Practical English Usage is a standard reference book aimed at foreign learners of English and their teachers written by Michael Swan.
Published by Oxford University Press, it has sold over 2 million copies since the first edition was published in 1980.[1] A new, and greatly extended second edition was published in 1995. A third edition was released in 2005, and a fourth in 2016.
Highway to success by Charles Dube
It is holiday time and students deserve that rest especially so from the unfriendly weather. It is in order that as you relax you review your previous term performance. Work on the errors you made so that you do not repeat them in future. Parents and guardians come in here and assist learners in prioritising school matters to certain issues unrelated to their education. Peer pressure is more now on students as hard workers are pulled down by those who not care about shaping their future through education.
Study examples presented here for improved performances: about and on. Compare: – a book about Africa and its people, a textbook on African history, a conversation about money, a lecture on economics. We use about to talk ordinary, more general kinds of communication. On suggests that a book, lecture, talk etc. is serious or academic, suitable for specialists. About to. About + infinitive means ‘going to very soon’; just going to’ Do not go out now – we’re about to have lunch. I was about to go to bed when the telephone rang.
Above and over: ‘higher than’: above or over. Above and over can both mean ‘higher than’. The water came up above/over our knees. Can you use the helicopter above/over the mountain? “not directly over’; above. We prefer above when one thing is not directly over another. We’ve a little house above the lake.
“Covering” over: We prefer over when one thing covers and/ or touches another. There is cloud cover over the southern part of the country. He put on a coat over his pyjamas. We use over or across when one thing crosses another. The plane was flying over/across our district. Ages, speeds, ‘more than’: over; We usually use over, not above, to talk about ages and speeds, and to mean ‘more than’. You have to be over 18 to enter the bar.
The driver said she was driving at over 120 kilometres per hour. There over a 1000 people at the festival. See above/over: In a book or a paper, see above means look at something written before; see over means ‘look on the next page’. Across, over and through – on/to the other side of the line: across and over. Across and over can both be used to mean “on the or to the other side of a line, river, road, bridge etc.
Across and through. The difference between across and through is like the difference between on and in. Through,, unlike across, is used for a movement in a three-dimensional space, with things on all sides. Compare: We walked across ice. (We were on the ice). I walked through the wood. (I was in the wood.) We drove across the desert. We drove through several towns.
Tense: The tense of a verb indicates the time of the action or state of being expressed by the verb. Every verb has six tenses: present, past, future, present perfect, past perfect and future perfect. These six tenses are formed from the principal parts of the verb. Listing all the forms of a verb according to tense is called conjugating a verb. For example you can list verb forms under principal parts: Base Form –give, Present Participle – (is) giving, Past –gave, Past Pariciple – (have given).
Each tense has an additional form called the progressive form, which expresses continuing action or state of being: In each tense, the progressive form of a verb consists of the appropriate tense be plus the verb’s present participle. Some tenses also include one or more helping verbs.
Present Progressive: am, is, and are giving, Past Progressive: was, were giving, Future Progressive: will (shall) be giving.
Present Perfect Progressive: has been, have been giving. Past Perfect Progressive: had been giving, Future Perfect Progressive: will (shall) have been giving. Only the present and the past tenses have another form call the emphatic form, which shows emphasis. In the present tense, the emphatic form a verb consists of do or does plus the verb’s base form.
Present Emphatic: I do not intend to give up. Although the grass is green, the lawn does need watering. Past Emphatic: The explorers suffered many hardships, yet they did finally reach their destination.
The uses of the tenses. Each of the six tenses has its own special uses. The present tense is used mainly to express an action or state of being that is occurring now. Mandla and Nomusa wait patiently for the bus. (Present) Mandla and Nomusa are waiting patiently for the bus. (Present progressive).
Mandla and Nomusa do wait patiently for the bus. (Present emphatic). The present tense is also used: to show a customary or habitual action or state of being, to state a general truth – something that is always true, to summarise the plot or subject matter of a literary work (such use is called the literary present). To make a historical event seem current (such use is called the historical present) and to express future time.
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Practical English Usage is a standard reference book aimed at foreign learners of English and their teachers written by Michael Swan.
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