Hi English Language fans! How’s your week going? Today I want to show you how to use for and why with the noun reason. You can use reason + for. What is his reason for being late? Did you tell your teacher your reason for missing class yesterday? You can also use for + reason I like pizza for two reasons. It’s delicious and reasonable. I asked you to come here for a reason. You can also use rea...

In English grammar, perfect tenses are used to show that one thing happens before another thing in the past. For today’s English lesson, I am going to show you how to use the past perfect tense. The structure of the past perfect tense is had + past participle (pp): had eaten had gotten had arrived Look at these two sentences. Our friend Jack did two things last night, and we use the simple past tense ...

Hi English Language fans! I want you all to know that I really do appreciate your comments and emails. Did you notice that I used do in that sentence? Today I’m going to show you how to use do to emphasize the verb. Usually, a sentence has one and only one main verb. For example: I like pizza. Jack works at ABC Company. Tom lives in Brooklyn. There are times however when we need to emphasize the v...

Hi English Language fans! It was a bit chilly this morning in NYC. Well, today I have a special English lesson for you that I think is really going to help you learn the difference between the prepositions at & in when talking about location. I know so many people have trouble with these two words, but if you can remember a few basic rules and patterns, you’ll have it down pat! We often use both at & in t...

Good morning from Happy English in NYC! I love the convenience of living in the Big Apple, and this city has many conveniences like the transportation, and huge number of restaurants. How about your town? Today, I want to teach you the difference between convenience and convenient. A lot of students have trouble with these words. How about you? Are you using them correctly? Have a look at the lessongraphic below...

Should and must are both modal verbs in English, but basically have a different meaning. Must has a much stronger meaning because it expresses duty or a rule. Should is often used to mean "I think it is a good idea," so it has a less strong meaning. Here is a lessongraphic showing the basic differences: If you enjoyed this lesson, get email updates (it's free). Enter email address:   If you know...

Basic Greetings in English An English conversation a conversation usually starts with a question. There are two kinds of questions we use - how and what. Here are some examples of each: How are you?              What’s new? How’s it going?           What’s up? How’s life?             What’s going on? How’s everything?       What’s shaking? The how questions ask about our feeling or condition, so t...

Greetings from sunny and warm New York City. It’s such a nice day today. If you walk along Madison Avenue, you can see a lot of people with smiles walking around and enjoying the sunshine. Well, for today’s free English grammar lesson, we are going to look at the preposition with. A lot of people have written to tell me that they have problems with this preposition, so I hope that today I can make it a bit clearer fo...

Hi Everyone. Here is a one-point vocabulary lesson about beside & besides. Beside is a preposition of location. It means next to. The clock is beside the candleholder on the shelf. I was sitting beside Jack at the restaurant. Please put that table beside the sofa. Besides is used as conversational phrase to mean “in addition” or “as well” or “moreover.” I had a late lunch, so I wasn’t hungry whe...

Sometimes things go wrong and you need to apologize. In English, we generally say I'm sorry when we apologize. Today, I am going to teach you four basic grammar patterns you can use when you say, I'm sorry. I hope you find these English phrases useful, but at the same time I hope you never have to use them!   Now it's your turn. Try using one of these phrases in an original sentence. Use the comment b...