Feeling like you need to revise your grammar?

 This might be a good moment to revise my 'Top Ten Sentence Suggestions' and my "Top Ten Grammar Suggestions" and my "Debating Language" by following linked-in pages to better understanding. 

Ten Top Sentence Suggestions

1.     Write short clear sentences. See this guide on syntax for help.

2.     Learn how to use the full stop/period. See this punctuation guide ! 

3.     Do not over rely on commas. See this guide on commas.

4.     Bring the subject up to the start of the sentence: the dog sat on the mat, not on the mat the dog sat.

5.     Keep a note of your most common spelling errors

Correct Spelling	Incorrect Spelling
Literature	Litterature
Writer	Writter
First of all	Firstable
To lose ( I lost my keys yesterday)	To be loose (my son’s front tooth is loose)

6.     Avoid slang words and keep the tone relatively formal

Formal	Informal
Novel	Book
film	Movie
Man, woman, person	Guy
Child	Kid
Going to	Gonna

7.     Use the correct terms

Correct	Less correct
Novel	Writer, author
Poem	Write, poet
Play, drama	Writer, playwright

8.     Spell check and proof read your work once you have finished!

9.     Use capital letters to open a sentence and always avoid writing ‘i’ instead of ‘I’

10.  Learn your tool words and avoid beginning sentences with ‘But’ and ‘And.’ See the list below:

  

English	French
according to	selon/ d'aprés
actually	en fait
anyway	de toute façon
as long as	aussi longtemps que
at the moment	actuellement
barely	A peine
besides that	en plus, à part ça
by chance	par hasard
by the way	A propos / au fait
First of all	Tout d'abord
From now on	Dorénavant
In case	au cas où
In my opinion	A mon avis
In spite of	en dépit de
nearly	presque
nevertheless	néanmoins
not yet	pas encore
obviously	manifestement
of course	bien sûr
on the one hand/ On the other hand	d'une part/ d’autre part
otherwise	sinon
rather	plutôt
regarding	en ce qui concerne
so far	jusqu'ici
soon	bientôt
such as	comme, tel/telle que
though	bien que
unless	a moins que
hardly	à peine/ presque pas

  

Ten Top Grammar Suggestions

1.     Please (pretty please), remember the third person ‘s’ : Mrs C smiles!

2.     Be clear about the difference between present simple and present continuous and present prefect  and present perfect continuous. See the range of resources available ? There's no excuse not to revise !

Consider why the following dialogue is necessary in English (and maybe not so in French):

Where do you live?

I live in Strasbourg.

How long have you lived in Strasbourg

I have lived in Strasbourg for 10 years/since 2004.

Are you learning a new language?

I am learning German (at the moment).

How long have you been learning German for?

I have been learning German for 5 years/since 2009.

Note: I live in Strasbourg for 5 years and I am living in Strasbourg for 5 years /since 2009 is NOT acceptable.

3.     Know the difference between ‘I used to + root of tense’ and ‘ I am used to + ing’

I used to + root of tense
I am used to + ing

4.     Create a list of phrasal verbs. For example:

Look Up	Look at
Look into	Look down on
Look for	Look up to
Look after	Versus ‘look’ !

5.    Try and understand when to use gerunds vs infinitives (you have to learn these a bit like your list of irregular verbs). Also try using gerunds (+ing verbs) to create opening clauses. For example:

Opening the letter, Carrie looked up smiling

Taking into consideration the complexity of the task, John work well.

6.     Know the difference between countable and uncountable nouns, and the associated quantifiers

Quantifiers	Uncountable noun
3 glasses of	Water
A lot of	Information (never informations)
A piece of	Advice (never informations)

7.     Work on learning to avoid faux amis/ false friends:

8.     Learn the difference between ‘-ed’ and ‘-ing’ adjectives.

I am bored because this class is boring.

9.  Be comfortable with the ‘at, on, in’ preposition pyramid (see next page):

10. be open to regularly trying Online English Grammar quizzes. There are so many of them and it is a great way to test if you are doing okay !

Participating in a Dialogue.

1. Be ready to J agree and disagree L. Learn the following vocabulary. Be ready to debate in 2020/2021 !

Personal Point of View

·                As far as I'm concerned…

·                Speaking for myself…

·                In my opinion…

·                Personally, I think…

·                I'd say that…

·                I'd suggest that…

·                I'd like to point out that…

·                I believe that…

·                What I mean is…

Agreeing with an opinion

·                Of course.

·                You're absolutely right.

·                Yes, I agree.

·                I think so too.

·                That's a good point.

·                Exactly.

·                I'd go along with that.

·                That's true.

·                Neither do I.

·                I agree with you entirely.

·                That's just what I was thinking.

·                I couldn't agree more.  (NOT I am agree BUT I am agreed or I agree)

Disagreeing with an opinion

·                I don't agree with you.

·                That's not entirely true.

·                On the contrary…

·                I'm sorry to disagree with you,

·                Yes, but don't you think…

·                That's not the same thing at all.

·                I'm afraid I have to disagree.

·                I'm not so sure about that.

·                I must take issue with you on that.

·                It's unjustifiable to say that...

Most importantly, though, have a great summer !