Parts of a Car

Basic English Vocabulary - Parts of a Car

Welcome to the first post in a new series on basic vocabulary from the Ginseng English Blog: Parts of a... Today, let's look at some useful vocabulary for the outside of a car!

On a car there are four tires, two front tires and two rear tires. Front and rear are useful words when we talk about cars. A car has two bumpers to protect you in an accident: a front bumper and a rear bumper. Above the bumpers are lights. There are headlights at the front of the car, and taillights at the rear of the car. On each side of the car is a side-view mirror, to help you see behind you. Inside the car is a rear-view mirror, too.

What other car vocabulary do you know? What do you want to know? Comment below!

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English for Halloween Costumes

Halloween Costume Trends

I recently came across this great infographic over at the W5 blog, called Spooktacular Halloween Costumes (notice that spooktacular is just a fun portmanteau of spooky and spectacular—more on portmanteaus in this blog post). 

This seems like a great opportunity to talk about how we talk about costumes in English, which can be a little tricky. If you're talking to an American friend about an upcoming Halloween party, she might ask you:

What are you going as?

What am I going as? Going as?

It may sound like a strange question, but your friend is asking you what your costume will be, or what you will be pretending to be for halloween. Another way to say this is:

What are you dressing up as?

You could answer with:

• I'm going as a ghost.
• I'm going as a dog.
• I'm going as Wonder Woman.
• I'm going as Jon Snow from Game of Thrones.

Notice that if you are going as something generic (not a single, specific character), we use an indefinite article—a ghost, a cat, an elephant—but for specific characters, we don't need an article.

One more thing: if you're a character from a movie or TV show, it's common to add from [the movie]:

• I'm going as Jon Snow from Game of Thrones. 
• She's going as the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.
• He went as Wolverine from X-Men.

So, what are YOU going as for Halloween!?

Nonexistent Words

Last week, Dictionary.com published a fun list of words that don't exist. What does that mean? Well, they're not just random letters, they are words that you might expect to exist because of other words that look like their opposites. Confused? Here's an example.

Combobulated

Discombobulated is a real word in English. Usually when we add the prefix dis-, we are creating the opposite of another word. For example, we can take agree, add dis-, and we get the opposite: disagree. Right? This works for lots of words: appear/disappear, approve/disapprove, believe/disbelieve, connect/disconnect. But discombobulate is funny, because combobulate is not a word. It doesn't exist.

Reckful

Here's another one. We can add the suffixes -less and -ful to many nouns to turn them into adjectives. A person with no hope is hopeless. A person with lots of hope is hopeful. Something that causes no pain is painless, and something that causes a lot of pain is painful. Other examples are fear/fearless/fearful, care/careless/careful, color/colorless/colorful, use/useless/useful.

But we have another word in English: reckless. Reckless is similar in meaning to careless. Based on the pattern we looked at, you might think that reck is a noun and reckful is the opposite of reckless. But, as always, learning English is crazy, and reckful and reck do not exist in English.

A few more:

Disheveled is an adjective meaning not neat. But sheveled does not exist.

Nonchalant means cool, relaxed, and calm. But chalant does not exist.

Disgust is a strong feeling of unpleasantness or sickness. But gust does not exist.

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Check the original post at Dictionary.com for more! Can you add any in the comments?

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Online English Classes

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Why Are Online English Classes in Groups Better?

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why are online english  classes in groups better?

Many online English schools out there are advertising one-on-one lessons with native speakers via Skype. Ginseng doesn’t do this. Want to know why? Read on!

When you go to an English school, they don’t just sit you in a small room with one teacher, right? Why is that? Well, because we don’t learn English quickly and easily by talking to just one person. Language is social. 

