my friend who is learning english, asked me to check his grammar test, he told me they only started learning present simple, text is: (Words in CAPITAL should be put in the correct form) However, in my opinion, it does not make sense, only using the present simple Kim’s 19 and she’s a shop assistant. … Read more
I am taking a Mooc on grammar and punctuation on Coursera, and have been asked a question during a lecture: Do these two sentences have similar meaning or different meaning? Julie has studied French for two years. Julie has been studying French for two years. I thought the answer was : different meaning. In the … Read more
So I asked a question that I knew I had asked a long time ago and actually made me think… “Am I the only one whose program went back to how it previously was or not?” The aforementioned quotation was my question and I started thinking if it should be “how it previously had been” … Read more
As the title implies, I am looking for a good, simple, single word antonym of “assume”. Alternatively, if no good antonym exists that satisfies the requirements below, I am also open to suggestions for a synonym of “assume” and its antonym. EDIT: the definition of “assume” here is that of “belief”. The specific context is … Read more
As in: Occasionally, he will spontaneously generate the sentences on his own and sometimes uses, “May I have.” Answer In spoken English, it may be acceptable for this sentence, but in written English. “. . . and sometimes (he will) use . . .” Yes, we can! You can learn additionally about if-clause conditions to … Read more
Your collected Amazon Pay offer for Swiggy would expire by 31-Oct-2018. Please help me understand why ‘would’ is used in the place of ‘will’. Also, can we not use the simple present here that roughly translates to below sentence? Your collected Amazon Pay offer for Swiggy expires by 31-Oct-2018 Answer If the expiration is a … Read more
Both of these sentences feel wrong to me: if I am alone, I will go today if I would be alone, I will go today By looking up some rules, it seems that using would in the protasis is a common mistake, even if there are a few exceptions of the form if I would … Read more
Can one use present continuous to describe tendencies, such as: Oh this word? It’s not being actively used these days anymore. This sounds good to me, but I can’t find a grammar rule to support this. Answer Will people understand that? Yes, but people would generally say or write: Oh, this word? It’s not used … Read more
What is the difference between “It starts at 9pm” and “It is at 9pm” when we speak about future event? Answer Usually, but not always, the second phrase denotes shorter events, “the race is at 9pm” while the first is used for longer ones “the party starts at 9pm”. Otherwise the difference is purely idiomatic. … Read more
I’ve recently heard the following sentences: What is this tell us about the deployment of first self driving cars? What do we learning from this? Both violate standard grammatical rules. But since it was in a speech of a professional reporter from The Economist Radio I guess there is some rule explaining why this is … Read more
