Languagelab.com Blog

BESIG, the Business English Special Interest Group of IATEFL are having a conference this week in Poland and our own Shiv Rajendran is there representing Languagelab.com.

He is going to talk about Business English in English City, have you ever been to a Business English class with Jazz Quinzet or Alastair Twine?

The conference is in Poznan and Shiv has told me it’s a nice city and he is looking forward to meeting all the people he has met already through Twitter!  He will also be meeting some of our students who live in Poznan for the first time.

There is some information on one of our Business English City People below, Jazz Quinzet.  If you would like to meet her come and visit her in English City.

See you soon !

Jessie Teacher

Last week Grammar Girl gave you a long list of conjunctions and promised to explain them in a little more detail this week.

This week I thought I’d focus on one particular conjunction: IF.

There are many rules around ‘if’ and they are all related to the concept of ‘conditional sentences:’

If I have enough money,
conditional clause

I will go buy some dollars.
main clause

First, Second, and Third Conditional
1. First conditional:    If I have enough money, I will buy some dollars.
2. Second conditional:   If I had enough money, I would buy some dollars.
3. Third conditional:    If I had had enough money, I would have bought some dollars

There is not enough room in this blog to explain the difference in meaning so I’ll just end with a reminder:

1. The conditional construction does not normally use will or would in if-clauses. EXCEPTION: If will or would express willingness, as in requests, they can be used in if-clauses.

e.g. If you will come this way, the manager will see you now.
I would be grateful if you would give me a little help.
(= ± please, come this way; please, give me…)

2. For the second conditional, were replaces was:

If I were a rich man…

3. After if, we can either use “some(-one, -where…)” or “any(-one, -where…).

If I have some spare time next weekend….or :
If I have any spare time…

4. Instead of if not, we can use unless.

e.g. I’ll be back tomorrow unless there is a plane strike.
He’ll accept the job unless the salary is too low.

5.There is a “mixed type” as well, for the present results of an unreal condition in the past:

If + Past Perfect – would + inf.
If you had warned me [then], I would not be in prison [now].

See you again next week for more Grammar tips !

Last week we looked at AND, BUT, BECAUSE, OR, SO, THEN and a few more.

This week I want to move the discussion a little further by talking about grammar called ’subordination.’  In conjunctions for ’subordination’ we also link parts of sentences together but they work a little differently.  I’ll give you some examples of conjunctions for subordination and then next week, after you’ve had a think about them, we’ll look at examples of this type of conjunction.

*  place

where, wherever

* time

when, whenever, while, after, before, since, till, until, once, now

as soon as, as long as

* reason

because, as, since, for, although, though, to, in order to, so as to

* similarity and contrast

as, than, whereas, while

* condition

if, unless, provided

Hope that was helpful !

See you next week !

Grammar Girl in English City :-)