ESL Blogs

Yes, 'no doubt' ('probably') means you assume that something is true or likely to happen - it sounds like 'I suppose', for example, 'No doubt Expector will give us another blog challenge soon.'

If you want to say something is certainly or definitely true, you use 'there is no doubt that'. You can say 'There is no doubt that your English has improved.' 

You can also use 'without (any) doubt' ('absoulately certain') to emphasize that something is true, for example, 'MyEC is without doubt the best En

Hi Guys,

what about to take some funny challenge? Well, let's test our sense of humour and try to make up some cool, hillarious posts! Are you up to it??? I will give you eight words and your (maybe also mine) task will be to use them in your blog:

Here are the words:

1. dead body

2. diaper

3. lost

4. hairy chest

5. sleeping pills

6. dancing

7. lipstick

8. palm (tree)

Please, try to come up with your funny stories, nothing too long, I think 100 words is enough and let´s laugh together and extend our life!

Yes, it's a common mistake to link two independent clauses with a comma. That is called 'comma splice' or 'comma fault'.

You can use a period/full stop, a semicolon, or a comma with a coordinating conjunction to connect two independent clauses:

(comma splice/fault) "I went for a walk, she cooked a meal."

(correct) "I went for a walk. She cooked a meal."

(correct) "I went for a walk; she cooked a meal."

(correct) "I went for a walk, and she cooked a meal."

(correct) "When I went for a walk, she cooked

It is wrong to think that one can write English by mastering a few rules of grammar. Rules of grammar do count, but they are not the whole. Thus, it's possible that one may write English which may be grammatically correct but may not be good English. Perspicuity or lucidity is the first requisite of a good style.

Most learners labour under the misunderstanding that the only English worth writing is the English overloaded with difficult words and phrases. They prefer long and high-sounding words

Not so happy for waking up early in the morning? After reading newspaper are you frustrated? Really at present the all newspapers are so busy to publish negative news. War, corruption, rape, robbery, murder is every pages is newspapers. So you have rights to be unhappy in the morning. How will be happy? May be for whole night there was not available electricity. You have sweated all the night for hot weather. You are so angry from morning. What to do now?  Take a cup of tea and ignore everything

Yes, you say "I don't think it is the case.", rather than "I think it is not the case.",  if you think something is not the case. 

That is, if 'think', 'suppose', 'believe' or 'imagine' is used to introduce a negative idea, you say 'I don't think...', 'I don't suppose...', etc. The usage is called 'transferred negation'. 

You also say 'I don't think so.', 'I don't suppose so.', etc - in a negative 'short answer' structure. 

The word 'hope', on the other hand, is an exception, for example, you say '

"Are you following me?", these words have two faced coin for me. One is dreadful and the other is humorous.

It was late afternoon or I should say early evening, a dusk moment. On my way home after the whole day of work, the normal me will just utter my silent prayer and thank God for His help to consummate the whole day work (because I believe I can never do this alone). My house is just a walking distance from my office, as I turned left at the corner of Aster Clinic opposite of Adnoc Gas Statio

Yes, I mean you should use 'or' (not 'and') after a negative verb, for example, you say "I don't like football or basketball.", not "I don't like football and basketbll." - that is, 'or' means 'and not' here. 

It's not uncommon for a learner to use 'and' in place of 'or' in a situation like that - I know they are trying to say they don't like both of them: both football and basketball. 

It may have something to do with the so-called 'first language interference'. 

However, you could use 'not A, nor

Yes, 'tip' means 'advice'. From now on, I'll try to give you some tips on English usage - every week or every month or whenever I feel like giving such a tip. 

The tips aren't really blog challenges, though you can write a blog on any tip I give you - sure, I'll try to correct you If you write such a blog. 

I hope you'll agree it's a good idea for me to give you such a tip often. You could also consult a dictionary or a native English teacher if you're not sure about any tip. 

The first tip I'll gi

It's important to practice regularly if we want to improve our English skills. Some of us may think it's an easy task, but actually it's a long and gradual process and takes a lot of effort, time and discipline. 

As we practice and make progress, we can observe its benefits. We will feel more comfortable with the English language, and its grammar rules will be less hard than before. 

Therefore, even though "Practice makes perfect" may seem like an old phrase, its message is deep and clear; the mor

It's not so difficult to really learn how to distinguish between it's and its. It's just an issue of paying attention and remember a few pieces of information about "it's" and "its".

Let me tell you first a bit about it's. "It's" is a contraction between the neutral second person singular personal pronoun "it" along with the verb "to be" conjugated in the third person singular (he, she, it - is). You use "it's" when reffering to a sentence subject, that is, you just use "it's" as  a neutral subj

Are you familiar with the personal pronoun it? I hope so. Then, don't confuse it's with its. 

Yes, it's is a shortened form of 'it is' or  'it has' (a contraction), while its is the possesive of it. 

It may not be that easy to use them correctly, though - it's said that even native speakers confuse them. 

The possessive form of a noun has apostrope s ('s) added to it, e.g. Expector's, today's, but the possessive form of it is its (no apostrope).

Let's try to write a short paragraph or build a few se

Yes, I mean 'top members', not 'star members'. Just as you know, it's hard to choose the monthly star members, especially when we're trying to choose someone who's never been chosen as a star member. 

The thing is some of the star members may not have been aware they were star members because they didn't visit MyEC much - they were't really active members and other members didn't think they deserved it. That's to say,  some of the star members are controversial. 

Thankfully, the admin of MyEC has

Yes, the 2016 Rio Olympics are over. The United States and the United Kingdom, both of which speak English, have won the most gold medals. 

The US is almost always at the top of the Olympic medal counts - the Rio Olympics is no exception. To my surprise, the UK is number two on the list, not China or Russia or Germany. 

So, English wins - maybe because both of them speak English. Next time when you answer the question 'Why do you need to learn English?', you could say you want to excel at sport:))

This is on the motivation of Tanya's writing challenge.

This is also in response to Expector's writing challenge, because it pertains the reported as well as direct narration.

LONESOME:

The twilight was in the offing, (it had already started getting dark), when I started driving to the beach.   I moved towards the rock where I was used to sitting.  No, I do not get scared if the darkness even prevail the atmosphere, I rather feel close to the Nature.  That day I was in gloom, (without any reason, a

My friend Anju and I were standing in line to book tickets for a movie. It was getting longer than we expected and Anju was getting annoyed. 

She told me that she would go to the inquiry desk and ask why they hadn't opened the office yet. 

She came back after a while and reported that they told her they would open the office only at 11 o'clock. 

"11 o'clock? That means we have to stand here for another hour!" I said, exasperated. 

Just then, a group of rough looking men came and cut in front of the

Yes, when you want to quote someone's words or thoughts, you can do it in two ways: 'direct speech' (quoting the exact words that were said) or 'reported speech' or 'indirect speech' (without quoting the exact words).

In reported speech, the tenses, pronouns and other words may be different from those in the original sentence, for example:

She said (to me), 'I love you.'

She said that she loved me. 

Right, it can be so challenging for a learner to use a report structure correctly, but the good news

Do you have someone in your life whom you are truly thankful for?  Someone who blends warmth and love like a blanket for your soul?  Sadly sometimes those people we love most do not hear enough of our gratitude.   Well today I have decided to just blurt out some of those nice gooey facts about this person and openly make a declaration of why I am thankful for my hubby! 

 #1 Laughter...his zany sense of humor makes the good times so great and the bad times so much lighter.

#2  Support... We all hav