Grandiose Grammar

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It’s lovely to be back and to bring a new episode to you. In this episode I explain where I’ve been and what happened last week. I also respond to a request for clarification on the topic…

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This week’s episode is a response to a question from a listener. I’m so pleased that my listeners are starting to really engage with this podcast and send me requests for content - keep …

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This week I’m responding to a listener request for some content on multi-word verbs. Here’s a link to what Michael McCarthy author of English Phrasal Verbs in Use has to say about teachi…

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This week’s episode almost didn’t happen. If you listen in, you’ll find out why.

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This week I’m back with another episode of say this, not that. I’ve picked three pairs of words that often cause problems for native speakers of German, namely: isolated vs. insulated; e…

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This week we’re taking a look at the correlative conjunction as…as vs. than in comparative constructions. I’ve reviewed the German use of als vs. wie because I’m pretty sure that’s where…

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This week I’m back with a more on modals. This week’s content is aimed at the true grammar nerds amongst my listeners. My focus today is on categories of stance meaning and modality. In…

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This week we are delving into the topic of modals. As this is quite a complex topic, today I’m reviewing some basics on how modal verb phrases are constructed and giving you an overview …

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This week, I’ve decided to delve into the topic of reported speech. We have two main ways to tackle reported speech in English. We can choose to use direct reported or indirect reported …

Hello folks! Happy new year! We’re starting this year with a complex topic; interrogative and relative pronouns. The word what is increasingly frequently used in place of the relative pronoun that. B…

Hello folks! This week we are re-capping valency patterns. In English, the verb controls all of the other elements in the clause, so it can be helpful to understand valency patterns if you are trying…

Hello folks! This week I’m sharing a true story about my hate-hate relationship with glitter in the hope that it will help you all to understand how to use the verbs make and do properly in English. …

Hello folks! This is the second entry in my say this, not that.. series. Today, I’m focussing on the verb forget; a transfer error from German to English with the phrasal verbs stand up vs. get up an…

Hello folks! This week we’re taking a look at inversion with negative adverbials. Of course, there are lots of other instances of inversion in English, which I promise to come back to in the next few…

Hello folks! This week we are investigating how morphological errors create semantic errors in English. This was a bit trickier to explain than I had anticipated, so I hope it will all make sense to …

Hello folks, this week the podcast is revisiting some theory regarding the present simple and the present progressive. Not only have a I recapped the theory behind both of these tense and aspect comb…

Hello folks! This week we’re discussing the difference between say and tell in English.

Hello folks! This week I explain a few errors that I frequently hear. Say this, not that is going to be a regular feature. Feel free to send me any suggestions you have for expressions that you think…