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Grammar: omitting the relative pronoun in adjective clauses

Lesson:

Adjective clauses (a/k/a relative clauses) are one of those topics that start off appearing easy before eventually becoming more and more difficult. The devil is in the details. The basic idea is simple, but the small details make us make mistakes. Take, for instance, the following example:

• John is the sort of person who I would trust with my life.

It's a typical adjective clause, with nothing very special about it. It's the kind of adjective clause that hopefully we can make with no problems. Yet there is something interesting about it. Namely, it's equally correct to write it like this:

• John is the sort of person I would trust with my life.

What's the difference? The 'who'. Note that I've taken it out in my second sentence. In some sentences, it is possible to do this, but not all of them. Look at the following sentences, where the relative pronoun is red where it must stay but blue where it can be removed without a problem:

• Where did I put the newspaper that I was reading?
• The lady who cleans these offices is going on holiday next week.
• The box that holds my books has a hole in it.
• The children who my neighbour looks after are really very noisy.
• I don't enjoy watching movies which make me feel sad.
• The foods that are good for me are never the foods that I enjoy eating.
• I want to spend my life with people who I love and with people who love me.
• Mr. John Sciuk, who used to be my attorney, has just announced his retirement.

Grammar: adjectives and adverbs (answers)

1. The room is awfully crowded.
2. These days, I frequently spend evenings at home, listening to slow music and silently reading old books.
3. I've grown tired of waiting pointlessly for the boss to arrive!
4. You should be extremely cautious if you see a wild animal.
5. I've been working overly carefully to avoid making a serious mistake.
6. Dinner was nauseatingly rich.
   

Grammar: adjectives and adverbs (lesson & exercise)

Lesson:

This quick lesson looks at three different uses of adverbs and compares them to adjectives - a topic that is easy for some students and more difficult for others.

Most, but not all, adjectives can be recognised by the '-ly' suffix at the end. Please note that some words, like 'friendly' and 'homely' are adjectives even though they end with '-ly'. Note, though, that 'friend' and 'home' are not adjectives. An '-ly' adverb is formed by adding '-ly' to an adjective.

For example, 'clear', 'true', 'strange', 'colourful' and 'regular' are all adjectives (that modify nouns), so 'clearly', 'truly', 'strangely', 'colourfully' and 'regularly' are adverbs.

When I say that an adjective modifies a noun, I mean that you can speak of 'clear glass' or say that 'the information is true'. In those examples, 'glass' and 'information' are nouns, and we are using the adjective 'clear' to describe the glass, and the adjective 'true' to say something about 'information'.

Here are a few examples where the adjectives are in red and the nouns they modify are blue:

• I live next door to a Russian family.
• That restaurant is so expensive!
• We just threw out an ugly, old, black-and-white television.
• Crime is a daily event in this city.
• The doors of the house are wooden.

Adverbs, on the other hand, do not modify nouns. Everybody can immediately tell you that they modify verbs, but that's only one thing they do. In brief, they can modify verbs, adjectives or even other adverbs. They can do other things, but that's all we want to look at today. Let's look at a few examples of each of those types, where the adverb is red and the thing it's modifying is in blue:

• He drives too slowly. (modifying a verb)
• The professor at the university spoke eloquently and lucidly. (modifying a verb)
• I've nearly finished the assignment! (modifying a verb)
• The old man stepped very carefully through the bedroom to avoid waking his wife. (modifying a verb)
• The restaurant served disgustingly salty food. (modifying an adjective)
• I think you're completely insane! (modifying an adjective)
• The tank is nearly empty. (modifying an adjective)
• She talks annoyingly loudly. (modifying another adverb)
• Our office operates entirely independently of the main office. (modifying another adverb)
• The train goes unbelievably fast. (modifying another adverb)

One other use of adverbs, to modify whole sentences, is a subject for a different lesson. You can see above how in each case the adverb describes, explains or in some way answers a 'how?' question about the word in blue, whether that is a verb, an adjective or an adverb.

Exercise:

In each of these sentences, choose whether to put '-ly' into the blank (thus making the adjective into an adverb) or to leave it blank (thus keeping it an adjective).

1. The room is awful__ crowded__.
2. These days, I frequent__ spend evenings at home, listening to slow__ music and silent__ reading old__ books.
3. I've grown tired__ of waiting pointless__ for the boss to arrive!
4. You should be extreme__ cautious__ if you see a wild__ animal.
5. I've been working over__ careful__ to avoid making a serious__ mistake.
6. Dinner was nauseating__ rich__.

Grammar: indefinite articles 'a' and 'an' (answers)

1. I'm looking for an orange-coloured sweater.
2. Are you an American citizen?
3. They are sending a UN inspector.
4. We're having a press conference with an ABC reporter, a CBS reporter, an NBC reporter and a FOX reporter.
5. Is there a holiday in February?
6. Was the stegosaurus a carnivore, a herbivore or an omnivore?
7. All of the workers in this factory belong to a union.
8. The word 'mnemonic' starts with an 'm'.
9. It was a useful piece of advice.
10. If you have an hour or two, you should watch this movie.

