Used to

Used to do

We use 'used to' for something that happened regularly in the past but no longer happens.

•I used to smoke a packet a day but I stopped two years ago.
•Ben used to travel a lot in his job but now, since his promotion, he doesn't.
•I used to drive to work but now I take the bus.
We also use it for something that was true but no longer is.

•There used to be a cinema in the town but now there isn't.
•She used to have really long hair but she's had it all cut off.
•I didn't use to like him but now I do.

'Used to do' is different from 'to be used to doing' and 'to get used to doing'

to be used to doing

We use 'to be used to doing' to say that something is normal, not unusual.

•I'm used to living on my own. I've done it for quite a long time.
•Hans has lived in England for over a year so he is used to driving on the left now.
•They've always lived in hot countries so they aren't used to the cold weather here.

to get used to doing

We use 'to get used to doing' to talk about the process of something becoming normal for us.

•I didn't understand the accent when I first moved here but I quickly got used to it.
•She has started working nights and is still getting used to sleeping during the day.
•I have always lived in the country but now I'm beginning to get used to living in the city.

Five Speaking Rules you need to know!

1. Don't study grammar
This rule might sound strange to many ESL students, but it is one of the most important rules. If you want to pass examinations, then study grammar. However, if you want to become fluent in English, then you should try to learn English without studying the grammar.

Studying grammar will only slow you down and confuse you. You will think about the rules when creating sentences instead of naturally saying a sentence like a native. Remember that only a small fraction of English speakers know more than 20% of all the grammar rules. Many ESL students know more grammar than native speakers. I can confidently say this with experience. I am a native English speaker, majored in English Literature, and have been teaching English for more than 10 years. However, many of my students know more details about English grammar than I do. I can easily look up the definition and apply it, but I don't know it off the top of my head.

I often ask my native English friends some grammar questions, and only a few of them know the correct answer. However, they are fluent in English and can read, speak, listen, and communicate effectively.

2. Learn and study phrases
Many students learn vocabulary and try to put many words together to create a proper sentence. It amazes me how many words some of my students know, but they cannot create a proper sentence. The reason is because they didn't study phrases. When children learn a language, they learn both words and phrases together. Likewise, you need to study and learn phrases.

If you know 1000 words, you might not be able to say one correct sentence. But if you know 1 phrase, you can make hundreds of correct sentences. If you know 100 phrases, you will be surprised at how many correct sentences you will be able to say. Finally, when you know only a 1000 phrases, you will be almost a fluent English speaker.

So don't spend hours and hours learning many different words. Use that time to study phrases instead and you will be closer to English fluency.

Don't translate

When you want to create an English sentence, do not translate the words from your Mother tongue. The order of words is probably completely different and you will be both slow and incorrect by doing this. Instead, learn phrases and sentences so you don't have to think about the words you are saying. It should be automatic.

Another problem with translating is that you will be trying to incorporate grammar rules that you have learned. Translating and thinking about the grammar to create English sentences is incorrect and should be avoided.

3. Reading and Listening is NOT enough. Practice Speaking what you hear!
Reading, listening, and speaking are the most important aspects of any language. The same is true for English. However, speaking is the only requirement to be fluent. It is normal for babies and children to learn speaking first, become fluent, then start reading, then writing. So the natural order is listening, speaking, reading, then writing.

First Problem
Isn't it strange that schools across the world teach reading first, then writing, then listening, and finally speaking? Although it is different, the main reason is because when you learn a second language, you need to read material to understand and learn it. So even though the natural order is listening, speaking, reading, then writing, the order for ESL students is reading, listening, speaking, then writing.

Second Problem
The reason many people can read and listen is because that's all they practice. But in order to speak English fluently, you need to practice speaking. Don't stop at the listening portion, and when you study, don't just listen. Speak out loud the material you are listening to and practice what you hear. Practice speaking out loud until your mouth and brain can do it without any effort. By doing so, you will be able to speak English fluently.


4. Submerge yourself
Being able to speak a language is not related to how smart you are. Anyone can learn how to speak any language. This is a proven fact by everyone in the world. Everyone can speak at least one language. Whether you are intelligent, or lacking some brain power, you are able to speak one language.

This was achieved by being around that language at all times. In your country, you hear and speak your language constantly. You will notice that many people who are good English speakers are the ones who studied in an English speaking school. They can speak English not because they went to an English speaking school, but because they had an environment where they can be around English speaking people constantly.

