Tag: language
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Englisch als Lingua Franca (in German)
Englisch ist eine globale Sprache, gesprochen von Millionen von Menschen in verschiedenen Teilen der Welt als Muttersprache und Zweitsprache. Es ist auch die Lingua Franca unserer Zeit geworden, d.h. es dient als Vermittlungssprache in Situationen, wo die Gesprächspartner unterschiedliche Muttersprachen haben und trotzdem kommunizieren möchten.Englisch ist die Amtssprache in ganz vielen Ländern und Territorien, Handels-…
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Language Learning Tricks: Part 3
Let me share one more little trick with you that helped me a lot when I was struggling with a language… Visualise yourself speaking the language fluently. Close your eyes and imagine that you are in a real conversation with someone in the target language. Make it feel and seem as real as possible: imagine…
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Language Learning Tricks: Part 2
Picture credit: https://www.medlink.com/handouts/brain-anatomy Let’s see what works and why. What does neuroscience (the study of the brain) tell us? 1. Spaced Repetition 2. Learning in Context 3. Speaking Out Loud 4. Chunking Information Chunking in linguistic contexts means to group things together into a smaller unit. We do that with words that go together so…
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Language Learning Tricks: Part 1
There are numerous different ways in which people learn languages: I’m sure there are many other ways, but these are probably the best-known ones. Now, whichever way you choose (or it chooses you), there is one thing that will make the learning process faster: immersion. Immersion means that you surround yourself with the language you…
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Time Clauses
We cannot use will in time clauses with when, as soon as, after, before, until. We use a present tense to talk about the future in this case. In the main clause we use a will-future. This is very similar to the First Conditional. e.g.#1: I will call you when I get home. e.g.#2: I’m…
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Mastering English Conditionals: A Comprehensive Guide
Conditionals are an important part of everyday English, we simply need them in a lot of situations. Therefore, let’s take a look at them. Conditional Sentences Clauses with “if” in English can seem complicated because of the rules that apply to the tenses used in each case. We’ll discuss the conditionals in English here. 0.…
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Subject Questions in English
In ‘normal’ questions the subject (Tom, you, they, my mother, etc.) is always present. But what does the subject question look like? What happens when we ask about the subject, that is, ask about WHO/WHAT performs the action? The subject is the missing information here. I. Present Simple and Past Simple Tense Study these examples:…
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Questions in English
The word order changes in questions but other things might also happen. I. The ‘easy’ cases where ONLY the word order changes: 1. Sentences with the verb “be” (am, are, is, was, were) as predicate: only the word order changes, the verb “be” comes first and then comes the subject e.g.#1: She is nice. –…
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Online Language Classes
Online language lessons have a lot of advantages, and they are just as effective as traditional, in-person classes. I’ve grown to genuinely love this type of teaching. Let’s collect some of the upsides, shall we? Advantages Platforms to use There are several platforms one can choose from. I use Skype, which is considered to be…
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What is ‘inversion’ and when to use it?
Inversion: when two expressions switch places in the sentence and thus the ‘normal’ word order changes Inversion here means question word order or verb + subject word order after certain expressions in the sentence. So when does it happen? These are the cases: I. After negative and restrictive expressions: the question word order is…
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