Grammar: indefinite articles 'a' and 'an' (lesson & exercise)

Lesson:

In learning about articles, there are two main topics: one of them, when to use 'a' and 'the', is infamously difficult. The other one, however, when to use 'a' and 'an', is very simple. Today, let's look at the simple one.

As a fast review (because it's not the topic of this lesson), we use 'a' or 'an' for nouns that are countable, singular and indefinite.

In other words, we don't say '*I smell a smoke', because 'smoke' is uncountable. We don't say '*I saw a computers' because 'computers' is plural. We don't say, for example, '*There are clouds in a sky' because 'sky' tends to be definite.

The important subject today, though, is whether to use 'a' or 'an'. For some reason, we always see the xample here of 'umbrella'. A student quickly learns to say 'I have an umbrella.' instead of '*I have a umbrella.'

Why? The basic answer is that 'umbrella' begins with the letter 'u', and the letter 'u' is a vowel. Because it's a vowel, we must use 'an' instead of 'a' with it. In the English language, the following are vowels: 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u' and sometimes 'y'. Because 'y' at the beginning of a word is almost never a vowel, we can forget about it today.

Okay. So far so easy. The important thing, though, which people often confuse, is that it's not the written spelling which matters but the spoken pronunciation. For example, 'uniform' starts with the same letter as 'umbrella' in writing, but we say it differently. We say 'uniform' like there is a 'y' at the beginning - the beginning of 'uniform' is like 'you'. For this reason, we say 'I have to wear a uniform'. More commonly, a word like 'honest' is written with an 'h', but that 'h' is not pronounced. So we say 'I'm looking for an honest man'. A few more examples, which should be clearer if you say them out loud:

• Poland is a European country.
• The doctor wants me to have an X-ray done.
• It's an honour to meet you.
• Smiling is a universal gesture.

Interestingly, all of this is also true for the definite article too. Although it's always spelt the same, we pronounce it differently. In front of vowels, 'the' sounds like the old English word 'thee'. When we say, for example, 'the English language', we pronounce the first word with a 'long e'. When we say 'the European Union', however, we pronounce 'the' normally.

Exercise:

Fill in the blanks in these sentences with either 'a' or 'an'.

1. I'm looking for _____ orange-coloured sweater.
2. Are you _____ American citizen?
3. They are sending _____ UN inspector.
4. We're having a press conference with _____ ABC reporter, _____ CBS reporter, _____ NBC reporter and _____ FOX reporter.
5. Is there _____ holiday in February?
6. Was the stegosaurus _____ carnivore, _____ herbivore or _____ omnivore?
7. All of the workers in this factory belong to _____ union.
8. The word 'mnemonic' starts with _____ 'm'.
9. It was _____ useful piece of advice.
10. If you have _____ hour or two, you should watch this movie.

Vocabulary: 'way' and 'far' as intensifiers (answers)

1. I'm way too old for this kind of nonsense.
2. She's way more beautiful than I had expected.
3. Have you heard the new professor? She's way intelligent.
4. Look way up into the sky!
5. You're way out of line, miss!

Vocabulary: 'way' and 'far' as intensifiers (lesson & exercise)

Lesson:

You probably know that the word 'way' is a noun; one with many meanings including 'route' and 'method'. You probably also know that 'far' is an adjective meaning 'distant'.

As with so many things in English, though, these words have other, perhaps unexpected, meanings. Their use - mostly informal - takes many ESL students by surprise, but both of them can be said to mean 'much'. In other words, in many places where we can use the word 'much', we may also say 'way' or 'far'.

'Far' is the more accepted of the two. It can replace 'much' in these examples:

• This restaurant is much more expensive than that one.
• The bookcase is much too heavy for us to carry.
• Her condition is much worse than I had predicted.
• She was much happier without you.
• I've heard much too many complaints from people like you.

It could even be argued tnat in the last example 'far too many' is better sounding than 'much too many'.

In each of the above examples, using 'far' is suitable both in formal and informal contexts. Note, however, that all of the examples use either comparatives or 'too'. 'Way' has a broader range of uses, but is rather more informal in tone. In each of the above examples, using 'way' instead of 'much' or 'far' is grammatically possible, and gives the sentences a more conversational (some might say distinctly American) tone.

'Way' also fits into the following:

• The office is way down at the end of the hall.
• Your project is way over budget.
• It's way past your bedtime.
• I'm way annoyed at your behaviour.
• That was way cool! How did you do it?

The last two sentences, where it replaces 'very' are highly informal - almost to the point of being slang.

Lastly, of course, you may be familiar with the expression, 'No way!', meaning primarily either 'I won't do it!' (also in longer structures like 'No way I'm going to kiss her!') or 'I don't believe you', but usable in most situations where a simple 'No!' might be used as a response.

Exercise:

Fit the word 'way' into these sentences in the appropriate place:

1. I'm too old for this kind of nonsense.
2. She's more beautiful than I had expected.
3. Have you heard the new professor? She's intelligent.
4. Look up into the sky!
5. You're out of line, miss!