english language

profile of a man with open mouth, and a stream of letters coming out

4 tips when starting to soften your English Accent

Our colleagues over on the Collins ELT blog have written an informative article on where to start when softening your English accent. So what does softening your accent mean? Even if you have spoken English for a number of years you may still have your own accent,… Read More
ENGLISH written on a post-it, next to crumbled post-its arranged in question mark shape

What on earth is The Schwa?

Say again, ‘The Schwa’? The what? When reading our colleague’s post over on the Collins English Language Learning blog, I heard about The Schwa sound for the very first time, and thought it would be useful to replicate some of the content here. I was intrigued to… Read More

Silent letters

To pronounce or not to pronounce, that is the dilemma. English, like some other languages, has a number of letters which are ‘silent’ in certain words. The tricky thing is, knowing which letters can be silent, and learning when they should and should not be pronounced. The main silent letters… Read More

Pronunciation of ‘-ough’ words

This is the first blog of our brand new series looking at difficult to pronounce words. If there is any group of letters that underlines how tricky English pronunciation can be, it is the string ‘-ough’. Fortunately, there are few letter combinations in English that vary as widely in the… Read More

Beat Blue Monday with 10 words to describe happiness

It’s official, experts have declared Monday 15th January 2018 ‘Blue Monday’, the glummest day of the year. The triple threat of extreme winter weather, a strained post-Christmas bank account and the back-to-work feeling is believed to make you feel gloomier than usual. But don’t worry, we believe grey… Read More

A right royal affair! 12 regal words to add to your vocabulary

With the royal engagement of HRH Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, plus the latest season of The Crown now available on Netflix, the royal family is a popular topic of conversation. We’ve searched this noble kingdom for all the royal terminology you need to know, just in time for the… Read More

‘Tis the season to be… còsagach?

The Danes introduced us to the idea of hygge. The Germans are fond of a spot of Gemütlichkeit. And now that the nights have well and truly drawn in, Scots are getting well and truly… còsagach. Eh… còsagach? Say that again? This wee Scottish Gaelic word (pronounced “kaw-sa-goch”, to rhyme… Read More