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Friday, 05 February 2010

Life is interesting, isn't it?

Hi Eman,

How nice to meet you and welcome to the blogs.

Your life in Palestine looks very interesting. It's fascinating to see the way you combine a very traditional way of life with such a modern one too.

Your way of life is very different to mine in London. Although, having said that, when I was growing up in Scotland we sometimes saw our own interesting animals in the Scottish countryside too! Here are a few Highland cows.



But as for horse-riding, the closest I ever got to that was going to some stables with my dad and feeding sugar cubes to the horses and foals.

Adjectives
I thought we'd look at gradable and non-gradable adjectives. I'm sure you know that adjectives describe nouns. So that's words like hungry, happy, and beautiful. But did you know that adjectives can also be divided into two groups – gradable and non-gradable?

Adjectives that describe qualities that can be measured are called gradable adjectives (for example, big, cold, old, ugly). Adjectives that don't have degrees, that are absolutely one thing or the other, are called non-gradable adjectives (for example, starving, gorgeous, impossible).

So why am I telling you all about these two types of adjectives? Well, because the word 'very' goes with one group and 'absolutely' goes with the other. Can you guess which word goes with which group?

Here's a clue. Here are a couple of sentences from your blog but they're both wrong. Can you see why?

1. I am very delighted
2. They prepare very delicious food

Use of –ing
Next, I thought we'd look at a couple of examples of where we use the –ing form in English, rather than the base from or the infinitive.

1. My favourite activity is riding horses

2. People in our area are used to eating and cooking

Word choice
Although I understood practically all of your blog, I thought you might be interested in a few suggestions for making your English sound more natural and informal. In the sentences below, (A) is what you wrote and (B) is my suggestion for making your writing flow better. You'll notice too that these suggestions are a bit more informal and that's because most blogs use quite an informal tone:

(A) I hope that my writings will gain your interest
(B) I hope that you'll find my writing interesting

(A) it is crowded with orchards of grapes
(B) it has lots of vineyards

A) In addition to the development of the residents of this region in various fields of life, particularly in education, but they also cling to their ancestral lands
B) Although we're interested in developing ourselves (especially through education) we also cling to our ancestral lands and traditions

Finally, there was only one small part of your blog I didn't understand:

Albowaireh region in the winter, a pond is mediated it to irrigat the surrounded fields of grapes, this pond is filled now with the rain water

I though you might mean:

It's winter just now in Albowaireh. We have a pond in the middle of Albowaireh which irrigates the surrounded fields of grapes. This pond is filled with the rain water now.

Do let me know if that's what you meant or if you had something else in mind.

Looking forward to hearing more from you.

Best wishes,

Nuala

Vocabulary
fascinating – very interesting
combine – mix together
highland or highlands – areas with hills and mountains
stables – shelters where horse sleep in Winter
practically all of - almost all of

Comments

When I was working in Malvern some years ago I went to the hills for a walk and there, were the path turned, stood a hairy beast. My first impression was that it was a bear, the second a huge yak. I didn't feel quite at ease but continued upwards. Then I saw a walker and told him what I had seen and wondered if it was normal. He explained there was a number of cattle, usually inside a fence, and said he had seen some of those who keep an eye on the hills a little higher up and encouraged me to run and tell them. I did, but I was panting a lot before I reached them. - For half a year I went to the top of the Malvern Hills whenever I had the opportunity, usually five times a week, and I got used to check the number of the highland cows when I saw them.

Hi Nuala, it's very nice (is it gradable?) to have you as the teacher blogger for february. I'll make sure I don't miss any of your postings because I always learn a lot from them. And Eman seems to be great too. I think you both are going to make a great team. See you later!!!

Thank you Nuala for your beneficial comments, you have corrected my sentences as I meant. Iam in the right way to learning English....

Thank you Nuala for your beneficial comments, you have corrected my writting as I meant, and I believe that I am on the right way to learning English

Hi Nuala,it's absolutely enjoyable to learn from your blog.I got it very interesting & I wanna visit your blogs from now and on regularly,I promise!!!!

Thanks for all your contributions. This blog has now closed and can no longer accept new comments.

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