Ten tips to improve your English

1.      When you love something, you think about it. When you think about it you know more about it. Love the language.

2.      Be attentive to the sound, the rhythm, the cadence, the beat—the music of the language.

3.      Listento good speakers of the language. Find out in what ways they impress you.

4.      Have a mind that questions: what do you call this in English? How do you say this in English?

5.      Read books. Read books on a variety of topics. Humour, fiction, non-fiction, science fiction, biographies, auto-biographies and books on popular science.

6.      Language and knowledge are connected. When you know more, you also have the language that enables you to think about what you know.

7.      English revolves around a fixed group of words that do not change. Words such as do, does, has, have, keep, make, fall, go, get, turn, in, on, as, as if, and so on. Learn these words by listening and analyzing, and putting them to use. There are hardly around 180 such words.

8.      A good dictionary is of immense help. Do you know that you can learn a great deal by looking up a dictionary. You come to know about pronunciation, grammar, usage, and why, even the history of the word.

9.      Have a set of friends with whom you are comfortable speaking in English. Don't bother if you make mistakes. You can put your language skill on an ‘auto correct’ mode.

10.  If you have questions in English ask us:  or call us on 9444323000 or visit us at www.vetaglobal.in

 

Know Your English

Have time or find time?

“Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning, Lalith. Who dropped you?”

“My papa, sir. I thought I should come here by time. Time—that reminds me of the point that I wanted to discuss. What is the difference between have time and find time?”

“An interesting question, Lalith. The time available to you is have time. I will visit you when I have time. Well, that means I will visit you when time is available to me.”

“Hm.”

“Make or find time means to plan in such a way that you have time available to do something that you wanted to do. I always find time to listen to old Hindi songs. Busy with school sports, she couldn’t find time for study.”

“It is interesting, sir, to know how a word can make the difference in the way we use language, particularly English. You used the phrase for study—busy with school sports, she couldn’t find time for study—should study be in singular or plural?”

“You ask very thoughtful questions.  When you use the word with the meaning learning at home, the word is used in singular. The word studies means the work you do in college or school to learn about a particular subject or subjects. How are your studies coming along?

“Oh. Then the word sport, sir—what is the difference between sport and sports?”

“In British English it is singular—sport, and in American English, it is sports—plural. Are you interested in sport? I am interested in sports.”

“Oh.”

“The word sport is an uncountable noun…”

“You mean it cannot be counted…”

“Yeah. When you use the word as a countable noun, it means a particular form of sport. What is your favourite sport? Swimming is my favourite sport. I like water sports.”

“Sir, what is the meaning of to make sport of somebody or something?”

“It means to make fun of someone or something.  He was just making a sport of himself. When you say something in sport, you are saying it just for fun. He made the comments in sport, not seriously.”

“Thank you, sir. It was informative.”

A great paradox

A few centuries ago, a law teacher came across a student who was willing to learn but was unable to pay the fees. The student struck a deal saying, "I will pay your fee the day I win my first case in the court". The teacher agreed and proceeded with the law course.

When the course was finished and teacher started pestering the student to pay the fee, the student reminded him of the deal and pushed days. Fed up with this, the teacher decided to sue the student in the court of law and both of them decided to argue for themselves.

The teacher put forward his argument saying: "If I win this case, as per the court of law, the student has to pay me as the case is about his non-payment of dues. And if I lose the case, student will still pay me because he would have won his first case. So either way I will have to get the money". 

The equally brilliant student argued back saying: "If I win the case, as per the court of law, I don't have to pay anything to the teacher as the case is about my non-payment of dues. And, if I lose the case, I don't have to pay him because I haven't won my first case yet. So either way, I am not going to pay the teacher anything". 

It is said that this is one of the greatest paradoxes ever recorded in history.

Learn spoken English

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