3 Phrase Diet: Week 5

Welcome to Week 5 of the 3 phrase diet.

To the best of my knowledge

This is a phrase we use when we have knowledge of a subject, event or person but not a significant amount of knowledge about the subject, event or person.

A: How will the weather be tomorrow?
B: Sunny to the best of my knowledge.

That's about the size of it

This phrase is used to sum up a story, problem or situation.

A: My writing project needs to be about 600 words and contain references and citations from the text. I also need to include my opinion and examples to support that opinion.
B: Is there anything else?
A: No, that's about the size of it.

Once and for all

This phrase is used to indicate a final declaration complete an action or argument.

I've been playing this video game for 2 years! I'm going to finish it once and for all.

Speak Bravely!

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Verbs to Describe Change

 Everyday things are changing. Here is a list of verbs to describe or depict change in the everyday.

Present                                 Present Continuous                      Past

Become	Becoming	Became
Begin	Beginning	Began
Change	Changing	Changed
Decrease	Decreasing	Decreased
Get	Getting	Got
Grow	Growing	Grew
Improve	Improving	Improved
Increase	Increasing	Increased
Lower	Lowering	Lowered
Rise	Rising	Rose

Examples (in Present Continuous)

The weather is becoming warmer.
It's beginning to feel like spring.
I like the changing of the seasons.
My nervousness to speak English is decreasing.
By speaking bravely my English is getting better.
More flowers are growing everyday.
Reading Chromatic English has been improving my English.
The temperature is increasing.
Lowering my expectations is not a good idea.
My knowledge of English is rising.

Happy learning and Speak Bravely!

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3 Phrase Diet: Week 4

Here our your phrases for Week 4 of the 3 Phrase Diet!

 

Second Rate

Something you buy that is cheap or not of the best quality
Ex. I bought a second rate car to save money.

Were you born in a barn

This is a phrase commonly said when someone leaves the door open and the cold air blows inside.

That's a new one on me.

When you learn something new such as a word or phrase that you didn't know before. I say this a lot to my Australian friends when they use slang or expressions from Australia.

Happy learning and Speak bravely!


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3 Phrase Diet: Week 3

We missed you on Week 2 and we are sorry about that. Hopefully you came up with your own 3 phrases for week 2, if so please share them by emailing or posting them in comments.

The 3 phrases for Week 3 :

Have you heard the good news?
We say this phrase when we see someone and want to share the good news we've heard or have with that person. We ask this question first because if you know the same people then they might have heard it already.

The weather's getting warmer.
This phrase is a statement on the changing weather. at least for the Northern Hemisphere, if you live down south than you would say, "The weather's getting colder." The verb 'getting' has the same meaning as 'becoming' or 'changing', but you do not say "The weather's changing warmer."

Let's go on a picnic!
This phrase include 'Let's' that comes in front of any activity that we want to include or invite others to do with us. "Let's watch a movie.", "Let's play soccer.", "Let's go out for coffee.", etc.


Happy Learning and Speak Bravely!

My Favorite Things

Let's talk about favorites and the correct patterns of speaking about our favorite things.

We always get asked about our favorite things in this question:
What is your favorite food?

What is your favorite color?

What is your favorite season?


We are taught to answer this question in this way:
My favorite food is pizza.

My favorite color is blue.

My favorite season is autumn.

In these answers we use My favorite as the subject with objects that are uncountable.

But what about countable objects?

What is your favorite animal?

My favorite animal is dog. Not correct.
My favorite animal are dogs. Not correct.
My favorite animal is dogs. Not correct.*

Why not?
Because the way the question is asked needs a single animal.

We can add the article 'the' to make it more correct.
My favorite animal is the dog.

If we change the question: What are your favorite animals?
My favorite animals are dogs. Correct.
And we can even add a list of favorite animals- dogs, cats and giraffes. 

Although this is the best solution we could also make the object our subject and say:
Dogs are my favorite animal.

This is my favorite answer!

Questions with a singular or plural answer:

What is your favorite dessert?
My favorite dessert is cake. [or] Cake is my favorite dessert.
Cookies are my favorite dessert.

My favorite dessert is fruit.
What's your favorite fruit?
My favorite fruit is strawberries. (Not correct) Strawberries are my favorite dessert.

What's your favorite music?
My favorite music is jazz.
Jazz is my favorite music.

What's your favorite drink?
My favorite drink is orange juice.
Orange juice is my favorite drink.

What's your favorite time of day?
My favorite time of day is the afternoon.
The afternoon is my favorite time of day.

Special Note: I like ____.
When asked a "What's your favorite ____?"  if you are unsure how to answer (with plural, singular or the) you can always use "I like dogs." as your answer.

In Conclusion
To use this question and answer correctly the questioner has the responsibility to ask the question correctly with singular or plural usage 'is/are' for the responder to know which usage to use to form a correct answer. 

*My favorite animal is dogs. is a sentence I've labeled as Not correct for the purpose that 'is' is a singular verb and 'dogs' is a plural noun and grammatically shouldn't be used together. Although, if you were to say this sentence as an answer to the question the sentence would be understood. 

If you have any questions, comments, advice or corrections with the content of this posting please do not hesitate to send an email or leave a comment below. I look forward to hearing from you and starting a discussion on how to answer this question clearly once and for all.

Also, feel free to share with us a list of your favorite things including animals, flowers, food, English words, countries, vacation locations or anything else you like.

Happy Learning and Speak Bravely!

The 3 Phrase Diet: Week One

Our 3 phrases this week:

Is anything going on?

This phrase is used to ask a question about what's going on like an event, party or other social gathering. We can include time frames such as, Is anything going on this weekend; tonight; tomorrow etc.

I'm all ears.

This phrase is used to indicate that I'm listening.

Nothing to complain about. 

If asked 'How are you?' you can reply with this phrase meaning that everything is going well or 'I'm fine'.

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Speak Bravely!