Some native speakers will tell you that expressions like “a couple things” are perfectly fine, others that “a couple” without “of” cannot be used at all. The truth is somewhere in between. Although we may commonly hear “in a couple of hours” or “I saw a couple of people” in American English (as opposed to […]

In English, we say “The United States is”, not “The United States is”, so it might seem that the correct form in English should be “The United States are”, but this is not the case. The term “United States” was indeed formerly understood as a plural, but during the twentieth century the usage began to […]

Prepositions in English cause a lot of trouble for students because their usage is quite often different from English. Fortunately, the word “Internet” is a pleasant surprise – the preposition is the same as in English, e.g. I didn’t find the article on the Internet. (correct) I didn’t find the article in the Internet. (incorrect) […]

The second degree of monosyllabic adjectives in English is usually formed by adding -er to the end, sometimes with the last consonant doubled, e.g. taller or bigger. Some adjectives are completely irregular, such as better, not gooder. Multi-syllabic adjectives usually form a second degree using the word “more”, e.g. more expensive, more important. This often […]