It is a necessity of Christian churches to address post-colonial issues in their ministerial aspects.
This was a special request from subscriber and special friend Elia who is unsure about his use of the word ‘necessity’. Like many Indonesians he is not confident when it comes to expressing subtle degrees of obligation, the Indonesian equivalents for which are often less subtle than their English counterparts. Continue reading
Most of the coral reefs around the world have been damaged by fishing gears which sweep the ocean floor, such as dragnets and trawlers.
Yet another situation in which the countable and uncountable forms of a noun have slightly different meanings!
Euthanasia may be a good solution for both of patients and their families.
Both/both of follows the same rule as some/some of, all/all of, most/most of, etc. Elsewhere on GuruEAP you can listen to a song that includes examples of most of these (but not, I now realise, both/both of!), plus you can find another post showing how this kind of grammar can be useful in IELTS task 1 writing when describing statistical data.
As usual I suggest you approach this problem lexically – in other words pay close attention to the words (lexis) immediately following these signals. Here are some examples. Continue reading
Examiner: How often do you go to the cinema?
Candidate: Er.. Sometimes.
Examiner: Yes, but how often?
Although it is grammatically correct to respond to the question ‘How often?’ with ‘sometimes’, you still haven’t answered the question. Always try to give more information no matter how infrequently you do something. Continue reading
I have one wife, one child, one cat and one dog.
In the IELTS speaking test candidates often mention their families when talking about their homes. Sometimes they do this to justify only having a small home, or maybe they want to explain why they chose live in a particular area.
But in any situation when you offer information about your family, your listener will make certain assumptions, in particular about numbers, and if the number is one then this is often best communicated without using the word ‘one’. Continue reading
The involvement of government in indigenous governance has arisen a variety of arguments.
Here there is a vocabulary problem AND a grammar problem!
In other languages (
‘memunculkan’) the verb ‘arise’ can be transitive (can take an object), but in English it cannot. However, there do exist alternatives that allow you to keep the object (obj – ‘a variety of arguments’): Continue reading
People use papers for a variety of purposes.
OK folks, this is another countable / uncountable problem.
Every time I use the countable form of ‘paper’, I’m talking about paper material that has already been modified in some way and applied for a primary function. Continue reading
Tissue demands for housing and offices are increasing.
OK so there are two kinds of demand – specific and general. Continue reading
40% of people living with HIV have risk to develop tuberculosis.
Yes. ‘Risk’ can be a ‘risky’ word in English!
We can assume that if there’s a risk, then there is some kind of ‘bad thing’ causing the risk, for example ‘developing tuberculosis’. Continue reading
It is important to test products on animals before releasing them commercially to markets.
The problem here is that there are two kinds of market – physical and virtual – and in this example, markets (plural) suggests more than one physical market, while releasing them commercially suggests more than one virtual market. Let’s take a look at some examples.
These are the places you go early in the morning to buy cheap vegetables. Often this kind of market is outdoor:
If it’s an indoor market then it’s usually inside a large hall:
The featured image for this post shows people buying and selling things on the virtual market. They’re not buying anything inside that building, rather they are investing in things that are located elsewhere so that they can hopefully receive some of the profits from the sale of those things.
A particular virtual market or set of virtual markets may be mentioned explicitly:
Sometimes more than one virtual market is implied:
And sometimes a specific virtual market is implied but not mentioned explicitly:
If the name of a virtual market is not given, certain phrases can suggest that you’re talking about a virtual rather than a physical market.
If it’s on the market (one or more virtual markets), it’s not at the market (a single physical market).
Our opening example implies a set of virtual markets that are not explicitly mentioned, and so we need: