A mouthful of English

Sometimes, the answer to a question is just a simple yes or no : ‘Are you ready?’ ‘Yes. ’ But we can be a bit more emphatic by using a short answer , repeating the verb at the beginning of the question: ‘ Are you ready?’ ‘Yes, I am .’                                 When we do this, we can even omit the word yes : ‘ Are you ready? ’ ‘ I am !’ These are called short answers because we omit a part of the sentence we don’t want to repeat. The complete – or long – answer would be Yes, I am ready . This kind of answer is very common in English: ‘ Can we win?’ ‘Yes, we can . ’   ‘ Do you like music?’ ‘Yes, I do .’ When the answer is negative, we only have to add not at the end: ‘ Did you go to the concert?’ ‘No, I didn’t. ’ ‘ Have you been using my computer?’ ‘No, I haven’t. ’ ...

We say we are hungry when feeling the need for food, and angry when feeling annoyance, hostility, or anger. These two adjectives are combined together in hangry , a term used to describe someone who is angry because they are hungry . This process is ca lled blending , as it blends parts of two words together to create a new one. Many words formed in this way are informal, like frenemy (a blend of friend and enemy ) or mansplain (a blend of man and explain ). Some, like brunch (a combination of breakfast and lunch ) and Spanglish (a mixture of Spanish and English ), have long ago made their way into common usage. The English language is always making up new words like this: webinar (a seminar conducted on the Web ), emoticon (an icon representing an emotion ), and jeggings ( leggings that look like jeans ) are all examples of more recently created blends. And so is, of course, Brexit .

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 ...