ESL Blogs

Yes, you can use the past progressive/continuous or past simple tense to make a request or suggestion sound more polite, for example, you can say "I was wondering/I wondered if you could comment on my blog", instead of saying "You should try to comment on my blog". 

In addition to 'I was wondering/I wondered', you could use 'I was hoping', 'I was thinking' or 'I thought' instead of 'I hope' or 'I think' to express politeness. That is to say, the past simple or progressive tense can have present o

Certainly, you’ve been a guest once, twice or multiple times in your life to an event, as mankind wants to celebrate almost every memorable moments under the sun, wedding, graduation, feast, birthdays, baptismal, death day… etc. etc. Have you noticed something? Look around you; can you imagine all corners of that venue? How does it look like? Is it well pleasing? Appropriately designed? The ambiance of the area fits the concept of the celebration? For sure it does! Well, the particular event was

There are many ways to say goodbye: bye, see you, catch you later, so long, have a nice day, take care, cheers, and so on. 

It can be so tricky, however, for a doctor, especially for a Chinese doctor,  to say goodbye to a patient. As you know, 'goodbye' in Chinese just sounds like 'see you or see you around'. The thing is nobody really wants to be sick again - in other words, they don't want to see their doctor again, but the doctor and patient may feel like saying something when they are leaving

Welcome to my first ever writing challenge! I’ve been a fan of this activity since the day I became a member of our club as well as joined to countless of its versions. Many members have shown their initiative by coming up different topics to join with and improve our writing skills in a fun and engaging ways. It would be unfair as your video moderator if I’m not going to share a slice of my cake with you.

If my memory serves me right, we had this type of challenge before, but that was ages ago.

Yes, 'managed to do something' means 'succeeded in doing somthing, especially something difficult'. If you say "I managed to write a blog yesterday", you mean you succeeded in writing a blog or were able to write a blog yesterday. 

You can't say "I could write a blog yesterday", though, because  'could' is not used to talk about particular ability in the past (on one occasion).

You can say, however,  "I could eat a whole cake when I was little" - 'could' can be used for general ability in the past

Yes, you can say "English is easy to learn." or "It's easy for us to learn English.", but you don't say "We are easy to learn or learn English."

You can use this structure if the subject of the sentence is also the object of the infinitive. So, you can say "He is easy to please." or "The book is difficult to read."

The adjective 'impossible' can be so tricky too, for example, you don't say "She is impossible to do that" - because 'she' is also the subject of the infinitive 'to do'. 

I hope I've mad

I've recently been working in a consulting room - in the VIP outpatient clinic of a hospital in China. Most of the patients in the VIP clinic are from other countries and can't speak Chinese. Thankfully, most of them speak English and bring a smartphone - that really helps.

Usually, patients have already searched their symptoms on the Internet with their smartphone before they go to see a doctor. That is, they'll go to hospital with in mind all of the relative medical English terms or terminologi

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

Dear friends! I will tell you about these problematic adjectives and how to use them correctly. We use them differently with/as singular and plural nouns. Besides, these adjectives can be used as nouns, both singular and plural.

1. Singular: another and the other.

Another means any other. We use it if there are more than two similar objects.

He is from another city. (There are more than two cities in the world)

My pen is out of ink. Will you give me another, please? (There are a few other pens on th

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

Hi, my dear friends! You all write many emotional blogs and comments here and often use these words, but you often use them incorrectly. So, I will give you some simple explanations so that you will not make such mistakes in the future.

SO is used before an adjective or an adverb:

The day is so nice! (an adjective).

He was listening to me so attentively! (an adverb).

SUCH is used before a noun or an adjective(s) + a noun. If a noun is singular and countable, there must be the article "a" before it.

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