Joanne Reilly 
English Academy
 

As well as using in, on or at to talk about location (see below for my earlier posts) we can add  'of'' for some more advanced language!...

How much ice-cream would you like? How many scoops of ice-cream would you like? We use much when we cannot count the amount of something....

We use the words this, that, these and those to indicate, to point to, or to refer to things that are usually in our immediate...

Surely they both mean the same thing don't they? Does the apostrophe really matter? Its Shows ownership of something and is used when...

Both are great words to use to show you are asking a question, but we need to be careful with the structure of that question. What does...

The past perfect is used to talk about events that took place in the past, but it is different to the past simple. The past simple is...

Is Granny sitting by the fire or beside the fire? She is actually doing both since in many cases by and beside can be used...

We know the rule, if a word starts with a vowel: a. e, i, o or u we use an in front of it. If a word starts with a consonant, not a...

This blog post looks at when we use the present perfect (I have done) or the past simple (I did). It is raining and I cannot find my...

In the previous blog post we looked at how at, in or on are used to talk about different time elements. This blog post looks at these...

Sometimes the smallest words in the English language are the most difficult to use. This is especially true when we think about at, on or...

The Red Lion Why do we call it 'the' Red Lion when only the name 'Red Lion' is written on the sign? That's because all hotels, pubs and...

I'm sure at least ten times a day during the height of the pandemic. Did you ever wonder why it was always called 'the' World Health...

Well known buildings and works of art all require us to use 'the' in front of their names: the Empire State Building the Mona Lisa the...

Have you ever noticed that all newspaper names start with the? The Washington Post The New York Times The Sunday Times The Guardian The...

How do I know which geographical features should have 'the' in front of them and which should not? Mountain ranges all start with 'the',...

Have you ever noticed how we refer to some countries as 'the [country name]' and others just as 'country name'? How do you know when to...

When asks a question that is looking for a defined time in the past. Q: When did it start raining? A: It started raining at 10 o'clock...

In other words, the present perfect continuous vs the present perfect simple. We use I have been doing when we are talking about an...

These two phrases sound very similar, but unfortunately they cannot be used interchangeably since they have different meanings. Let's...