There are also some people who study abroad and learn very little. That is because they went to an English speaking school, but found friends from their own country and didn't practice English.

You don't have to go anywhere to become a fluent English speaker. You only need to surround yourself with English. You can do this by making rules with your existing friends that you will only speak English. You can also carry around an iPod and constantly listen to English sentences. As you can see, you can achieve results by changing what your surroundings are. Submerge yourself in English and you will learn several times faster.


5. Study correct material
A common phrase that is incorrect is, "Practice makes perfect." This is far from the truth. Practice only makes what you are practicing permanent. If you practice the incorrect sentence, you will have perfected saying the sentence incorrectly. Therefore, it is important that you study material that is commonly used by most people.

Another problem I see is that many students study the news. However, the language they speak is more formal and the content they use is more political and not used in regular life. It is important to understand what they are saying, but this is more of an advanced lesson that should be studied after learning the fundamental basics of English.

Studying English with a friend who is not a native English speaker is both good and bad. You should be aware of the pro's and con's of speaking with a non native speaking friend. Practicing with a non native person will give you practice. You can also motivate each other and point out basic mistakes. But you might pick up bad habits from one another if you are not sure about what are correct and incorrect sentences. So use these practice times as a time period to practice the correct material you studied. Not to learn how to say a sentence.

In short, study English material that you can trust, that is commonly used, and that is correct.

Say or Tell?

Say and tell have similar meanings. They both mean to communicate verbally with someone. But we often use them differently.

The simple way to think of say and tell is:

* You say something
* You tell someone something

More Examples:
You say something
You tell someone something
Ram said that he was tired.
Ram told Jane that he was tired.
Anthony says you have a new job.
Anthony tells me you have a new job.
Tara said: "I love you."
Tara told John that she loved him.

But, of course, it is not always so easy. Here are a few rules to help you.

Personal object
We usually follow tell with a personal object (the person that we are speaking to). We usually use say without a personal object:

* She told me that she loved John.
* She said that she loved John.
* He told everybody that he had to leave.
* He said that he had to leave.

Say "to someone"
With say, we sometimes use "to someone":

* He said to me that he was tired.
* Tara said to Ram that he had done very well.
* Anthony said to her, "I hope you come soon."
* "I'd like to sleep," she said to him quietly.

Direct speech
We can use say with direct speech. We use tell only with direct speech that is an instruction or information:

* Amanda said, "Hello John. How are you?"
* "That's great'" she said.
* He told her: "Open the door quietly."
* She told me, "I have never been to England."

We can use say with direct questions, but we cannot use tell:

* She said: "Do you love me?"
* The policeman said to the prisoner, "Where were you at 8pm?"

Reported speech
We can use say and tell to talk about reported information:

* She said that it was raining.
* She told me that she would call at 2pm.

We cannot use say or tell to talk about reported questions. We must use ask (or a similar verb):

* She asked if I had ever been there.
* They asked what I wanted to eat.
* She asked where he lived.
* He asked if she wanted to go home.

Orders, advice
We use tell + object + infinitive for orders or advice:

* She told him to sit down.
* They told me not to wait.
* Tell Neil to have a holiday and forget her.

Phrases
Here are a few fixed phrases with tell. We cannot use say with these phrases:

* tell (someone) a story
* tell (someone) a lie
* tell (someone) the truth
* tell the future (= to know what the future will bring)
* tell the time (= know how to read a clock)

Right and wrong
Read these examples of correct and incorrect usage:

Causative Verbs

When a subject does not do a work himself/herself, and takes the help of some other person or force that person to do that work, then we need to form a sentence with the help of a causative verb.

1. GET
Use get according to tense, B. Place object after the causative verb, C. Main verb always in 3rd form::

CV + Object + V 3rd (main verb).

1. I have got the sums solved.
2. She will get the letter written by Ravi.
3. Are you getting your house pained?

2. MAKE
Use make according to tense, 2. Object is the person who is compelled, 3. Main verb always in first form::

CV + Object + V 1st form (main verb)

1. He made me laugh.
2. She made the children clean the room.
3. Who is making her cry?
4. Please don't make him tell a lie.

3. HELP
Use help according to tense, 2. Object is the person who is helped, 3. Main verb always in first form::

CV + Object + V 1st form (main verb).
(In these sentences a person is helped to do a certain things).

1. Help the guests wash their hands.
2. She helped the children do the work.

4. HAVE

(Same as get in use and meaning)

1. I have had the sums solved.
2. He will have the letter written by Merry.
3. They had the tiger killed by the hunter.

5. KEEP

CV + Object (person) + V 1st form + ing.
There is generally a period of time in these sentences.

