Verbs are often followed by complements – for example, I’m learning English , I have a cat , and I play baroque music . But depending on their meaning, they require different types of complements – some starting with a preposition, and some without it. As a result, we hear music but we listen to music ; we see things but we look at them . Prepositional verbs are followed by a preposition that depends on the verb: you agree with someone , you wait for a bus , and you laugh at a joke . However, these prepositions don’t occur when there is no object: ‘ Please wait, ’ ‘ Don’t laugh ,’ ‘ Do you agree? ’ She’s waiting for the bus. Not all verbs take prepositions: in English, you enter a building , you phone friends , and you discuss problems . On the other hand, some verbs can be used in more than one way: we may ask a question , but we ask for help ; we pay tax , we pay the rent , and we pay ten euros , but we pay for a coffee . What all this means is that, w...
Can you say flower and flour correctly? Believe it or not, they both sound the same in English. But since they have different spellings, it may be difficult to believe their pronunciations are identical. That's why learners often mispronounce one of them. Flour and flower are homophones - words that look different but are pronounced in the same way. There are a lot of homophones in English, and many of them are very common words. Here are some examples. Do you think you can find a word that sounds exactly the same as each of the following? You'll find the answers below - you just have to match them in the correct order.
The words up and down often indicate direction, usually following a verb of movement like go or come – the temperature goes up or down , and p rices usually go up . But up and down are used with many other verbs – you can look up or look down , for example. You can walk up a street , run up the stairs , or drive down a hill . And they say that Santa Claus climbs down chimneys on Christmas Eve. English often uses a verb expressing how somebody moves ( walk, run, drive ), and a word like up or down to show direction. A similar meaning is found in phrasal verbs like get up , stand up , sit down and lie down . Sometimes, the verb takes an object. You may put a poster up on the wall, or you may take it down . When getting dressed, you pull your socks up . If you can't hear the radio properly, you turn it up . If you want to write you can pick up a pencil, and when you finish you put it down .
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