Learn English Grammar and Vocabulary
English Usage
Yes and No in short answers
Nov 18th
Use yes with affirmative sentences and no with negative sentences. ‘Are you coming with us?’ ‘Yes, I am.‘ OR ‘No, I am not.’ (NOT Yes, I am not.) (NOT No, I am.) ‘I have no idea what he is going to do.’ ‘No, I haven’t either.‘ (NOT Yes, I haven’t either.) (NOT No, I have [...]
But as a conjunction and a preposition
Nov 17th
As a conjunction but is used to join two contrasting ideas. John was not there, but his brother was. He is intelligent, but not hard-working. I cannot but admire your courage. (= I cannot help admiring your courage.) But as an adverb As an adverb but means only. We can but wait. (= We can [...]
Used to
May 19th
We use used to to talk about past habits which are now finished. He used to smoke. (= He doesn’t smoke now.) I used to read a lot. When I was a child I used to collect stamps. Note that used to does not have a present form. To talk about present habits, we use [...]