A mouthful of English

Sometimes we can guess the meaning of a new word in English because it looks like another word in our language – often as a result of their common origin: music , ocean and secret are easily understood by speakers of some Romance languages. But life isn’t always so easy for language learners. False friends are words in different languages which resemble each other in form but which have different meanings. A Spanish-speaking learner might think, for instance, that carpet – a floor covering or rug – means the same as carpeta – the Spanish word for ‘folder’. Spanish speakers must also remember that in English, parents are only mums and dads, while the word used for other members of the family is relatives . And that we go to a library to borrow books – not to buy them. Of course, the words that can be false friends for you will depend on the languages you speak. If you speak Spanish, then, don’t be taken in by exit , large , casualty , fabric … or jam ! Is

Most plurals in English are formed by adding –s or –es to a singular noun as in song s , sandwich es , and glass es . Many of these forms, however, show irregular spellings. Leaf, life and half , for instance, become leaves, lives and halves . The different endings in holidays and dictionaries are explained by a simple rule – whether there is a vowel or a consonant before the final –y in the singular. But it isn’t so easy to see why the plural forms of pian o and tomato are, respectively, pianos and tomatoes . There are also other kinds of irregularities, some of which are found in everyday words like woman-women , man-men , and child-children . Similarly, mice, feet and teeth are the plural forms of mouse, foot and tooth . Pence is the plural of penny – usually referring to sums of money, while the regular form pennies tends to be used to name one-penny coins. And to talk about more than one person , we generally use the term people . Some words, on t