Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to the racecourse from here? There are many ways to ask for directions in English.  The verb ‘to be able to’ is probably the easiest, but is this ambiguous?  Let’s take a look at some options. The verb ‘to be able to’ is an oddity in English, because we just say ‘can’ in the present tense, which is a lot quicker.  For example, ‘I can play the piano’ means the same as ‘I am able to play the piano’, or ‘I have the ability to play the piano’. When it come to questions though, there is a possible ambiguity in using…

When walking under the cliffs, you should always ….…  beware of falling rocks    ?…. watch out for falling people ?…. mind the gap ? This is a important safety announcement!   There are several ways to announce the presence of danger in english.   You will have probably seen or heard the famous warnings on the London underground – MIND THE GAP – which alert you to the danger of the gap between the train and the platform.   It seems that these gaps only exist in Britain, but warning signs exist all over the world.  The verb ‘to mind’, can alert us to the possibility of danger, and is used in the…

We often go down to the beach and command the sea to retreat. Long ago there a king called King Canute.  English legend has it that he was so convinced of his Regal powers that he sat on his throne on the beach at low tide, and told the sea not to rise.   “Back Sea !” he commanded as the sea lapped around his ankles.  The sea continued to rise, and the king’s desperate attempt to rule it by repeating “Back Sea, Back Sea!”, were of course doomed to failure. The legend ends with King Canute drowning at high tide.   In reality he probably gave up before being fully submerged. …

I learnt how to fly yesterday.  Yesterday I learned flying. Which one’s right? It’s great that we have loads of regular verbs in English, because once we know the rules on how to conjugate one regular verb we can conjugate all the others.  e.g. I walk, I walked, I’m walking, etc.  But that would be too easy for the foreigners, which is why the English language also uses irregular verbs.  It keeps people like me in business! By their nature, because irregular verbs are irregular, you will just have to learn the ones you use the most often and get used to their irregularities.  It’s no use me explaining the…

I can’t take your call at the moment, because I’m dancing in the sea It is a common law of the universe that events can only happen in the present moment.  But in speech, we are able to describe them in the past, the present or the future, which is why languages have developed tenses to sort this out!  For the moment (now!) let us have a look at how the present tense can be used. With English there are two main ways to describe things in the present tense.  For example with this picture of two people dancing in the sea. They are dancing in the sea.    (present continuous)They…