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Have you ever thought that English sentences could be represented in a diagram? This video clip shows you how it is done. Basically you begin with a base sentence that consists of a subject and a verb. From here, new words are added to bring new meaning. Watch how the instructor expands a basic sentence using a sentence diagram. It helps in learning relationships of words.

Here’s something on the semicolon, one of the punctuation marks. The semicolon is hardly used by students as they’re probably ignorant of its usage. For this video clip, you need to be familiar with dependent clauses (subordinate clause) and independent clauses (main clause).

In this video clip, a woman Linda Furiya reads to us an excerpt from her book entitled “Bento Box Heartland’ in which she described how her mother struggled to learn English in order to overcome her difficulties communicating with society. She took up classes and passed the English test. Listen…

My international students sometimes ask their teachers whether they should speak a particular English accent. Well, this video clip tells all. Notice how he pronounces the word “ask” – he’s British, yet he pronounces it the American way

When I was teaching at a local international college, we had a vice principal who was so critical of our grammar and punctuation just because he graduated from abroad. Consequently, this was one of the reasons he became our enemy #1. Anyways, one day, he pointed out that we should not use the word “healthy” but “healthful” to describe diet. We argued and said that “healthy” has been acceptable – every one uses it. He retaliated and said how could diet be healthy? He added that only humans or animals can be healthy, so we should say “healthful diet“. Was our vice principal correct?

I referred to the Cambridge dictionary and discovered that he was partially not…

The word “healthy” has various meanings. One of them means “good for your health“. Therefore, it is correct to say:

• You must eat a healthy diet = a diet which is good for your health

The word “healthful” means helping to produce good health. Therefore, it is correct to say:

• You must eat a healthful diet. = a diet that helps you produce good health

Both are adjectives, and both are correct. The ONLY difference is that “healthy” is used in British English, while “healthful” is used in American English. No wonder people give up on learning English