Comparative & superlative adjectives

Do you need any further practice with comparatives & superlatives? Here you have a number of exercises to practise with them:
- Comparatives:
EXERCISE 1 EXERCISE 2 EXERCISE 3

- Superlatives:
EXERCISE 1 EXERCISE 2

IKEA

IKEA (Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd) is a privately held international home products retailer that sells flat pack furniture, accessories, and bathroom and kitchen items in their retail stores around the world. The company, which pioneered flat-pack design furniture at affordable prices, is now the world's largest furniture retailer.

IKEA was founded in 1943 by 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad in Sweden. Currently, the company is owned by a Dutch-registered foundation that is believed to be controlled by the Kamprad family. IKEA is an acronym comprising the initials of the founder's name (Ingvar Kamprad), the farm where he grew up (Elmtaryd), and his home parish (Agunnaryd, in Småland, South Sweden).

INGKA Holding B.V. is the parent company for all IKEA Group companies, including the industrial group Swedwood, which commissions the manufacturing of IKEA furniture coming from any manufacturer worldwide (outsourcing), the sales companies that run IKEA stores, as well as purchasing and supply functions, and IKEA of Sweden, which is responsible for the design and development of products in the IKEA range. INGKA Holding B.V. is wholly owned by Stichting INGKA Foundation, which is a non-profit foundation registered in Leiden, Netherlands. The logistics centre europe is located in Dortmund, Germany.

Inter IKEA Systems B.V. in Delft, also in the Netherlands, owns the IKEA concept and trademark, and there is a franchising agreement with every IKEA store in the world. The IKEA Group is the biggest franchisee of Inter IKEA Systems B.V. Inter IKEA Systems B.V. is not owned by INGKA Holding B.V., but by Inter IKEA Holding S.A. registered in Luxembourg, which in turn is part of Inter IKEA Holding registered in the Netherlands Antilles. The ownership of the holding companies has not been disclosed

Product names

IKEA products are identified by single word names. Most of the names are Swedish in origin. