English 4U with Ms. Diane

I know many of you have difficulty with listening comprehesion so I'm sharing a link to my favorite free listeng site with you. (Click the link at the bottom of this post)
It has different levels of listening so it's great for beginners to advanced learners. You'll also find pre-listening exercises like vocabulary practice which helps you better understand what is being said. And the best part is there are comprehension questions after each recording with the ability to check your results. Try it and let me know how you like it.
esl-lab.com
http://www.esl-lab.com/?no_redirect=true

Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab - For English as a Second Language This English listening Web site created by Randall Davis helps ESL/EFL students improve their listening comprehension skills through practice with self-grading quiz pages.

Today I want to discuss some commonly misused words in English. These words may seem to mean the same thing, but they don’t.

Hear vs listen: These two words are used to talk about something we do with our ears, but the difference is in whether we do it intentionally or not.
“Hear” is something we do without trying. We hear things all day long… the air conditioner running, the traffic noises outside, a dog barking… it is unintentional.
“Listen” is something we have to decide to do. We need to focus our attention on the sounds. We listen to the radio, we listen to our teacher in class, we listen to see if the baby is crying or playing.
So, “listening” is intentional, while “hearing” is unintentional, or as involuntary as breathing.

Speak vs Talk: “speak” and “talk” both generally mean to produce words vocally.
We use talk in an informal way to show that we are communicating vocally with another person. In other words, more or less one-on-one. You might “talk on the phone” or tell someone, “I don’t have time to talk right now.” “Let’s talk about this later.” However, it can be used when communicating with a group of friends (informally) “The girls talked all night at the party.”
We use “speak” in a slightly more formal way. For instance, if you want to borrow the car, your mother might tell you to “Speak to your father.” You might be a lecturer, and so you will “Speak to the audience” or as you introduce yourself, you may say; “Today, I will speak about building your business”… and if your voice is soft, someone might ask you to “Speak louder, please.” We also use the word “speak to share information about languages we or someone else can use to communicate…. “I speak English.” or “How many languages do you speak?”

Say vs Tell: Again, these two words seem to mean the same thing, but in fact we use them in different ways. We use “say” (or in the past; said) to talk about the words that someone spoke… randomly. For instance, “I was going to say (meaning talk about) that it’s a nice day.” In the example, the speaker isn’t talking to anyone in particular, just in general to those around her. If someone is talking, but you missed part of the conversation, you might ask: “What did you say?”

We use “tell” (in the past; told) when the speaker is giving information or a command to a person or a group. For example, “Tell your sister to stop shouting” (command) or “I’d like to tell you that you are a great student”. (giving information)

We can also use these two words (said/told) in reported speech, but that is for another day.

Until then, Keep Practicing!

Sometimes it’s helpful to know when NOT to use an article. This is definitely true with the definite article “the”.
So let’s look at a list of when we do not use “the”.... (each instance in brackets (....) shows an incorrect use of the word “the”.)

For people’s names (I study English with the Ms. Diane)

For Languages (I am studying the English)

For sports ( I love to play the tennis)

For Geography, like the names of countries, cities, streets or single mountains... (I live in the Kuwait, in the Salmiya, on the Al Hamad Street.) HOWEVER... Do use it when giving directions with ordinal numbers... (Turn left at the third past the little store.) Another eexception to this is when the county or lake or mountain includes multiple parts like The United States, The Great Lakes, The Swiss Alps.

For the names of lakes. (I went sailing on the Lake Erie.)

For generic places... ( I am going to the home, I am going to the work.)

For general plural nouns... when you are talking about all of a thing (I love the cats.)... which is different that when you are speaking of a specific group... (I love the cats in that shop)... meaning the cats that were in that specific place.

For non countable nouns... again when speaking in general terms ( I drink a lot of the water.) Which is different than when speaking in specific terms (I drink a lot of the water in my refrigerator) meaning only that specific water.

For the names of holidays (I gave my mother some flowers for the Mother’s Day)

Companies and Universities... ( I work at the Microsoft.) (I go to school at the Harvard) UNLESS the university or college name begins with the word University or college (The University of Michigan, The College of Vocational Training)

Please feel free to post your questions or thoughts below. I will answer them as soon as possible. Until then... Keep Practicing!😁

Definite article “the”:

According to Wikipedia, the definite article is used to refer to a particular member of a group or class. It may be something that the speaker has already mentioned or it may be something uniquely specified. The definite article in English, for both singular and plural nouns, is “the”.

But there’s a bit more to it that this simple explanation. It can be pretty long and detailed, but I’m going to simplify it as much as possible in a few posts.

Use “the”:

1. When the noun or subject has already been mentioned previously...
I ate dinner at Sam’s café yesterday. The food was delicious.
2. When the noun or subject is familiar to the speaker and the listener....
Let’s go to the mall today.
3. To define or identify a person or thing....
The man in the blue suit bought my car.
4. To talk about unique people or things...
the sun rises in the east... the Dali Lama is very kind.... the Queen of England has been on the throne for many years.
5. With ordinal numbers and superlatives...
this is the first time I’ve traveled.... that is the biggest mountain in the world.
6. With decades or eras...
I was born in the 20th century; in the 50’s.... Life in the middle ages was very difficult.
7. With groups of people...
the students, the X generation, the Americans...

