PhraseMix Articles
English for talking about clothing: shirts (Part 2)
Describing materials
To talk about a shirt's fabric, use these phrases:
What's it made of?
What's this material?
Here are some materials that shirts can be made of:
- cotton
- nylon (a soft, shiny synthetic material)
- polyester (a harder synthetic material)
- spandex (a...
Phrases for talking about a dirty house
If someone's house or apartment is messy, here are some phrases that you can use to describe it:
- There are clothes strewn all over the floor.
- There's food splattered all over the microwave.
- There are crumbs all over the counter.
(As you can see, we use the phrase...
15 ways to say "Goodbye" in English
English speakers like a lot of variety in their everyday language. We have lots of different expressions for saying simple things. Previous articles have covered lots of ways to say "Hello" and "Thank you." This article does the same for different ways to say...
How to use 'a', 'an', and 'the' in English
English articles ("a", "an", and "the") come before nouns. They help to communicate which thing you're talking about, similar to words like "this", "my", and "all". And they're confusing to a lot of English learners.
Articles are really, really hard!
If your native language doesn't use...
The Phrase Mixer is awesome.
I hope you don't mind me bragging.
I've recently updated the Phrase Mixer, the tool that lets PhraseMix Premium subscribers review PhraseMix English lessons. If you've never used it, try out the limited Phrase Mixer sample version for free.
The Phrase Mixer is something I thought of many years...
Objects
What are objects?
The "object" of a sentence is a noun which usually comes after the verb in English. Here are some examples:
I love you.
Did you pay the rent?
The object receives the action of the verb.
Sometimes a sentence doesn't have an object:
I want to rest!
Not many men know how to...
The most famous American TV catch phrases (Part 3)
In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I introduced 10 of the most famous catch phrases from American TV shows.
Here are 10 more, just for PhraseMix Premium subscribers:
-
“You’re fired.”
(Donald Trump, The Apprentice)
In this reality game show, contestants...
The most famous American TV catch phrases (Part 2)
In Part 1 of this series, I introduced 10 of the most famous catch phrases from American TV shows.
As I wrote in that article, a "catch phrase" is something that a certain character repeats again and again. Learning some famous catch phrases can be useful if you're an English learner because they...
The most famous American TV catch phrases (Part 1)
You can learn some interesting English through TV catch phrases.
A "catch phrase" is something that a certain character repeats again and again. As a TV show continues, the audience starts to expect the character to use this phrase and gets excited when they hear it. Catch phrases are most...
How do you use "suggest" correctly?
OK, I have to admit that no PhraseMix readers have directly asked me about this. But it's a common problem that I've noticed in a lot of emails and conversations with English learners: a lot of people use the word "suggest" incorrectly. So here's how you should use it.
The thing to remember is...
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