1. They kept her washing the clothes for 2 hours. (They compelled her to wash the clothes for 2 hours)
2. Did you kept him waiting for one hour?

6. CAUSE

CV + Object (person) + V 1st form.
Instead of a person there are circumstances, things etc. which compel a person to do a certain thing.

1. Fatigue caused him to sleep. (Due to fatigue he slept)
2. Does poverty cause people to commit crime?

Children (by Kahlil Gibran)

"Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable."

What's a parable?

A parable is a short story that illustrates a religious, spiritual or ethical situation.

These types of stories are excellent to learn from, often simplifying a complex situation and allowing you to learn the concept via a simple story.

Some important rules every writer should know

1. Agreement – Agreement in a sentence refers to all of the parts of the sentence corroborating with each other. For example, you wouldn’t say “John have two pieces of toast and I has three.” You would instead say, “John has two pieces of toast and I have three.” The subjects and verbs need to be in agreement. Without sentence agreement you have all-out civil war in your sentence and no one knows what is going on. If your sentence parts don’t agree with each other you will have to jump in and mediate, causing hard feelings all around.

2. Tense – Tense refers to time. What time is it in your sentence? Whatever time it is it should remain consistent throughout your whole piece of writing. If it was last week you are talking about, stay there. There are three tenses in writing, past tense, present tense and future tense. Here is an example of writing with mixed tenses: “Carrie wondered how she is going to finish in time, but Joe will help her.” This sentence contains all three tenses, past in “wondered”, present in “is” and future in “will”. Pick a tense and stick to it! The sentence could read “Carry wonders how she will finish in time, but Joe will help.”

3. Spelling – One of the most important things, and without it, you can kiss your credibility goodbye. Spell checkers are poor substitutes for knowing how to spell and can leave behind more errors than you realize. There are many different forms of words and your spell checker does not know which form you wanted to use. For example, “When Mark washed they’re care, he forgot too putt on the wax.”

4. Run-On Sentences – A run-on sentence is one that is just too darned long! Not only is it too long, it is incorrect. Usually, a run-on sentence can be made into two or more sentences with a little punctuation and style. An example of a run-on sentence might be: “We walked over to the commissary to get something to eat but it was closed so we didn’t know what to do so we kept walking until we saw a restaurant and decided to go in and get something to eat but Andrew didn’t want to eat there so we kept going for another mile.” This sentence could have gone on for another mile too! Break up the sentence into smaller, more coherent parts.

5. Punctuation – It is very important to know your punctuation, even if you never plan on using a semicolon for the rest of your life. The most important thing to learn is where to put your commas, a common mistake among writers. Commas are used to separate parts of sentences that stand alone, such as those that are parenthetical. For example “There were too many flowers, not that I minded, but they took up most of the room.” Avoid using commas after conjunctions like “but” and “and.” Semi-colons and colons take up an entire chapter, read about them in your style book!

6. Usage – If you are going to use a word, you really ought to know how to use it. Some writers think big words look impressive but actually the reverse is true if the word is used incorrectly. Words don’t have to be big to be misused, consider its vs. it’s.

7. Capitalization – Words at the beginning of sentences aren’t the only ones worthy of capital letters. Always capitalize proper names such as people and places. Titles of all kinds deserve capital letters and so do acronyms.

8. Point of View – The point of view refers to whoever is telling the story or “speaking.” When you write a letter you are writing in “first person” which includes I, me, my, we and our. Second person writing occurs when we talk about you and yours and third person includes he, she, they and theirs. In third person writing, the author does not interject himself into the story.

9. Sentence Fragments – A sentence fragment is an incomplete sentence that does not include both noun and verb. An example of a sentence fragment might be, “Really dumb.” Make sure your sentences reflect a complete thought unless you are writing dialog.

10. Wasted Words – A big no-no. Sometimes we throw in words just to round out our sentences, or we over-describe something, like, “The really ugly puke-green dress was hanging on the wall.” Do we really need to point out that a puke-green dress was really ugly? Economize your words and you will have fewer chances for grammatical errors.

Difference between a curriculum vitae (CV) and a resume

What is the difference between a curriculum vitae (CV) and a resume?
The primary differences between a resume and a curriculum vitae (CV) are the length, what is included and what each is used for.

A resume is a one or two page summary of your skills, experience and education. While a resume is brief and concise - no more than a page or two, a Curriculum Vitae is a longer (at least two page) and more detailed synopsis.