We’ll talk about more uses of the definite article next time. Until then feel free to comment below and Keep Practicing!

Articles

In American English, we have what we call “Articles”. This isn’t the same kind of “article” as when you read a newspaper article or a magazine article; it’s a type of grammar we use as a sort of “identifier” for a noun.

There are three forms of “article”.
1. “a”
2. “an”
3 “the”

Today, I’ll explain the easiest of the three... the indefinite articles, “a” and “an”.

We use these when we are talking about a singular, non-specific, countable noun or adjective.

We use “a” when the word that follows begins with a consonant SOUND.

So what is a consonant? A consonant is any letter that is not a vowel (is not: a,e,i,o,u).

I specified a consonant SOUND because some words that begin with a vowel, actually SOUND like they begin with a consonant. For example: the word “university”... we can see that the word starts with the letter “u” and we know that this letter is a vowel. BUT how do we pronounce that word? When we say it, it sounds like “Yoo-ni-ver-si-tee”... it SOUNDS like it begins with the letter “y”. So we would say “I visited a university today.”

The second article is the word “an”. It is similar to “a” in that we use it for singular non-count nouns and adjectives BUT only the ones that begin with a VOWEL SOUND. So just like before, we can’t trust our eyes, we must rely on our ears.

The adjective “honest” begins with a consonant (“h”) BUT when we pronounce it, we find that the “h” is silent; leaving us with the sound of “o”... so it sounds like: “on-est”. We would say “She is an honest person.”

The final article: “the” is more complicated, so we’ll look at it on a separate post. Please feel free to post any questions or thoughts.

Until next time, Keep Practicing!

We use “Reported Speech” to share what someone said or asked about (in the past) with someone else (who wasn’t there).

When we report what someone else said or requested, we must change the tense from present to past…
Direct speech Reported Speech (Past tense)

1 Teacher to class: “Take your books home.” The teacher said to take our books home.

2 Brother: “Pick up your socks.” My brother told me to pick up my socks.

3 My coach: “Can you run faster please?” My coach asked me to run faster.

In example # 1, the teacher was talking to the entire class, rather than one person. So in this case, we use the past of “say” (said) PLUS the infinitive (to + base verb)… but we don’t use an object pronoun (because there isn’t one individual being spoken to.)

In example # 2, my brother was talking directly to me. So here, we use the past of “tell” (told) PLUS an object pronoun (me) PLUS the infinitive (to pick). Note: We do NOT say “My brother said to me to pick up my socks.” We don’t follow the word “said” with a pronoun or noun.

In example # 3, my coach was asking me to run faster … (notice the question mark “?” at the end of the sentence?) Here, we need to use the past of “ask” (asked) plus an object pronoun PLUS the infinitive (to run). However, in reported speech, we don’t end the request with a question mark because we are not asking, we’re telling someone else about the past conversation.

Please keep in mind that you can also use a noun to express who was being addressed in direct speech to reported speech.

Neighbor to my father: “Dan, turn down your music.”

Reported speech:

“The neighbor told my father to turn down his music."
“The neighbor told my father to turn down the music.”
“The neighbor told Dan to turn down the (or his) music.”

We'll look at other forms of reported speech later. Until then; Keep Practicing!!

Now that we understand non-count nouns, let’s take a look at other types of nouns.

Two regularly used types of nouns are “common” and “proper” nouns.

Proper nouns refer to specific people, places and things, like Diane, Yale, Alaska, Los Angeles, The Atlantic Ocean, Safeway, and Mr. Obama. Proper nouns are always capitalized no matter where they appear in a sentence. Capitalizing proper nouns shows their contrast from common nouns.

Common nouns refer to general people, places and things, like house, teacher, university, state, town, ocean, supermarket… and many, many more. Common nouns are only capitalized when they are the first word in a sentence.

What questions do you have about common and proper nouns? Post your questions in the comments box and I’ll try to answer you as quickly as I can. Until then… Keep Practicing!

Non-count (or Uncountable) Nouns

Basically non-count nouns are words that represent things that can't be counted as individual units or objects.

These nouns are ALWAYS treated as singular and will take a singular verb.

To help you to understand what kinds of nouns would be uncountable, Please look at the following list:
• liquids (even frozen liquids) like milk, water, ice cream
• powders and grains like salt, dirt, rice
• gasses like air, nitrogen, car exhaust
• natural phenomena like weather, heat, snow
• feelings and emotions like anger jealousy, enthusiasm, happiness
• abstract ideas like motivation, charisma, advice
• mass nouns like luggage, hair, transportation
• states of being like stress, childhood
• religions like Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam

These types of nouns are all uncountable. They NEVER use “a” or “an” and only sometimes use “the” as in “The air we are breathing is very fresh”, meaning only the surrounding air at the time of speaking... as compared to maybe the air that surrounds us in a big city.

They also NEVER take a plural form, so don’t end these words with an “s” or “es”.

What questions do you have about uncountable nouns? Please use the “comments” selection to ask your questions or share your ideas.

Hey!! I just created a FB group for us... Learning English with Ms. Diane and Friends!! Please join and share with your friends. Thank you ❤️

The beautiful new sign for the institute where I work!! Please like and share!