The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 31: Videos Video Summary Thomas explores how the passive voice can easily become both wordy and sneaky, and offers a creative reading activity that you can try to explore this difference in your own experience. He also offers a surprising and fun way to prepare for Marie’s[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 30: Videos Video Summary Thomas explores how the addition of prepositional phrases to a sentence can sometimes make it difficult to inflect a verb correctly for number, a feature of the language that standardized test makers use to trick students. But never fear! You know everything you[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 29: Videos Video Summary Thomas explores how the seemingly inconsequential auxiliary verb have can actually help us to move through time with precision. He also introduces a tense known as the “past perfect.” Finally, to finish, he proposes a new creative thinking activity that he hopes you’ll[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 28: Videos Video Summary Thomas offers a new way to think about classifying verbs by using an analogy with how a botanist classifies leaves. He also proposes a creative thinking activity that he hopes you’ll try! Lesson from Marie Video Summary “A verb of more than one[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 27: Videos Video Summary Among the flowers in his neighbors’ lush garden, Thomas demonstrates the importance of clearly connecting your pronouns to their antecedents. He then shows how this can make for excellent poetry with three examples from his friend, the poet W. S. Merwin. Lesson from[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 26: Videos Video Summary From his neighbors’ lush garden, Thomas offers an easy and memorable way to keep from getting confused about the difference between its and it’s, and their and they’re. Take a peek! Lesson from Marie Video Summary “Antecedent means going, or placed before. In[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 25: Videos Video Summary Thomas brings up a potentially confusing situation with compound objects and shows an easy way to see what’s happening. He also clears up a question about the interrogative pronoun what and leads us into Marie’s lesson. Lesson from Marie Video Summary “Pronouns used[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 24: Videos Video Summary Thomas addresses a question you might have following the previous lesson: Why does It is them sound slightly odd to the ear? And what about It is them? Is that also correct? He also uses this difference to introduce the topic of Marie’s[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 23: Videos Video Summary Thomas uses a quote from the Tao Te Ching to explore the importance of letting the body rest as well as the idea of what lies beyond words. He then adds an important observation about the inflection of pronouns for gender: In English,[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 22: Videos Video Summary Thomas combines two unusual elements to give a helpful tip about inflecting indefinite pronouns such as anybody and everybody for number. He also addresses a way that grammar and usage have continued to change, leading to greater flexibility with the pronoun they. Lesson[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 21: Videos Video Summary Thomas explores the hidden power and the hidden danger of interrogative and demonstrative pronouns. Then he shows how a writer can create a context in which demonstrative pronouns point to the world without leaving a reader wondering, “What?” Lesson from Marie Video Summary[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 20: Videos Video Summary Thomas explores the use of compound personal pronouns in imperative sentences and then turns to an error that people commonly make with pronouns such as myself. With the help of two clear examples, you will easily be able to avoid this error yourself.[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 19: Videos Video Summary Thomas explores the Greek etymology of the word persona, taking us into the world of the theater and the drama of everyday life with the help of a special assistant. He also introduces the topic that Marie will be discussing in her video:[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 17: Videos Video Summary Thomas explains why he’s been carrying a pillow through the forest all this time. “I wanted to give you a simple image,” he says, “for how the subjective or nominative case and the objective or accusative case in English don’t change or inflect[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 16: Videos Video Summary Thomas introduces the idea of the objective case and gives a sentence that contains the three kinds of objects that you’ve studied so far: a direct object, an indirect object, and the object of a preposition. He also illustrates how important the question[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 15: Videos Video Summary Thomas introduces the idea of grammatical cases, showing how these concepts aren’t as new to you as they might appear at first. He also introduces an unusual and helpful way to tell the difference between those cases that change the appearance of a[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 14: Videos Video Summary Thomas introduces the idea of grammatical gender, noting that there aren’t many nouns in English that are specific to gender. Other languages, such as Spanish, for example, have many more gendered nouns. However, he also notes that there are times when gender remains[…]

The Intermediate Cozy Grammar Course, Level One Lesson 13: Videos Video Summary Thomas shows us how nouns of address and nouns in apposition are not just nouns that we use all the time, but are also ways of using nouns that open us to new creative possibilities. In particular, with the help of some native,[…]