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Text of the page (random words):
ongue i would just like to say how much you blog is helpful because i have everything i need in one place my desire is to keep on learning english until i pass on so i hope you will be writing this blog until then best wishes prodison hetgal reply paul fanning 18 september 2016 at 10 49 thanks for your kind words i am glad to be of service reply sam mathias 8 september 2016 at 11 10 very nice reply adv jafar ahmed sumon 7 august 2016 at 17 09 please kindly explaination about participle and gerund reply paul fanning 8 august 2016 at 09 45 hi thanks for looking at my blog there is actually an existing guinlist post on the difference betrween gerunds and participles 71 gerund and participle uses of ing i suggest you read that and then if there is anything in it that is not clear you are welcome to ask me about it reply ivan major 22 june 2016 at 07 24 even after pcj i find it necessary to visit your blog well done mr paul reply paul fanning 22 june 2016 at 09 56 thanks and greetings to you reply ovubasil 25 march 2016 at 12 17 thanks for these wonderful and insightful posts reply mary langford 18 february 2016 at 21 25 dear paul fanning what a great website congratulations you may be my new best friend i am sure i will be in touch reply alex 10 january 2016 at 17 47 what a great website interesting and informative i stumbled across you while looking for examples of may but for tomorrow s upper intermediate class then ended up just flicking from one page to another instead of preparing anyway thanks reply paul fanning 10 january 2016 at 18 23 glad to be of assistance reply ken 16 december 2015 at 06 44 hi mr fanning i just hope that you would have a second publication i have just read through your post 103 sentences starting with it again after half a year as i mixed that with relative clauses again your explanations are always the best thank you regards ken reply ernest james imelda lumeya 26 october 2015 at 08 47 mr fanning i would like to ask whether is right or not to use the word opportune with ed when i mean i eg i got an opportunity instead i say i was opportuned reply paul fanning 26 october 2015 at 13 46 hi ernest i have not heard the word opportuned before i would usually say had the opportunity to see the post 116 uses of have reply ernest james imelda lumeya 17 may 2015 at 23 09 also i have been hearing from my fellow students saying let we start or let we go when they mean let us start and let us go it is correct to make such kind of sentence reply paul fanning 18 may 2015 at 10 37 hi ernest and thanks for your question in answer you are correct in saying us after let and not we it is an object not a subject of let reply ernest james imelda lumeya 17 may 2015 at 23 05 please mr paul is it correct to say all is good well or all are good when you mean things are okey reply paul fanning 18 may 2015 at 10 40 all is one of those pronouns that can be singular or plural in meaning depending on what it stands for uncountable or countable noun in the expression you are asking about it is singular so it is right if you say all is well reply ernest james imelda lumeya 14 june 2015 at 20 13 thanks mr fanning for ur assistance agbasoa guylain 8 january 2015 at 21 19 thanks mr paul for the input reply ken 21 september 2014 at 10 03 dear sir first of all i would like to thank you for the secrets of english that you have generously disclosed here of course besides this i would also want to pose a question here regarding one of your blogs pronoun errors and hoping that you would disclose more about the secrets it is disclosed that this these as demonstrative pronoun can stand for any part of a previous sentence except the subject and it they repeats the subject of the previous sentence then i wonder whether that as demonstrative pronoun refer to the subject of the previous sentence a newspaper write abc co operation organisation began quietly 13 years ago its sights on security but without a keen sense of purpose and direction that its members were country x y and z was as much a source of strength as weakness is the that refers to abc co operation organisation furthermore it is quite difficult for me to understand the phrase as much a source of strength as weakness regards ken i am a hongkonger or chinese i brought your book in 2012 since i ascertain that what you have discussed are all secrets for example a longman englsih grammar book for intermediate students and a collins one both tell me this these refer to something that is near in space time and that those refer to something that is not near to me this seems too vague although i am no longer a student i would like to challenge again in public exams so as to earn a good grade in english subject and hoping this will help my career reply paul fanning 21 september 2014 at 14 18 hello ken i much appreciate your feedback and interesting questions i agree with you about the unhelpfulness of the textbook explanations of this versus that they are true of some uses of these words but not of all one unrecognised distinction seems to be between formal and informal usage academic writers generally prefer this to refer back to a previous sentence while journalists especially in the more popular newspapers and perhaps the economist often use that instead i do not think english often uses that to refer to the subject of a preceding sentence but i m sure examples of it can be found since even mother tongue english speakers are sometimes unsure about the correct use as for the sentence you ask about that is a conjunction there not a pronoun it is the same kind of that which is used to introduce indirect speech it is commonly used to enable a verb and its subject here its members were to be the subject of another verb here was it is replaceable here by the fact that as much a source of strength as weakness means brings strength in the same quantity as weakness it is an ordinary as as sentence expressing equality between source of strength and source of weakness hope this helps regards reply ken 22 september 2014 at 19 08 thank you so much evariste bisimwa munyali 25 august 2014 at 10 29 dear paul thanks for this blog i still have a long way to go as far as learning english is concerned this blog is just the right place to be especially for me who still find difficulty in the use of certain adverbs and prepositions reply paul fanning 25 august 2014 at 12 01 good to hear from you evariste it is always nice to know when a topic proves helpful to someone reply reza farajian 2 june 2014 at 12 53 dear paul i got a question we have established an international educational institute and named it risalat which in arabic means mission but now a friend argues that it needs the before the name and it should be the risalat international institute while we think it is not needed it is to note that by naming the institute as risalat we do not consider its meaning but as a mere proper name this is very urgent so thank you for your soon reply in advance reply paul fanning 2 june 2014 at 13 45 hi reza and thanks for your interesting question which i ll try to answer as best i can if the name is to be just risalat then the would be incorrect before it however if you also want to include the words international institute then the is an optional addition without it you create a name with it a description for the difference see the post 47 article errors with proper nouns in other words if you say risalat international institute you are giving it a name like oxford university whereas the risalat international institute would perhaps put more focus on the meaning of the individual words however it s a fine distinction most people would see little difference reply sunny miah 4 february 2014 at 15 54 thanks again sir reply vaileth mwailanga 2 april 2014 at 18 22 thanks a lot mr fanning for your explanation reply sunny miah 2 february 2014 at 16 09 dear sir one day i was watching hollywood movies and found a sentence like he s watching tv sitting on the sofa not doning his homework is the sentence grammartically right or wrong if right then the words watching sitting doing which ing belongs gerund which one participle i am looking forward to recieving your explanation reply paul fanning 3 february 2014 at 13 19 thanks again for your interest sunny the sentence you ask about is grammatically correct it has a rather unusual grammar structure though is are ing not ing it tells us that the first action what he is actually doing is unexpected and that the action after not is the expected one a paraphrase might be he is watching tv sitting on the sofa rather than doing his homework all of the ing verbs in the sentence are participles describing he reply sunny miah 29 january 2014 at 11 15 my mom dad went to the merket leaving me alon at home in the above sentence is the word leaving participle or gerund please paul explain it reply paul fanning 29 january 2014 at 15 16 thanks for this good question the word leaving in your example is a participle because a noun described by it can be found my mom and dad subject of the sentence more can be read about this use of participles near the end of a sentence in the post 101 add on participles reply rudovic 27 november 2013 at 12 05 wonderful reply ernest james imelda lumeya 8 december 2013 at 19 40 excuse my teacher and father is it recommended to say for example eat well so that you can be able to work reply paul fanning 9 december 2013 at 14 00 hi ernest and thanks for your question there is one definite grammar error in the sentence you ve asked about but to say whether the sentence is otherwise correct i would need to know what context it was being used in the definite error is the combination of can and be able to these two are found together in some varieties of english e g in east and central africa but not in standard british or american english they mean the same thing so they are felt to be repetitive after so that in a purpose