A Curriculum Vitae includes a summary of your educational and academic backgrounds as well as teaching and research experience, publications, presentations, awards, honors, affiliations and other details. In Europe, the Middle East, Africa, or Asia, employers may expect to receive a curriculum vitae.

So when can we use a CV and a resume?

The difference between CV and resume does not only affect the length and the amount of information present but also the purpose to apply for a job post. Those job seekers in the US who are applying for an academic position will more likely to use a CV but for all other job types, a resume is enough. Meanwhile, employers from Europe, Asia and Latin America all prefer a CV over a resume.

Basic Guide to Essay Writing(1)

An essay can have many purposes, but the basic structure is the same no matter what. You may be writing an essay to argue for a particular point of view or to explain the steps necessary to complete a task.

Either way, your essay will have the same basic format.


If you follow a few simple steps, you will find that the essay almost writes itself. You will be responsible only for supplying ideas, which are the important part of the essay anyway.
These simple steps will guide you through the essay writing process:

1.Decide on your topic.

2.Prepare an outline or diagram of your ideas.

3.Write your thesis statement.

4.Write the body.
(a)Write the main points.
(b)Write the subpoints.
(c)Elaborate on the subpoints.

5.Write the introduction.

6.Write the conclusion.

7.Add the finishing touches.

Preposition Usage

* Place (in, on, under, over, near, beside, etc.)

“Your book is on the table.”

* Direction (to, toward, into, through, etc.)

“The football player ran through the stadium to the other end.”

* Time (in, on, at, etc.)

“We can meet at five o’clock.”

* Agent (by)

“This book was written by a famous author.”

* Instrument (by, with)

“I heard the news by television. (Communication)

“She came by bus.” (Transportation)

“He opened the door with a key.” (Instrument or tool)

TIP:

We use by + no article for communication and transportation.

Examples: by phone, by radio, and by bus, by car

* Accompaniment (with)

“I like spaghetti with white sauce.”

“Mrs. Vajiona went to Thassos Island with her husband Georgios.”

* Purpose (for)

“He went to the store for milk and bread.

TIP:

Never, Never use for + verb + ing to express the purpose of the verb.

Example: “He went to the store for buying milk and bread.” This is wrong usage and a common mistake!

* Partition / Possession (of)

“They painted the front of the building white and green.”

“He broke the top of the table with his fist.”

* Measure (by, of)

“We buy our olive oil by the 16 kilo container.”

“Please buy a quart of milk from the market.”

* Similarity (like)

“Mary walks like her mother.”

* Capacity (as)

“Bill worked as a fireman until a year ago.”

Glossary of English Grammatical Terms - 3

Preposition
Prepositions indicate relationships between different parts of the sentence. Common prepositions are:

from, toward, in, about, over, above, under, at, below

Examples:
Clouds are over the earth and below the moon.
John went toward the mountain at 3:00 O'clock.

Pronoun
Pronouns are words used instead of a noun.

Demonstrative pronouns are this, that, and such.

Example:
That is pretty.

Pronouns like who and which are interrogative pronouns when they introduce questions.

Example:
Which is pretty?

Pronouns like who and which are called relative pronouns when they introduce clauses.

Example:
The flower, which is on the table, is pretty.

Indefinite pronouns are each, either, some, any, many, few, and all.

Example:
Some are pretty.

Helpless love

Once upon a time all feelings and emotions went to a coastal island for a vacation. According to their nature, each was having a good time. Suddenly, a warning of an impending storm was announced and everyone was advised to evacuate the island.

The announcement caused sudden panic. All rushed to their boats. Even damaged boats were quickly repaired and commissioned for duty.

Yet, Love did not wish to flee quickly. There was so much to do. But as the clouds darkened, Love realised it was time to leave. Alas, there were no boats to spare. Love looked around with hope.

Just then Prosperity passed by in a luxurious boat. Love shouted, “Prosperity, could you please take me in your boat?”

“No,” replied Prosperity, “my boat is full of precious possessions, gold and silver. There is no place for you.”

A little later Vanity came by in a beautiful boat. Again Love shouted, “Could you help me, Vanity? I am stranded and need a lift. Please take me with you.”

Vanity responded haughtily, “No, I cannot take you with me. My boat will get soiled with your muddy feet.”

Sorrow passed by after some time. Again, Love asked for help. But it was to no avail. “No, I cannot take you with me. I am so sad. I want to be by myself.”

