Hilary

About Hilary Miller

Posts by Hilary Miller:

29 Feb 2016

Sometimes, in English, the noun and verb forms of a word are very similar. However, if you mix them up, you won’t sound very fluent. And these words are often used in tests of English proficiency (like the TOEFL iBT), so it’s worth mastering them.

Two words that are commonly confused are success and succeed. They are both positive words! However, success is a noun and succeed is a verb. Steve Jobs was a success. He succeeded because he was very creative. You want to be a success. You want to succeed at learning English. Everyone wants to succeed at their job. They want to achieve success. Notice that the verb succeed is usually followed by at or by. You succeed at your job. You succeed by working hard.

Also pay attention to the pronunciation of these words. Practice using both forms in sentences. And don’t forget the adjective form – successful – and the adverb form — successfully. A successful person is a person who succeeds at something. He has achieved success. He has done something successfully.

Two other words that are often confused are product and produce. Product is always a noun. Produce is usually a verb. Apple produces products like the iPhone. Nokia produces phones. H & M produces clothes. Phones are a product of Nokia. T-shirts are a product of H & M.

Remember that I said produce is usually a verb. If you pronounce it a little differently, with the emphasis on the first syllable, it can be used as a noun. The produce department in a grocery store is where you find fruits and vegetables. Markets sell produce like tomatoes, bananas, and lettuce.

If you take an English language test, you may well be asked a question which can be answered using these words. If you use them successfully, if you can produce a successful answer, you will sound much more fluent and you may succeed at passing the test.

28 Feb 2016

Those tiny but oh-so-common words called prepositions cause lots of trouble for English learners!

Even when you are very fluent in English, you may still get your prepositions mixed up.

Prepositions do lots of different jobs in English. Right now, let’s think about prepositional phrases with the words at, on and in. A phrase is a group of words. A prepositional phrase has a preposition and its object. The object can be a noun or a pronoun. In English is a prepositional phrase: in is the preposition and English is its object.

Let’s look at the picture above.

The woman is sitting at her desk. AT is a preposition that places one thing at a certain, specific point. For example:

I am sitting at my desk. She is meeting him at school. They are meeting at 8:00.

In the picture, the computer is on the desk. ON is a preposition that marks physical contact between one thing and another. For example, in the picture:

The woman’s hands are on the computer. The pencil is on the notebook. The notebook is on the desk.

Finally, in the picture, the plant is in the jar. IN is a preposition that means that one thing is contained by another thing. For example:

I am in my car. The food is in the refrigerator. He is in his room. Her clothes are in the closet.

To practice using these prepositions, try making up a few sentences to describe what you see in this picture.

blog at

21 Feb 2016

There are some pairs of English words that seem to present special problems for English learners.

One of the most frequently confused word pairs is avoid and prevent.

Think of prevent as something you do before a particular problem or situation.

A very popular ad in the U.S. features Smokey the Bear.

Only You

Smokey the Bear tells you to do certain things to prevent forest fires. For example, you should not drop a lit cigarette on the ground. You should make sure any fire you have built is completely soaked with water before you leave. All these actions may prevent a forest fire from happening. If you prevent something, it won’t happen at all … at least to you.

Think of avoid as something you do when a particular problem or situation already exists. For example, if there is a forest fire nearby, you will avoid it. If you are driving and there is a hole in the road, you will avoid it. If a certain kind of food makes you sick, you will avoid it.

To help you remember these words, think of sentences that use them both. For example:

To prevent a car accident, avoid driving too fast.

To prevent being late for work, avoid sleeping too late.

To prevent getting fat, avoid eating too much.

To prevent cancer, avoid smoking.

To prevent failing your class, avoid studying too little.

In future blog posts, I’ll talk about other word pairs that I frequently hear being confused.

19 Feb 2016

In English, our nouns usually don’t have gender. That’s nice. You don’t have to worry about whether a chair is feminine or masculine.

However, we do have count and non-count nouns. Not surprisingly, count nouns can be counted. For example, there are five students in the room. I have twelve pencils. The United States has 50 states. Students, pencils, and states are count nouns.

To make count nouns plural, you usually add an –s to the end of the word. However, some common count nouns are irregular (like child/children and man/men).

Non-count nouns can’t be counted. They may be a liquid (you can’t count water) or a mass (you can’t count rice). Or they may be an abstract idea (you can’t count luck).

You can’t make these non-count nouns plural and you may not use an article like a and an in front of them.

There are lots of English words that we can use to make non-count nouns countable. For example:

A cup of water

A grain of rice

A bit of luck

One very common mistake English learners make is to treat non-count nouns like count nouns. Typically, the words I hear used incorrectly are:

Advice (never advices)
Work (very rarely works)
Homework (never homeworks)
Information (never informations)
Equipment (never equipments)
Knowledge (never knowledges)
Help (never helps)
Scenery (never sceneries)

These words are used frequently and you won’t sound fluent if you use them incorrectly. Try memorizing these common phrases.

