuous tense is made with was / were + -ing. Affirmative: I was working. They were working. Negative I was not working. They were not working. Question Was I working? Were they working? Uses The past continuous tense is used to talk about an action that was going on at some time in [...]

The simple past tense

May 5, 2011 - 12:41 pm

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The simple past tense is used to talk about an action completed in the past. It is commonly used with adverbs or adverb phrases of past time. I saw him yesterday. His father died last year. The meeting began at 10 o’clock. I received his letter a week ago. She left school ten years ago. [...]

Adverb particles # 2

May 4, 2011 - 1:36 pm

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We have seen that the same words can be used as both adverb particles and prepositions. Study the following sentences: I ran down the road. Please sit down. In the expression ‘down the road’, the word down is a preposition: it has an object (the road). In sit down, the word down has no object. [...]

Adverb particles and prepositions

May 3, 2011 - 12:44 pm

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Many English words can be used both as adverb particles and as prepositions. Examples are: on, off, in, up, down, to, from etc. There are, nevertheless, some differences between a particle and a preposition. An adverb particle is closely tied to its verb. A preposition, on the other hand, is tied to the noun or [...]

Subject + transitive verb + object

May 2, 2011 - 12:35 pm

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A transitive verb is one that has an object. The normal order of words in an English sentence is subject + verb + object. Subject Verb Object John likes milk. The principal punished the boy. The monk burned himself. The thief was given a good trashing. The government should ban all militant organizations. The US [...]

Verb patterns

May 1, 2011 - 12:20 pm

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By patterns we mean sentence structures. In this lesson we will first consider some of the basic verb patterns. We have already seen that a sentence consists of two main parts – the subject and the predicate. The subject must contain a noun or pronoun and the predicate must contain a verb. Sometimes the subject [...]

Uses of the indefinite article

April 30, 2011 - 11:56 am

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We can use a/an to talk about one particular person or thing when the listener or reader does not know which one is meant. I met a little girl in the store. (The listener does not know which girl I am talking about.) She lives in a big city. (The listener does not which particular [...]