5 Fun and Free Online Grammar Games

This guest post by Maria Rainier.

Whether you’re a grammar nerd or learning English as a new language, we all know that practice makes perfect. Not all of us have the time to practice grammar ins and outs, because our schedules keep us constantly on the go. But what better way to get in some English grammar practice once in a while than with an addictive, and portable, online game? Next time you have a few minutes to spare or become bored with you latest attempt to conquer Words with Friends, try out one of these simple and addictive grammar games available online.

1. Word Challenge
This is a cool one. It’s addictive because it’s timed. Questions mainly cover vocabulary and word usage. Get the app here.

2. Grammar Up
This was designed based on common areas covered by the TOEIC English proficiency test and is geared toward business usage and vocabulary. There are ten different grammar categories, and students can choose games based on those categories. It’s a fun way to pass the time, great for ESL students, and a good refresher for native English speakers. Check it out here.

3. The Grammar Gorillas
This is a cute game where players identify parts of speech in order to get bananas for gorilla friends. There are beginner and advanced settings. Try it free here.

4. Sink or Swim
The object of the game is to stay above water. If you make a mistake, you will sink further below the surface; correct answers keep you afloat. Try it here.

5. The Prefixes Game
Players fit block together to build a tower and have to select pieces with the right shape and prefix in order to build the tower higher. Try it here.

Author Bio:
Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education where she writes about education, online colleges, online degrees etc. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Why you should avoid the passive voice

Guest post by Angelita Williams.

Grammar teachers always hound their students about the same errors. They tell their students to use proper verb subject agreements, they teach about the perils of comma splices and proper semicolon usage, and they distinguish between adverbs and gerunds like it’s the most important lesson of the English language. Proper syntax in a sentence means everything.

I would argue that the most important grammar lesson has to do with the voice of a sentence—specifically, the line between passive and active voice. Most grammarians, editors, teachers, and professors complain more about passive voice than any other grammatical “mistake,” and for good reason. If you use too much of the passive voice in your wiring, it just looks bad.

So what’s the difference between passive and active voice?

The difference between passive and active voice is a matter of, well, action. A typical sentence has a subject, and verb, and the object of the verb. In an active sentence, the subject carries out an action (the verb) onto something (the object). Consider this sentence: “Carl drove the car.” the action in the sentence is clear: Carl (the subject) carries does something to an object (he drives the car). Passive voice tells the same story, but takes some of the action out of the sentence.

In the passive voice, the same sentence would look like this: “The car was driven by Carl.” Notice the syntax of the sentence and the new feel of the story within. The sentence mentions Carl (the subject) at the end of the sentence rather than at the beginning, and his actions have less weight to them. He did not drive the car; the car was driven by him. The same event occurs in both sentences, but the passive voice creates distance between the subject and the subject’s actions.

Why the active voice always looks better

So if the active and the passive voice virtually tell the same story, why does it matter if you pick one over the other? It’s a matter of asserting yourself in your writing: the passive voice suggests, well, passivity. Your writing looks weaker and less convincing when written in the passive voice. There’s a better chance that your ideas will come off as confusing if you write them in the passive voice, precisely because the subject is so far removed from the beginning of a sentence. Some writers opt for the passive voice because it pads their wiring, but that too is an insufficient reason. Ideas that you can clearly write in the active voice might have a longer word count when flipping into passive voice, but that won’t help your writing style.

What do you do to combat the passive voice in your writing?

By-line:
This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of online courses.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: angelita.williams7 @gmail.com.

Grammar vs. Usage

Guest post by Kim­berly Wil­son.

Language is a tricky, sticky, icky thing, infamous for having too many rules that nobody follows anyway — and especially so in the English language.

Your sophomore English teacher counted points off your mid-term paper for mistakes that your boss’s boss makes every day in e-mails to the office, and the Oxford comma keeps appearing and disappearing without any apparent repercussions whatsoever!

Is it an epidemic of illiteracy? Does it matter at all?

The answer to both questions is, more or less: not really.

There are, of course, hard and fast rules that should be adhered to when writing or speaking English; adjectives must modify nouns, subjects must agree with verbs, and so on.  But there is also a line that should be drawn in the sand for so-called grammar Nazis and other annoying perfectionists.

In linguistic circles, this line is called usage.  There is grammar, and there is usage.  Common usage is frequently  at odds with mechanical conventions, often because speaking “properly” is inconvenient, awkward, or pretentious, and people want to simplify their lives and their speaking habits.

At its root, language is a tool used for communicating ideas from one person to another.  When you ask someone where your pen is, and they tell you they “don’t know where it’s at,” are you completely ignorant of what they were trying to say? No. You know exactly what they meant. It might not have been “grammatically correct,” but it got the point across, and the result was a successful communicative event.

Different situations call for different degrees of precision and formality, but for the most part, you can reserve impeccable grammar for scholarly essays, resumes, interviews, and other important junctures.  Let language serve its purpose, and you’ll be happier, healthier, and generally more well-liked.

Byline:
Kimberly Wilson is from accredited online colleges, she writes on topics including career, education, student life, college life, home improvement, time management etc.