In good English classes, you will be placed in a class full of other students who are at the same level as you. The best English teachers may teach some grammar or vocabulary to the whole class, but then she will put you in situations where you have to use that language with your classmates. You will have practice conversation in English with the whole class, with small groups of 3-4 students, or in pairs. A good teacher will give you problems to solve together, projects to complete in English. THIS is the most important part of your language learning! It’s not just listening to the teacher talk about grammar.

Similarly, having a group of other students around you is very important for your motivation. If you just meet with one teacher hour after hour, week after week, both the teacher and the student struggle to maintain the conversation and the interest. If you are surrounded by many different people with many different opinions and experiences, you will stay more engaged and motivated! 

This is why we focus on group English classes at Ginseng! Join one today!

Basic Geometry Vocabulary

Basic geometry vocabulary

Rob from Ginseng English recently took a trip to Shanghai and recorded a lesson on geograph—err, geometry vocabulary. Take a moment and have a look!

Geometry Vocabulary List

Vertical (adj.) - positioned up and down rather than from side to side; going straight up

Horizontal (adj.) - positioned from side to side rather than up and down; parallel to the ground

Diagonal (adj.) - not going straight across or up and down

Beam (n.) - a long and heavy piece of wood or metal that is used as a support in a building

Post (n.) - a piece of wood or metal that is set in a vertical position, especially as a support or marker

Narrow (adj.) - long and not wide

Wide (adj.) - extending a great distance from one side to the other; not narrow

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Free Vocabulary Resources

If you're trying to improve your English vocabulary online, check out these other free vocabulary resources from the Ginseng English Blog:
 

Ginseng Named to Top 50 ESL Blogs

Top 50 Blogs

We are so pleased to share that the Ginseng English Blog was selected by Feedspot to be featured among their Top 50 English Language Blogs. There are some other fantastic blogs on there, and we're so proud to be in their company! Thanks, Feedspot!

Take a look at where else we've been featured! 

British Bad Words

One of the most interesting and difficult things about learning a new language is learning which words are bad, and how bad they are. If you learn English, for example, we have the words crap and shit. Both have the same meaning, but shit is a much stronger word. Your mom might tell you not to say shit, but most people don't mind crap.

A recent article at British newspaper The Indepedent describes a survey that was done by the British government's Ofcom (of + com = office of communications). This office decides what language is okay to say on TV. In the UK some language and content is acceptable after 9:00, when most kids are not watching, but not okay before that.

In the survey, they asked 200 people to rank bad words. Different rankings were mild (not bad, okay for kids), medium (maybe okay on TV before 9:00pm), strong (mostly okay on TV after 9:00pm), strongest (never okay before 9:00, generally okay after).

Here's the full list (sorry Mom! 🙊)

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If you like this, check out these other great English posts!

Most Common English Verbs

30 Most Common English Verbs

Many students ask which words they should learn first. On strategy is to focus on the most commonly used words. Check out this list of the 30 most common verbs in the English language! The verbs are listed in their base form, present tense, past tense, and perfect forms.

Words that are more common will generally be more useful, so it's a good idea to learn more common verbs first! Get to know these verbs first to make the most of your new vocabulary as you learn English. 

What patterns do you notice in the list of verbs?

There is a general rule in languages (sometimes called Zipf’s Law or The Principle of Least Effort) that predicts that more commonly used words will tend to be shorter. And, as you might expect from that, the first 20 most common verbs are all only one syllable.

You may also notice that 19 of the verbs on the list are irregular verbs.

Note that verbs that work only as auxiliaries and modals (such as can and will) have been removed from this list. Verbs that act as both auxiliaries and main verbs have been left in. Data for this table came from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA).