When Happiness passed by a few minutes later, Love again called for help. But Happiness was so happy that it did not look around, hardly concerned about anyone.

Love was growing restless and dejected. Just then somebody called out, “Come Love, I will take you with me.” Love did not know who was being so magnanimous, but jumped on to the boat, greatly relieved that she would reach a safe place.

On getting off the boat, Love met Knowledge. Puzzled, Love inquired, “Knowledge, do you know who so generously gave me a lift just when no one else wished to help?”

Knowledge smiled, “Oh, that was Time.”

“And why would Time stop to pick me and take me to safety?” Love wondered.

Knowledge smiled with deep wisdom and replied, “Because only Time knows your true greatness and what you are capable of. Only Love can bring peace and great happiness in this world.”

“The important message is that when we are prosperous, we overlook love. When we feel important, we forget love. Even in happiness and sorrow we forget love. Only with time do we realize the importance of love. Why wait that long? Why not make love a part of your life today?”

The important things in life

A philosophy professor stood before his class with some items on the table in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, about 2 inches in diameter.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He then asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “Yes.”

“Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things – your family, your partner, your health, your children – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter – like your job, your house, your car.

The sand is everything else. The small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued “there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal.

Take care of the rocks first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

Clever sheep

Once there lived a sheep. He was very clever but a little careless.
One day a wolf cornered the sheep.
"You can't escape, " said the wolf.
"I know," said the sheep, softly.
" You are great! So please grant me a last wish, you please sing a song so that I may dance one last time.'
"Certainly, said the wolf proudly and throwing back his head began to howl.
Hearing him howl the farmer's dogs rushed to the spot and drove him away.

MORAL: Don't attempt anything that is beyond your ability.

Love or Friendship …………. Gary R. Hess

What do you want from me?
Do you want my love?
Or do you want my friendship?

You confuse me through what you say
You say you love me
But don't seem to care

Why don't we just be friends?
Nothing more
Nothing less

Perhaps you still have feelings for me
But why don't you show them?
Why must you hurt me this way?

I still love you
But I just want to know
Do you feel the same?

The Road Not Taken …………..Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

SUCCESS Quotes and Sayings

Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.
~Author Unknown

The two hardest things to handle in life are failure and success.
~Author Unknown

Success and failure. We think of them as opposites, but they're really not. They're companions - the hero and the sidekick.
~Laurence Shames

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
~George Smith Patton

Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it.... Success is shy - it won't come out while you're watching.
~Tennessee Williams

Some people dream of success... while others wake up and work hard at it.
~Author Unknown

ေန႔စဥ္ေလ့လာစရာလက္ေတြ႕အသံုးခ် အဂၤလိပ္စာ (အပိုင္း-၁)

အဂၤလိပ္စာကို နည္းမ်ိဳးစံု ၊ ေထာင့္မ်ိဳးစံုကေန ေလ့လာေနၾကသူေတြအတြက္ ေန႔စဥ္ ေျပာဆို ေရးသားရာမွာ အေထာက္အကူျဖစ္နိဳင္ေစဖို႔ ၊ ေကာင္းနိဳးရာရာ ေလးေတြကို မွတ္စု အေနနဲ႔ ေျပာျပတာပါ။ မသိေသးတဲ့ ေ၀ါဟာရ အသစ္ေတြသာ မကဘဲ ျဖတ္သန္းေနရတဲ့ ေန႔စဥ္ဘ၀ မွာ လက္ေတြ႕ အသံုးျပဳနိဳင္ရေအာင္ အတတ္နိဳင္ဆံုး ၾကိဳးစားျပီး ရွင္းျပေပးပါမယ္။ ပံုမွန္အားျဖင့္ ဘာသာစကားတစ္ခု ကို ေလ့လာမယ္ဆိုရင္ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ ေ၀ါဟာရ (Vocabulary) ေတြကို အထိုက္အေလ်ာက္ အဆင့္ဆင့္ သိသင့္ သလို အဲဒီ ဘာသာစကားရဲ႕ ၀ါက် တည္ေဆာက္ပံုေတြ အျပင္ အသံုးအႏႈန္း (Usage) ေလးေတြကိုပါ သိထားသင့္ပါတယ္။

ပထမဆံုးအေနနဲ႔ Fussy ဆိုတဲ့ အသံုးေလးကို စတင္ မိတ္ဆက္ခ်င္ပါတယ္။

(၁) Fussy = Difficult to please, not easily satisfied
ျမန္မာလို တိုက္ရိုက္ ဘာသာျပန္ရင္ေတာ့ ဇီဇာေၾကာင္ေသာ၊ ေၾကးမ်ားေသာ ေပါ့။

