This Week's Lessons

Guess which words fit in the blanks to complete each key sentence. Answers are at the bottom!

1. Do you know a phrase that means "something like that"?
“I was thinking a shark or something ___ those ___.”

2. What do you say when you accidentally make a pun (a joke using two words that sound alike but have different meanings)?
“I'm on a roll! No pun ___.”

3. This word means to talk about a topic that needs to be discussed:
“Have you guys ___ exponents yet?”

4. This is a way of saying that there's too much information:

The 5 levels of incorrect English

What does it mean to say that something is "wrong" in English? Sometimes readers ask me things like "Is this sentence correct?" and I have trouble answering directly. That's because there are actually several different meanings of the words "correct" or "incorrect", "right" or "wrong".
Here are some of the different categories of "incorrect" English that I've found:

Level 1: Unintelligible English

Something that people just can't understand is "unintelligible".
Here's an example of unintelligible English:

This Week's Lessons

Guess which words fit in the blanks to complete each key sentence. Answers are at the bottom!

1. Say this when someone is upset and you want them to calm down:
“___, ___. No need to get all melodramatic.”

2. A person who gets annoyed and complains a lot is called...
“Gosh, I feel like I'm turning into a ___ old man.”

3. What do you call someone who's really helpful and does a good job?
“She's a tremendous ___ to the team, and we're lucky to have her.”

Quiz Questions from this week's lessons

1. This means to correctly predict something:
“You totally ___ it!”

2. What's a phrase which means to carefully check the details of something?
“We need to ___ an ___-___ look at our process to determine how this managed to happen.”

3. Use this phrase to describe something which you tried or invested in, and is now giving you some benefit:
“We're seeing our retail marketing efforts really ___ ___.”

4. Your flight was cancelled and you aren't able to get home today. There's nothing that you can do about it, so you say:

Hello Tomeng guests and members:

As my first order of business I want to express my sincere best wishes to you all in the new year, 2012. As always it will take me about a month to realize that I'm really into year 2012. I usually write 2011 (the previous year) on all my bank checks and bills, not really believing that it is indeed 2012. The bank always forgives me. I'm grateful for that.

Secondly, I hope to be able to offer you some new insights to improving your English skills. So, here is my first suggestion for 2012:

Quiz Questions from this week's lessons

1. This describes someone who says something really convincing:
“She makes a ___ argument.”

2. You hear this when you get on the subway:
“___ ___ ___ the closing doors please.”

3. What phrase can you use to talk about changes in a country, a business, etc.?
“Just as you started to think we were finally ___ ___ an economic recovery, unemployment goes up again.”

4. When you end a phone call, you "hang up" the phone. But this means to hang up while the other person is still talking:
“You hung up ___ me!”

Quiz Questions from this week's lessons

1. Do you remember one word that means "a little fat" and a word that means "thin and muscular"?
“My mom is ___ like me, but my dad is tall and ___.”

2. This phrase is for a person who you test something on:
“Would you mind being my ___ ___?”

3. Do you know a word that goes with "career" and means "try to get" or "try to start"?
“I came this close to packing up and moving out to Hollywood to ___ an acting career.”

4. This is how doctors talk about surgery that isn't very dangerous or difficult:
“It's a ___ ___.”

Quiz Questions from this week's lessons

1. A word that means "many" but more formal:
“She is also the recipient of ___ awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction.”

2. This is a phrase for talking about something that you don't think is true:
“I ___ it ___ ___ ___ that you're really going to need all that luggage for just 3 days.”

3. What noise do people make when they see something cute?
“___, look at the baby holding her stuffed bunny!”

4. This phrase means to hope for something that probably isn't going to happen:

Quiz Questions from this week's phrases

1. This is a word that makes a description sound more negative:
“No thanks. Sunscreen makes my skin feel ___ oily.”
2.This means to continue to work hard on something for a long time:
“You have to keep ___ ___, you know?”
3. A word that means to start burning:
“You can hear the gas coming out when you turn the knob, but it doesn't ___.”
4. When you want someone to tell you something, use this polite expression:
“Skim over it and ___ ___ ___ if you have any questions.”
5. An way to describe something that gr

Minimal Pairs /b/ and /p/

buy and pie

Below are lists of words that vary only by one having the sound /b/ and the other the sound /p/. You can use this to practise the sounds or as a list of words to be careful to pronounce properly.

The main difference between /b/ and /p/ is that /b/ is a voiced sound, whereas /p/ is just produced by the puff of air. Also, /b/ is pronounced with less air released than /p/, and this can sometimes be a more useful distinction as it is difficult to feel the vocal cords vibrating when making the /b/ sound.

Elementary
B P
bar Pa
bay* pay
be P