List of 30 Most Common English Verbs Conjugated

30 Most Common Verbs in English

#	Infinitive	Present	Past	Perfect
1	to be	am, is, are	was, were	been
2	to have	has, have	had	had
3	to do	do, does	did	done
4	to know	know, knows	knew	known
5	to think	think, thinks	thought	thought
6	to go	go, goes	went	gone
7	to get	get, gets	got	gotten
8	to say	say, says	said	said
9	to want	want, wants	wanted	wanted
10	to see	see, sees	saw	seen
11	to mean	mean, means	meant	meant
12	to let	let, lets	let	let
13	to make	make, makes	made	made
14	to come	come, comes	came	come
15	to take	take, takes	took	taken
16	to look	look, looks	looked	looked
17	to thank	thank, thanks	thanked	thanked
18	to tell	tell, tells	told	told
19	to put	put, puts	put	put
20	to like	like, likes	liked	liked
21	to talk	talk, talks	talked	talked
22	to need	need, needs	needed	needed
23	to believe	believe, believes	believed	believed
24	to give	give, gives	gave	given
25	to try	try, tries	tried	tried
26	to call	call, calls	called	called
27	to find	find, finds	found	found
28	to feel	feel, feels	felt	felt
29	to happen	happen, happens	happened	happened
30	to ask	ask, asks	asked	asked

If you like this, check out these other English grammar posts! 

Related Content

The Most Common English Adjectives

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Collocates with Summer

Collocates with summer

It's summer in Boston! ☀️😎🏖

Let's take a look at some of the words that are most common after summer. Remember, a collocate is a word that is often used with another word.  Focusing on collocation is a very good way to learn common English phrases and expressions. 

Here are some of the most common words after summer that we hope you find useful as you learn English!

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If this was helpful, check out these other English collocates!

This, That, These, Those - Demonstratives

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What are This, That ,These, and Those?

This, that, these, and those are called demonstratives.

Demonstratives are grammar words that we use to show if an object or idea is close to or far from the person speaking. You can say that we use demonstratives to demonstrate where things are and how many there are.

This and that are both singular demonstratives. These and those are both plural.

This hat is Jayne's.

That scarf is Ennio's

These sneakers are Santiago's

Those gloves are Maya's

This and these are used for things that are here, close to the speaker. That and those are used for things that are there, far from the speaker. Close and far here can mean physical distance or psychological distance.

This pen here is Jayne's

These keys I'm holding are Ennio's

That stapler over there is Santiago's

Those books on the table are Maya's

There are two ways that we use the determiners this, that, these, and those. We can use them as pronouns or as determiners.

Demonstrative Determiners

Demonstrative determiners come before a noun, as part of the noun phrase. Because they come before a noun, demonstrative determiners are sometimes inaccurately called demonstrative adjectives.

this fish

that squid

these clams

those crabs

Demonstrative determiners give us information about the quantity and location of nouns. If we say this apple, we know there is one apple, and it's right here. If someone says those apples, it usually means many apples, and they are over there, not close to the speaker.

This and that are both singular, meaning they only talk about one thing.  This is for a thing that is close to us, and that is for a thing that is far away. These and  those are both plural, used to talk about many things. These is for things that are close to us, and those is for things that are far away.

This, that, these, and those are all demonstratives: they demonstrate where things are and how many there are. In the examples above, they all come before nouns, which makes them  determiners. But these same four words can also be used without nouns, acting as pronouns. In that case they are called  demonstrative pronouns. 

Demonstrative Pronouns

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Today, we will take a look at another, similar way to use this, that, these, and those. We can also use these words without a noun after them. For example, we can say, "This is a hammer." Here, this doesn't go before the subject of the sentence; it is the subject of the sentence. It works takes the place a noun and represents the thing, the hammer. Words that stand in place of a noun are called pronouns. So in these sentences, this, that, these, and those are called demonstrative pronouns. See the graphic below for some more examples.

One more time, if they come directly before a noun, this, that, these, and those are called demonstrative determiners. If they replace a noun, acting as a subject or object, they are called demonstrative pronouns.

Notice that the meanings are the same for demonstrative determiners and demonstrative pronouns. This and that are both singular. These and those are both plural. This and these are both for things that are close. That and those are both for things that are over there.

Other free grammar resources

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