It seems you model the abilities and needs of all ESL students on yourself. That's what you are doing too, except it's never clear what the foudation of your reasoning is, and often also what the actual reasoning is. It seems successful

. I keep one myself for particularly odd English locutions that I run across. It is a much more meaningful way to organize thoughts and learn lexes than the traditional word list. Here is some of what STEVEN BLOOMBERG has to say: "You need

What I was meaning with the preposition and objective case query, is that I want to know if the pronoun is still the objective case if it comes before the preposition. No. A preposition governs case only in one direction. The preposition cannot

"Paid" is either transitive or intransitive. In this case it's supposedly transitive, as in "to pay taxes." That means it takes a direct object. So what do you pay here? "for one." Again, a prepositional phrase is

predicate adjectives This is a function, not a part of speech. That is, there is no such thing as a part of speech called a "predicate adjective". Most of your examples are nouns functioning as adjectives within a compound noun

Preposition: I just flashed on (had a sudden mental image of) my first day at the college. Adverb (phrasal verb particle): I just flashed on (turned on a slide projector that showed) my first day at the college. _______ Statistically, the second

Why couldn't you blow out your candles? (A: why/n't/out modify the verb could blow) My question: is it a fact that "why" and "not" are adverbs? Is that what you're taught? Yes. why and not sentential adverbs as

The stranded hiker quietly gave up the chance of rescue. (A: quietly/up modify the verb gave) My question: does "up" modify "give", isn't "gave up" regarded as a compound verb and it means "to forfiet,

Thank you very much CalifJim. That is what I was interested in. So, when there is no general rule, how can I learn these phrasal verbs? Do I have to learn every combinations of verbs and adverbial particles? Isn't there any simplification? It

Is there any general rule for prepositions after verbs? You are referring, of course, to those adverbial particles that create phrasal verbs. No. There is no general rule. The most common are in, out, on, off, up, down, away, and back . Some of