I need to know the difference between two phrases “learn by heart” and “learn by rote”. I would be grateful if you could explain it to me. I’m not a native English speaker. Answer To learn by rote is to effectively memorize a series of steps and conditions, with the objective of accomplishing a goal. … Read more
I have been learning English for 10 years at the school, now I am at the last grade, I have passed an exam for B2 Level, but I still have problems with thinking in English. Sometimes my speech is extremely slow, as speaking is remarkably complicated for me. Thus I have the question: “Is it … Read more
Stephen Clarke wrote in A Year In the Merde, 2004 : “Not really, I’m 27. If I was a rock star I’d be dead.” The bloke made apologetic gestures. “No, no. Ah’m not criti-sashing. Ah’m just… admirative.” He had a weird accent. Not quite French. I couldn’t place it[…]. What does I couldn’t place it … Read more
Would it be “cit/ies” or “citie/s”? I’m just starting morphology and I got confused about it. Answer The plural noun cities may be divided into two morphemes: cit(y) – free morpheme (also known as the root word) -ies – bound morpheme (also identified as a suffix) This type of morphological process is inflectional because there … Read more
Actually I was searching title for website ( which is indirectly for me 😉 ), so I’ve come up with word “ardent” (of course by googling) but i’m bit confused about this word “ardent”. Is it positive/negative? Is it suitable to write in resume like things also? What does “ardent learner” actually means? What I … Read more
If you want to say people of the same race, the Romany people for instance, have moved to different parts of the world throughout history, how can we say that in fluent English? I have looked up the verbs scatter and spread, but I can’t decide which one sounds more natural since all examples are … Read more
My friend is implementing an app for Amazon Alexa which currently speaks the indefinite article “an” in noun phrase acronyms which start with the letter ‘U’, for example: (1.) *I found out he was an U.S. president. My idiolect prefers “a” here instead, presumably because my aggregated experience of the “a/an” contrast perceived this as … Read more
I got this question in one of my mock tests for an exam. Click on the image to enlarge She was too startled at first saying something, but finally she blurted out the truth. The website correctly points out that to say must be used in the place of saying. But I feel that something … Read more
So, I preparing for this test and one of the questions is this. The teacher remarked that they all had done it very badly. Why is this sentence structure wrong? I found this question in English learner stackexchange that expands more on the position of the word all in a sentence. Answer (CoGEL 5.16 p. … Read more
Which one is (more) correct? Do they all mean the same? How long will it take FOR dinner be ready? How long will it take TO dinner be ready? When will dinner be ready? When is dinner going to be ready? If you have a better sentence that might substitute mine sentences, feel free to … Read more
