Over-the-Hump-Wednesday Grammar and Idioms Lesson (August 14, 2019)

Over-the-Hump Wednesday

This week, instead of an idiom, we are going to write a sentence that has a typical written English mistake in it. If you say this sentence out loud, you will not hear the mistake. It only occurs in writing:

I love to speak english when I travel around the world.

Do you know what is wrong? Please scroll down to see the answer.

Signpost with the business capitals of the world.

The Answer:

The mistake here is that “english” should be written as “English”, Why? Because in English (notice the capitalization), the names of countries AND adjectives AND languages referring to the country are capitalized. Therefore, the following sentence has 3 mistakes in it:

In the united states, many people speak spanish, and many people eat italian food.

It should be written as follows:

In the United States, many people speak Spanish, and many people eat Italian food.

The NESE Grammar Team

Over-the-Hump-Wednesday Grammar and Idioms Lesson (August 7, 2019)

Over-the-Hump Wednesday

Last week was very hot in Boston, and some of us were wishing that we could be somewhere that was cooler, such as Alaska. At the same time, it is possible that in cool Alaska, people were wishing that they were somewhere warmer, such as Boston.

It is simply human nature, from time to time, to think that what we don’t have is better than what we do have. As a result, we fly to Alaska (because we believe that Alaska must be more comfortable than Boston), and Alaskans fly to Boston (because they believe that Boston is more comfortable than Alaska). In other words, we all believe that “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”

This idiom comes from the idea of two neighbors looking over the fence at each other’s property and believing that the other person’s grass is greener (better) than his own.

The NESE Grammar Team

Over-the-Hump-Wednesday Grammar and Idioms Lesson (July 31, 2019)

Over-the-Hump Wednesday

Dear NESE Community:

Welcome to another week of “Over-the-Hump-Wednesday.”

This week, many NESE students have been studying irregular verbs such as:

Sometimes after studying for several hours (irregular verbs, adjective clauses, and prepositions – just as examples), some people feel tired. Even though it is only 11:00 in the morning, some people decide to “call it a day”. They might say, “You know, I have had enough of English grammar for now. I am going to call it a day.”

Call it a day

“To call it a day” indicates that you want to stop what you are doing, that you have had enough of your activity.

And so we are going to “call it a day” and say good-bye to you until next week.

As always, we send you our kind regards,

The NESE Grammar Team

Over-the-Hump-Wednesday Grammar and Idioms Lesson (July 24, 2019)

Over-the-Hump Wednesday

Dear NESE Community:

We are delighted to bring you NESE’s new mid-week Grammar & Idioms lesson: “Over-the-Hump-Wednesday.” Look for it every Wednesday!

On Wednesdays in the U.S., people often say, “We’re over the hump.” A hump is a raised portion of the road, used to slow traffic. Also called “speed bumps”, they’re often found where there are many pedestrians or where children are playing nearby.

If you think of the days of the week as a straight line, and the middle day – Wednesday – as a hump in the middle, you can understand this idiom. So, smile, because today is Wednesday and you’re now over the hump!

We will post another grammar or idiom lesson next week!

Until then, we send you our kind regards.

The NESE Grammar Team

A Click Away

By Matthew Ferrara
As many of you know, The New England School of English has been hard at work developing NESE On-Line, offering the same great learning experience and curriculum that our students have come to expect from our traditional classrooms at NESE Harvard Square. This past month, we were delighted to begin offering students one-on-one private lessons online, and we will be offering both live and self-paced group classes in the near future.

Online education makes it possible for busy professionals and parents to continue their learning. I should know: I’m one of them! I earned my M.F.A. through a program that was partially online (what is known as a low-residency program). At that time, technologies that are now essential to online education were still in their infancy. Video conferencing platforms like Zoom and Skype didn’t exist then, companies like YouTube had not yet been founded, smart phones and tablets seemed like science fiction, and social media had not become a part of our daily lives. However, even then I understood how transformative online education could be; to be quite honest, I would not have been able to afford to go to graduate school if I wasn’t able to also work full-time.

Over the past few years, I have been taking classes towards my PhD in Educational Technology, this time entirely online. As a full-time teacher and the father of three young children, this is only possible because studying online allows me a flexible schedule. As a fun exercise, I’ve challenged myself to do all of my doctoral work on my iPhone and, with the exception of running some required statistical analysis software not available on mobile devices, have managed to do exactly that. I think this is the best example of how amazing online classes can be: I do my work when I can, where I can, with my “school” in my back pocket.

This is why I am so thrilled that NESE is moving into the world of online education. For almost three decades, NESE has been committed to providing a quality education to students of all walks of life and to doing so in an open and supportive environment. It has changed countless lives in the process. By expanding its reach through online classes, anyone in the world, no matter how busy their lives become, can improve their English. NESE is now just a click away!