ဒီေနရာမွာ အဂၤလိပ္စာ ေလ့လာသူေတြ အေနနဲ႔ အက်ိဳး ပိုျပီး ရွိေစမယ့္ နည္းေလးတစ္ခုကို ေျပာခ်င္ပါေသးတယ္။ ေ၀ါဟာရ တစ္ခုကို ေလ့လာရာမွာ အဲဒီ ေ၀ါဟာရ တစ္ခုထဲသာမကဘဲ တျခား အဓိပၸါယ္ တူတဲ့ စကားလံုးေတြကို တတ္နိဳင္သမွ် တြဲမွတ္ေစခ်င္တယ္။ အဲဒီ အေလ့အက်င့္ဟာ ဘာကို အေထာက္အကူ ျပဳေစသလဲဆိုေတာ့ စာပိုဒ္ေတြ ေရးတဲ့အခါမွာ စကားလံုး တစ္မ်ိဳးထဲကို ထပ္ခါ ထပ္ခါ သံုးရတဲ့ ဒုကၡ ကေန လြတ္သြားေစတာပဲ။ မိမိ စာကို ဖတ္ေနတဲ့ သူကလည္း စကားလံုး တစ္မ်ိဳးထဲကို ဖတ္ရတဲ့အခါ ရသ အေနနဲ႔လည္း ေပါ့ေလွ်ာ့ခံစားရသလို ၊ မိမိကို ေ၀ါဟာရ ေခါင္းပါးသူလို႔ ျပစ္တင္ခံရတာ မ်ိဳးလည္း မျဖစ္ေတာ့ပါဘူး။
အဲဒီထက္မက ပါဘူး။ ေနာက္ပိုင္း အဂၤလိပ္စာကို အဆင့္ျမင့္ ပိုင္းေလ့လာတဲ့ အခါမ်ိဳး ၊ TOEFL – IELTS – GMAT – SAT – GRE စတဲ့ စာေမးပြဲေတြ ေျဖဖို႔ ျပင္ဆင္တဲ့ အခါမ်ိဳးမွာလည္း ဒါေတြဟာ အသံုး၀င္လာပါလိမ့္မယ္။ ( အေသးစိပ္ကိုေတာ့ အဲဒီ စာေမးပြဲေတြနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္တဲ့ အေၾကာင္းေတြ ေရးတဲ့အခါမွာ ရွင္းျပပါမယ္။ )
အခု Fussy ဆိုတဲ့ ေ၀ါဟာရ ကို ေနာက္ထပ္ ေျပာလို႔ ရတဲ့ စကားလံုးေတြ ကေတာ့ choosy ၊ finicky ၊ picky ၊ selective ၊ fastidious ၊ particular တို႔ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒီေျခာက္မ်ိဳးထဲလားဆိုေတာ့ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ ရွ္ိပါေသးတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ဒီေျခာက္မ်ိဳးေလာက္ဆိုရင္ဘဲ ေတာ္ေတာ္ေလး လံုေလာက္မယ္ထင္ပါတယ္။
အသံုးအႏႈန္းေလးၾကည့္ရေအာင္။

• Tell me what you want to eat before I make dinner because I know you’re a fussy eater.
ဒီ၀ါက် ကို ေသခ်ာမွတ္ထားမယ္ဆိုရင္ တစ္ေန႔တာ ေျပာစရာထဲက တစ္ခုမွာ သံုးလို႔ ရလာပါလိမ့္မယ္။ before I make dinner ဆိုတဲ့ ေနရာမွာ ကိုယ္က ဆိုင္တစ္ဆိုင္မွာ ၀ယ္ဖို႔ အစားအစာ မွာဖို႔ ဆိုရင္ before I order the food လို႔ ေျပာင္းသံုးရံုပါပဲ။ ေနာက္တစ္ခုက .. I know you’re a fussy eater ေနရာမွာ ေနာက္တစ္မ်ိဳးေရးလို႔ ေျပာလို႔ ရေသးတာက I know how fussy you are. ဆိုျပီးျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ မင္းဘယ္ေလာက္ ေၾကးမ်ာလဲ ငါသိတယ္။ ဆိုျပီး ေျပာတာပါ။ အဲဒီမွာ a fussy eater ကိုလည္း ေျပာစရာေလးရွိပါေသးတယ္။ ခုနက ေျပာခဲ့တဲ့ တျခား စကားလံုးေတြကိုသံုးတာပါ။
A fussy eater အစား picky eater , choosy eater, finicky eater စသည္မ်ိဳးေတြလည္းေရးလို႔ရပါတယ္။ အဘိဓာန္ (Dictionary) ေတြမွာလည္း ဥပမာေတြ အေနနဲ႔ ေတြ႔ရမွာပါ။
(a) The children are such picky eaters.
(b) She is very choosy about what she eats and drinks.
(c) I am very selective about the books I read.
(d) He is terribly finicky about his food. Or He is a finicky eater.
(e) He is very fastidious about how a suitcase should be packed.
(f) All my children were fussy eaters.
(g) He’s so fussy about the house – everything has to be absolutely perfect.
(h) She’s very particular about what she wears.
(i) She’s a very particular person.
စသျဖင့္ အမ်ိဳးမ်ိဳး ေရးနိဳင္ေျပာနိဳင္ပါတယ္။

• She’s not very fussy about whom she goes out with, providing he’s well-off.
အခု ၀ါက် ထဲမွာလည္း ေလ့လာသင့္တာေတြ ပါပါတယ္။ ပံုမွန္ဘာသာျပန္ရင္ေတာ့ ခ်မ္းသာတဲ့သူသာျဖစ္ပါေစ သူမကေတာ့ ဘယ္သူနဲ႔ဘဲ အျပင္သြားရပါေစ သိပ္ေရြးမေနဘူး။ ဆိုျပီးေတာ့ပဲ ေျပာရမွာေပါ့။ well-off ဆိုတာ rich နဲ႔ အတူတူပါပဲ။
အခုေလာက္ဆို Fussy နဲ႔ ပတ္သက္ျပီး ေတာ္ေတာ္ေလးေတာ့ သံုးတတ္သြားမယ္လို႔ ထင္ပါတယ္။ ေျပာျပခဲ့ျပီးတဲ့ ၀ါက်ေတြထဲမွာ အေသးစိပ္ရွင္းျပခ်င္တာေလးေတြေတာ့ ရွိေသးတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ လိုရင္းမေရာက္မွာစိုးလို႔ သီးျခားေဖာ္ျပရွင္းျပေပးပါမယ္။ ဒီ က႑ ေလးကေတာ့ Usage အပိုင္းေလးကို အဓိက ထားတာမို႔ အသံုးအႏႈန္းနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္တာေလးေတြကို ပဲ ဦးစားေပးေဖာ္ျပခ်င္ပါတယ္။

ဆက္လက္ေရးသားပါဦးမည္

၀ိုင္ (Y)

Direct Object & Indirect Object

few English verbs, such as to describe, to distribute, to explain and to say, can take an indirect object only when the indirect object is preceded by a preposition. In the following examples, the direct objects are printed in bold type, and the indirect objects are underlined.
e.g. He described his experiences to the reporters.
They distributed the leaflets to their friends.
We explained the situation to the participants.
She said something to her teacher.

These verbs cannot take an indirect object which immediately follows the verb. One reason for this may be to avoid creating sentences which are ambiguous or confusing. For instance, a sentence which began with the words He described the reporters... would create the impression that it was the reporters who were being described. When the reporters is preceded by the preposition to, there is no ambiguity.

Indirect objects

In addition to taking direct objects, some verbs also take indirect objects. In the following examples, the direct objects are printed in bold type, and the indirect objects are underlined.
e.g. We gave the child a toy.
I sent the man the information.

In these examples, the words child and man are said to be the indirect objects of the verbs gave and sent. Indirect objects refer to things which receive indirectly the actions described by the verbs. In the above examples, the words toy and information are the direct objects of the verbs.

Indirect objects usually refer to living things.

It is possible for a sentence containing an indirect object to be rewritten by placing a preposition before the indirect object. When this is done, the original indirect object can be regarded either as the indirect object of the verb, or as the object of the preposition.

For example, the sentence We gave the child a toy, can be rewritten as follows:
We gave a toy to the child.
In the rewritten sentence, child can be regarded either as the indirect object of the verb gave, or as the object of the preposition to.

The following examples illustrate the position of the indirect object in a sentence. The direct object, toy, is printed in bold type, and the indirect object, child, is underlined.
e.g. We gave the child a toy.
We gave a toy to the child.

