Lesson 258: More about "the"

There seems to be lots of confusion about the definite article: The

As a result, we have another round of when to use "The".  Today I will focus on some when to use the and not use the for similar things.

seas, oceans, and rivers: article

lakes: no article

 

The Atlantic Ocean

The Amazon

The Black Sea

 

Lake Ontario

Lake Biwa

 

continued

mountain:  Usually no article (there are some exceptions)

groups of mountains: article

 

The Matterhorn (exception)

Mount Everest

Mountain Logan

 

The Alps

The Andes

The Laurentian Mountains

Countries are a special case.  When the countries name contains words like republic, union, state...often including the preposition of:  article

When a country's common name is used: no article

The United States of America.

The Republic of Korea

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The United States of Mexico

 

Canada

South Korea

Spain

Finland

Hopefully these examples will help you.  If you have any questions, leave them in the comment box below and check back often to see if I have answered your questions.

Lesson 254: Run it by Someone

 

 

Today's lesson is a very useful phrasal verb

to run something by someone

meanings:       

1. to give someone some information so they can offer positive or negative feedback.
2. to propose something to someone so they might accept or refuse it.

examples:

1. Dennis wanted to run his proposal by his boss.
2. Before making a decision, Selena wanted to run her ideas by her whole family.
3. Dan liked the trip plans, so he decided to run them by everyone for final approval.

Lesson 246--Making Nouns from Adjectives

I always tell my students that learning word forms is important.  If you learn the noun of an adjective, the meanings of the two words are closely related.  So, today, I am going to start doing my best to help.

Below you will find 20 adjectives and their nouns.  In this case, all of the nouns end with the same suffix --ness.  It should be easy to remember them.  Good luck (because you never know when there will be a test).  If there are words that you do not know, I suggest looking in the dictionary.

Adjective	Noun
dark	darkness
restless	restlessness
inventive	inventiveness
quick	quickness
inquisitive	inquisitiveness
hopeless	hopelessness
destructive	destructiveness
helpless	helplessness
frank	frankness
cheap	cheapness
awesome	awesomeness
awkward	awkwardness
foolish	foolishness
hideous	hideousness
nervous	nervousness
ruthless	ruthlessness
kind	kindness
neat	neatness
shy	shyness
lonely	loneliness