Learn English Through Song

(This post is from guest blogger Angelita Williams)

Textbooks–they’re my own personal form of Ambien.   I’ve never been able to figure it out, no matter what it is, one page and I’m out like a light. But let me play with my Ipod and the music carries me for days.  I boast about being able to learn an entire new song in just a few hours.

You might not think of it as studying but in a sense that’s exactly what you are doing. You listen and repeat, listen and repeat, until the lyrics are permanently implanted in your head. And unlike material gained through books, songs can radiate through your head for days or even weeks before they’re entirely flushed down the drain.

So, what better way to study English than learning it through song? You get to learn vocabulary while hearing its proper pronunciation, though you might want to stay away from rap or anything too modern just for now, since colloquialisms are best learned at a more advanced stage, when you can tell the difference between correct and incorrect idiom usage. Below are some quick tips on how to study your lyrics:

1. Pick a song that you like but that is not too complex. It’s extremely important that you get the correct lyrics so that you can decipher the right meaning of the song. Lyrics mode is a great site to get accurate lyrics.

2. Read the lyrics in their entirety. You don’t need to understand everything but try to see if you can at least get a good feel of what the song is about. Is it a romantic song? A sad song? A happy song? Is it abstract or literal? Try to compare and contrast the English song to something familiar in your native tongue. It’ll help you see similar and cultural differences from your own.

3. Re-read and circle all the words/phrases you don’t know and would like to learn. Sometimes context clues will give you a better understanding of what the word means but if necessary, by all means look up their exact meaning in a dictionary. A dictionary might also be useful in finding other interesting phrases or words.

4. Hear the song three to four times before you decide to chime in karaoke style. Read the lyrics a few times right before bed and also try listening to the song while you sleep. Even in your slumber, your brain will still retain the information. Listen and repeat until you got it down.

5. Test yourself. There’s a neat Web site called Lyrics Training that is especially designed to help non-English speakers learn the language. As a series of song lyrics run down the screen its up to you to fill in the missing words. You can choose from a huge selection of contemporary songs in their bank that are divided into easy, medium and hard difficulty levels.

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of online college courses.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: angelita.williams7 @gmail.com.

They’re In Their Car Over There: Never Confuse Your Homophones Again

(This post from guest contributor Alexis Bonari.)
Homophones are those words that sound the same and are often even spelled in similar ways, but mean different things. They can be frustrating to both students of English as a second language and native speakers who get hung up on trying to figure out which word to use in a certain context. The following are some common mistakes made with homophones that you can easily avoid by learning how to use each specific word.

Compliment vs. Complement

The word “compliment” is used to describe or refer to a positive comment given to a friend, as in “Rita complimented Sue on her new Mozart wig.” Something “complimentary” is given as a bonus, nicety or extra feature, as in “The hotel offered a complimentary breakfast.” When you use the word “complement,” you should be describing something that completes something else. For example, you might say, “This white wine really complements the seafood dinner.” An easy way to remember this is to think of “complete” when you say “complement” because both words use “e” as their second vowels.

Principal vs. Principle

“Principal” often refers to rank of importance, as in “principal request,” and can also be used to mean the head of a school or a sum of money. “Principles” often refer to a person’s rules of action or conduct, as in “He was a man of good principles.”

Their vs. There

The word “their” is possessive and indicates ownership. For example, you could say that “Fred is their pet octopus.” When using “there,” you should be talking about a place or location, as in “The Earwax Museum is over there.”

Peace vs. Piece

A frequent mistake made with these homophones is “piece of mind.” You can give someone a piece of your mind, but peace of mind is entirely different. “Piece” indicates a part of something else, as in “a piece of pie,” but “peace” is strictly a state of harmony or absence of war.

Stationary vs. Stationery

The word “stationery” only refers to paper used for writing notes or letters, as well as writing materials like envelopes and pens. It should never be used instead of the word “stationary,” which refers to a state of stillness or lack of movement.

Affect vs. Effect

When you use the word “affect,” you should be using it primarily as a verb. It is used to describe an action performed on something, as in “The incessant snoring negatively affected his marriage.” Only disciplines like psychology and psychiatry use the word “affect” as a noun, so you probably don’t have to worry about it. An “effect” is primarily some change, result or consequence of an action, as in “She never paid attention to the list of side effects.” This word also describes phenomena like “the Doppler effect.” It can be used in its verb form to mean instigate, bring about or cause, as in “The new crocodile pond in the front yard effected a change in foot traffic.”

Contractions

If you’re ever in doubt about a homophone, think about what you’re trying to say. If you use a contraction, remember that it’s a combination of two words and that the apostrophe signifies a missing letter. Confused about “your” vs. “you’re”? The latter is a contraction and means “you are,” while the former is possessive. If you stop to think about the meaning of contractions, you can avoid many homophone mistakes.

Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She often can be found blogging about general education issues and college scholarships. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Everything About Relative Pronouns

Everything you wanted to know about how to use relative pronouns (that, who, whom, whose, which, where, when, and why):

How to Use Relative Prounouns

Online English Language Instruction

People write to me all the time about the best way to learn English conversation online. This video instructional class is one of the best ways I know about to learn English online. There are three different levels with 72 videos in the most advanced course. The video lessons are based on real-life situations and cover many different types of topics. Click here to learn more about English Conversation Instruction Online.