When an indirect object is not preceded by a preposition, the indirect object must be placed before the direct object. Thus, in the sentence We gave the child a toy, the indirect object child is placed before the direct object toy.

However, when an indirect object is preceded by a preposition, the indirect object must be placed after the direct object. In the sentence We gave a toy to the child, the indirect object child is preceded by the preposition to. Therefore, the indirect object, child is placed after the direct object toy.

The object which is placed last in a sentence tends to receive greater emphasis than the object which is placed first. Thus, the word order of a sentence can be varied in order to give greater emphasis to one object or the other. For instance, in the sentence We lent the teacher a book, the direct object book is slightly emphasized. However, in the sentence We lent a book to the teacher, the indirect object teacher is emphasized.

Direct objects

Most of the verbs examined so far have been in the Active Voice. When a verb is in the Active Voice, the subject of the verb refers to the person or thing performing the action described by the verb; and the object of the verb refers to the person or thing receiving the action described by the verb.

In the following examples, the objects of the verbs are printed in bold type.
e.g. He read the book.
I did not see the balloon.
They ate the potatoes quickly.
She rode her bicycle along the sidewalk.
Do we understand it?

In these sentences, the verbs read, did see, ate, rode and do understand are in the Active Voice; and the words book, balloon, potatoes, bicycle and it are the objects of the verbs. These objects are said to be direct objects, because they refer to things which receive directly the actions described by the verbs.

"Do" or "Make"

The two verbs 'do' and 'make' are often confused. The meanings are similar, but there are differences.

'Do' for Activities

Use the verb 'do' to express daily activities or jobs. Notice that these are usually activities that produce no physical object.

do homework
do housework
do the ironing
do the dishes
do a job

'Do' for General Ideas

Use the verb 'do' when speaking about things in general. In other words, when we do not exactly name an activity. This form is often used with the words 'something, nothing, anything, everything, etc.'

I'm not doing anything today.
He does everything for his mother.
She's doing nothing at the moment.

Important Expressions with 'Do'

There are a number of standard expressions that take the verb 'do'. These are standard collocations (verb + noun combinations) that are used in English.

do one's best
do good
do harm
do a favour
do business

'Make' for Constructing, Building, Creating

Use 'make' to express an activity that creates something that you can touch.

make food
make a cup of tea / coffee
make a mess

Important Expressions with 'Make'

There are a number of standard expressions that take the verb 'make'. In a number of cases the verb 'do' seems more appropriate. These are standard collocations (verb + noun combinations) that are used in English.

make plans
make an exception
make arrangements
make a telephone call
make a decision
make a mistake
make noise
make money
make an excuse
make an effort

Determiners

Determiners are words that are used with nouns to clarify the noun. They can clarify:

* to define something or someone
* to state the amount of people, things or other nouns
* to state possessives
* to state something or someone is specific
* to state how things or people are distributed
* to state the difference between nouns
* to state someone or something is not specific

There are different types of determiners. There type of determiner depends on the type of noun. Singular nouns always need a determiner. Plural nouns the determiner is optional. Uncountable nouns the determiner is also optional.

There are about 50 different determiners in the English language they include:

* Articles: a, an, the
* Demonstratives: this, that, these, those, which etc.
* Possessives: my, your, our, their, his, hers, whose, my friend's, our friends', etc.
* Quantifiers:few, a few, many, much, each, every, some, any etc.
* Numbers: one, two, three, twenty, forty
* Ordinals: first, second, 1st 2nd, 3rd, last, next, etc.

Positive Statements & Negative Statements

Positive statements don't have to have a positive meaning. It is possible to have a sentence that is positive grammatically with a negative connotation.

Example:
* I know you you will fail your test.
* We forgot to do our homework.

Negative states are statements that contain the word(s) not, don't, can't etc. Negative statements can be grammatically negative with a positive connotation.

Example:
* I know you didn't fail your test.
* We did not forget to do our homework

Difference between "That" & "Which"

That - "That" is used with restrictive phrases.

Restrictive phrases are phrase. that are essential to the sentence.

Which - "Which" is used with nonrestrictive phrases.

Nonrestrictive phrases are phrases that state non essential information. A phrase is considered nonrestrictive phase if the phase can be omitted from the sentence.

Examples:
* The shirt that you lent me is in my bag.
* The shirt, which is red, is in my bag.
* The house that I wanted to buy has been sold.
* The house, which I didn't want to buy, has been sold.
* The food store that I go to all the time is closed today.
* The store, which is near my house, is not open today.