sentence you need can or will see the post using for in purpose sentences if you use can don t say be able to so that you can work but if you use will leave out can so that you will be able to work otika 27 november 2013 at 00 16 hi mr paul fanning i am otika mathew your formaer student at pcj currently i am in italy and my english is not as good as you had improved please if you don t mind i came across an english phrase that i failed to understand the grammar with certainty i am not sure if the limitation was due to a gap in my knowledge or something is actually wrong with the phrase the phrase goes access to the archaeological site is now through the door on the clivus scauri an entirely renovated route through the rooms are currently in use and facilities for the disabled are available my query stems from the verb agreement an entirely renovated route through the rooms are currently is it are or is thank you in advance reply paul fanning 27 november 2013 at 13 51 greetings matthew it s good to hear what you re doing now you re right about are in the words you quote it should indeed be singular is agreeing with the head word in the subject the singular noun route i wish you the best for the future reply otika 27 november 2013 at 16 38 mr paul fanning thank you very much gregjof 23 november 2013 at 18 10 paul i had a discussion with someone recently who wanted to know which of the following was correct arsenal are a good team or arsenal is a good team in my view neither are correct your view reply paul fanning 24 november 2013 at 14 47 thanks for this question gregjof to answer it you first need to establish which meaning of correct is relevant if it is about grammatical accuracy the answer is that both is and are are correct in your sentence this is because arsenal the name of a british football team is a collective noun a singular noun representing a group of people most collective nouns can be used in the singular form with either a singular or plural verb depending on whether you want to emphasise the unity of the group or the plurality of its members this point is discussed in more detail in my post entitled 12 singular and plural verbs on the other hand if by correct you are asking about the truth of the sentence then its correctness is a matter of opinion if like me you support manchester united one of arsenal s bitter rivals then you would question the truth of both of your sentences but supporters of arsenal would probably not question either reply ernest james imelda lumeya 22 november 2013 at 19 53 thank you mr fanning for your material reply paul fanning 22 november 2013 at 20 35 glad to be of help ernest reply melky 5 november 2013 at 18 11 thank you mr paul for the good work you made me appreciate english as a medium of expression reply paul fanning 5 november 2013 at 20 17 thank you melky for your feedback i m glad to have been of assistance reply brian kamau 26 august 2013 at 17 26 hello mr paul thanks i ve got very useful materials on your website i m now at tangaza reply britt 31 july 2013 at 17 34 thank you i could never figure out relative pronouns until i read your article about them grammar is difficult but you make it easier to understand reply paul fanning 31 july 2013 at 19 13 thank you too making grammar easier to understand is what i m trying most to do so it s nice to hear if i sometimes succeed reply emily fernandez 18 june 2013 at 21 42 thanks paul one more there is a leafy area in our playground called the wild garden i am not sure whether i am using capital letters correctly in the following sentence we recently went to the school s wild garden to look for insects many thanks for your help with my queries emily reply paul fanning 19 june 2013 at 18 15 hi again yes capitals are best because wild garden is a name rather than just an ordinary noun expression the confusion results from the fact that the name uses the same words as the ordinary expression that is like calling your cat cat instead of something like tinkerbell you could say wild garden in your sentence without capitals but that would be focussing on what it looks like rather than what it s called reply emily fernandez 17 june 2013 at 23 02 hi paul i was wondering if you could clarify where the apostrophe should go in this sentence he is willing to listen to others ideas have i used it correctly in the above example many thanks emily fernandez reply paul fanning 18 june 2013 at 12 13 hi emily and thanks for your question your apostrophe is in the right place if you mean the ideas of other people the normal rules for possessive apostrophes apply before s for singular and after it for plural i guess the uncertainty is because other is such a tricky word able to be either a pronoun or an adjective for more on which possibility see the post entitled 28 pronoun errors in your sentence it must a pronoun because adjectives don t have s or s and as a result it means other people s the adjective form meaning just further could also be used without chan...