Can you give me some advice? I need some advice. Here’s my advice.

I have some work to do. This work is hard. I have lots of homework.

I need some information. She gave me some information. Here’s the information you need.

We don’t have the right equipment to do this. We need better equipment.

Scientists search for more knowledge. He has a thirst for knowledge. Knowledge is power.

I need some help with this. This is a big help. He gave me a little help.

We saw some beautiful scenery. The scenery is gorgeous in China. We traveled by train and enjoyed the scenery.

Just to add a bit of confusion, there are some non-count nouns that seem plural (like [eye]glasses, jeans, and socks). When you need to specify a number of these, you generally use a pair of … For example, I have two pairs of glasses (my reading pair and my spare pair), three pairs of jeans, and 20 pairs of socks.

And, finally, to make you really confused, some nouns are both count and non-count! Usually, they have somewhat different meanings. For example:

He is raising chickens. His family eats chicken every Sunday.

There is a hair in my soup. I have blonde hair.

There are seven colors in the rainbow. This room needs more color.

14 Feb 2016

Neither is a good thing, but I think it’s better to be bored than to be boring.

Maybe you aren’t interested in anything. Life doesn’t seem very interesting. You’re tired of your work. It’s too tiring!

People learning English often confuse these little adjectives that are formed from a verb and end with –ed and –ing. They’re called participles or participial adjectives.

What’s the difference between the participles that end with –ing and those that end with –ed?

Participles that end with –ing are called present participial adjectives. They have an active meaning. The noun they describe does or performs the action. For example:

This is a boring class. The class is doing the action. It is boring you.

This is an interesting movie. The movie is doing the action. It is interesting you.

This is a tiring job. The job is doing the action. It is tiring you.

Participles that end with –ed are called past participial adjectives. They have a passive meaning. The noun they describe feels or receives the action. For example:

I am bored (because this class is boring).

I am interested (because this movie is interesting).

I am tired (because my job is tiring).

As you can see, there’s a big difference between being bored, and being boring! Using these little words incorrectly can confuse your listener. Is what you say confusing? Is your listener confused? The best way to practice is to keep repeating common expressions until they become stuck in your mind. You should know the difference between common adjectives such as:

Bored and boring

Interested and interesting

Tired and tiring

Surprised and surprising

Excited and exciting

Confused and confusing

This is a great little quiz you can take to practice these adjectives and a few more. (Note for American English: we use sports in its plural form when we are talking about sports in general; we use sport in its singular form when we are talking about a particular sport. So, for example, I’m really into sports, and football is my favorite sport.)

11 Feb 2016

Lately, articles in publications like The Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine have pointed out that more and more people are now accepting they as a grammatically correct singular third-person pronoun.

In other words, it’s now okay to say:

Everyone has their pencil and paper.

Each student was talking to their partner.

First person: I went to my doctor today. Second person: Oh, what did they say? (Because the second person doesn’t know whether the doctor is male or female)

I’m meeting a friend and going to their house. (Because maybe you don’t want to say whether you are going to be with a male or female.)

Using they in these situations saves speakers the problem of using awkward phrases like he or she and his/her.

Sometimes we can avoid this problem by making our sentences plural. For example:

Every student did his or her work can be changed to All the students did their work.

However, this doesn’t always work. Sometimes, you are talking about a single person, but you don’t know their sex or you don’t want your listener to know. Notice that in that last sentence I used their to refer to a single person! Often this is just inevitable in English and it’s nice to know that language experts and editors are finally coming around. You may have a grammar teacher who doesn’t agree, but then you can just refer them to one of the articles I mentioned above (notice that I just used the singular third-person they again!).

9 Feb 2016

Most English grammar books introduce personal pronouns like he, she, him, and her very early on. However, it seems to take many ESL students a long time to really master them. Unfortunately, when you misuse these little words, you can really confuse your listener. Also, using personal pronouns correctly can improve your scores on tests such as the TOEFL iBT and IELTS.

When I taught Low Intermediate Grammar, I used to have the class practice personal pronouns by arranging the students in a circle and having them take turns describing each other. But how do you practice when you’re by yourself?

One simple way is to get a group photo of men and women from the Internet or a magazine. Practice describing these people out loud. For example, you could say: She (a woman) is wearing a green dress. Her shoes are green too. She is sitting by a man. He looks like her father. His hair is gray. He is talking to her. They look happy.

Be sure to speak aloud and don’t just “think” the words. It’s important to get really comfortable with speaking quickly about men and women. Your goal should be to be able to use the correct personal pronoun without giving it any thought. This can take time, but it’s worth the effort.

7 Feb 2016

Recently, it occurred to me that punctuation symbols in written English are a lot like brake and turn signals in a car. Students sometimes wonder why teachers care so much about periods and commas, but in English, they act like car lights … they help the reader know where you, the writer, are going. We often get annoyed by drivers who don’t use signals because they take us by surprise; suddenly, they do something that we don’t expect. Think of periods as brake lights and commas as turn signals, and then you will understand better how they help your reader.