Spanish words of the week: calzada or calzado?

Putting our best foot forward (or even our second-best one) let’s turn to another pair of Spanish nouns that are nearly identical in form, though not in ending or gender, and which have very different meanings. Read More

French word of the week: sembler

This series of weekly blogs takes a closer look at words from our French dictionaries. The word we're focusing on this week is the French verb 'sembler'. Read More

The 8 parts of speech in English

VERBS A verb tells us about an action or a state of being. Ordinary verbs are called main verbs. For example: come, go, think, want, escape, believe. A main verb is sometimes called a ‘doing word’. A special group of verbs are called auxiliary verbs. These can be put together with main verbs to… Read More

Learning French: filler words in French

Right, well...time for a new Learning French blog, eh? We take a look at the filler words that crop up often when conversing in French. Read More

National Spinach Day

Eat largely of spinage The twenty-sixth of March is National Spinach Day, a lead-in to talking about one of my favourite vegetables – and that host of others that can bring joy to our tables. Well, ‘joy’ not just in my and Popeye’s opinion but in that of the Methodist… Read More

Spanish words of the week: cinto or cinta?

It’s time to disentangle two more similar-looking and potentially confusable Spanish nouns. These are cinto (masculine) and cinta (feminine). Read More

Months and Dates

In order to talk confidently about your plans in English, it’s useful to know some essential phrases that relate to months and dates. The months of the year in English are: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December. Read More

French word of the week: arrêt

This series of weekly blogs takes a closer look at words from our French dictionaries. The word we're focusing on this week is the French noun 'arrêt'. Read More

Spanish words of the week: marco or marca?

So which potentially confusable Spanish nouns are up for anaIysis this week? Marco (masculine) and marca (feminine) are in the frame. Read More