Assistant Grammar Cat

Can you hear me now?

Hey everyone. Just a reminder: In English, there’s a difference between the verbs “hear” and “listen”. “Listen” and “listening” are usually deliberate. You’re focused while you listen. You listen to music, for example. “Hear” is much more passive. In my apartment, I often hear noise from the street. I don’t want to, but the noise…

Assistant Grammar Cat

Singular “their”.

“The people forgot to feed their cat”. That’s a normal use for the word “their”. “Their cat sleeps a lot”. They have a cat. They cat sleeps. Sometimes we use their to refer to a singular. For example: “Somebody forgot their phone at my house”. We do that because we don’t know who left the…

Assistant Grammar Cat

Very.

Here are some alternatives to using the word “very”. If you’re very tired: Say “exhausted” or more casually “wiped out”. If something is very small, say it’s “tiny”. If something or someone is very necessary, you can say it’s “essential”. If something is very cute, you can say it’s “adorable”. My assistant doesn’t think too…

Assistant Grammar Cat

Question words, part 2.

Remember, you will also hear humans ask confirming questions. “You do like pizza, don’t you?” This is a way of checking with someone if they like something, or if a situation is OK. Sometimes, people see this as “leading question”, which means they’re pretty sure you like something or are OK with it. Again: “You…

Assistant Grammar Cat

Question words.

Flash asked me if i wanted to do a lesson this week. As usual, he gave me no ideas, so I thought I would review forming a question. For those of you taking standard English tests, this is an important thing to remember. Always start a question with a question word: What, How, Who, Where,…

Assistant Grammar Cat

No?

English has many ways to say “no”. “Let’s go outside. “No way! It’s raining”. “Would you like some dessert? Are you kidding? But thank you.” “Flash, do you want to go to the vet?” “By no means!” “Will you join us at the movies later”? “I’ll pass this time”. “Do you like cheese?” “Nope”. I…

Assistant Grammar Cat

AGC BRB

I understand there’s this thing out there called the internet that I’m on right now. Nobody asked me if this was OK. The whole thing was Flash’s idea. I also understand that when you use the internet, or something called “messaging”, you might use certain abbreviations. In my opion (IMO) this is because humans are…