Affect and Effect

There is considerable confusion in the use of these two words in English today. The word 'affect' is a verb, and it means "to influence or make a change to" something. The word 'effect' is a result of an action.
Let me illustrate this with examples of the correct usage of the two words:

The new tax policy will not affect you in anyway.

The effect of Pollution will be borne by the next generation.

Collocations of verbs and prepositions

Collocations of verbs and prepositions

One of the funny quirks of the English language is to get used to which verbs are used with which prepositions. There are no rules which define these, you get used to them as you use the language more often. This is called a collocation, and it is one of many in the language.
Take for example the preposition 'against'; it is commonly used with the following verbs:
guard, rebel, lean, offend, war.
So one would guard against gluttony!
The soldiers rebelled against the Duke.
The jury leant against the arguments of the defence lawyer.


Similarly,  you say
Petra is susceptible to influenza
not
Petra is susceptible for influenza

Some common collocations are shown below, this is not mine but comes from a page called www.pictaram.com, and as I make no profit from this blog, I show it below for the reader's convenience.

Who or whom ?

Many people wonder when they must use any one of these options? The former is the subjective form of the pronoun and the latter the objective form. If you are in this quandary, a way to determine which one to use is to ask yourself the question: Can he, she or they be substituted for a pronoun in context? If the answer is yes then you must use who, for example, 

       Let's award the prize to the person who is most considerate.
       Substituting, we get
       Let's award the prize to he (or she) who is most considerate.
       The sentence still makes sense. 

       If however, you find that you have to use him, her or them, then        you must use whom, for example,
       This mess was created by whom?
       This mess was created by him/her/them! 
       Makes sense, so you've got it right!

Getting your sentences right!
In every language, there is an order in which you make a sentence. With English, you start with the subject, whatever you are talking about, then place the action word, the verb, and hey presto- you have a sentence!e.g  He sings.  Okay, if you like his voice, you can add and adverb 'beautifully'  and you get 'He sings beautifully'. Now, as an author, if you're feeling romantic, you can add an object to the sentence- 'He sings beautifully to his fiancee'. Aha! That was an addition of 3 words - 'to', 'his' and 'fiancee'! The 'fiancee' is the object of his song, 'to' is the preposition and since he is singing to the woman who is engaged to him, it is 'his' fiancee- the possessive pronoun- not somebody else's fiancee - in which case he is likely to end up with a black eye for his efforts!!😀

Come on! There is no such a thing as a difficult language! There are several million people who speak English! If they can do it, so can you! Okay, so you may make so mistakes and some people may snigger! What will that do? Make you feel a bit awkward for a while and then life moves on! You live and learn!  The more you learn, the better you get, the sniggers become fewer... and suddenly they are gone! You've done it. If you need any help go to www.theenglishlearningchannel.com
and join one of our easy and economic courses! 

The Appeal of English

The appeal of English around the world is quite mystifying, yet there it is - the language of Technology, the language of Law, the language of Celebrity! Even if English is not the only international language used by the United Nations, it is certainly one of the prominent ones.
Maybe it is because America speaks English, I thought, and this may be a major appeal. It turns out that assumption is correct - 231,122,908 English speakers there. Then there's the European Union with 256,876,220, enough reason to see why it is so popular.

These are the numerical reasons why it is so appealing; but why does one choose to learn a language? Think about why you chose to learn any language other than your mother tongue. Most people learn a language to learn about a culture, and when a language spans so many cultures, albeit from a colonial past, it adds to its appeal. Local writers enrich the language, making it at once both global and local, painting pictures of their cultures, emotions and thoughts weaving it into a tapestry, rich in form and hues, as to make it easy for a person from any part of the globe to relate with.

There are few languages that come close to English in this regard and it is probably one of the strongest reasons why this language is so entrancing! 

Language is about communication, transference of ideas and it is equally about sharing emotions. The last thing I want to do now is to irritate you with lectures about Grammar and spelling, but what I do want to do is to encourage you to take the plunge- go ahead and write about your thoughts your opinions, in English , especially if you are unfamiliar with it and I will volunteer as much as it is humanly possible for one person and a computer to mirror your compositions with a grammatically correct version in reply.
Do you know that 'Grammarly' is a tool that you can use to do this in an automated way? The site is very good, and if you use Chrome you get a free extension. However, if you would like to add a personal touch, feel free to send an email to info@theenglishlearningchannel.com!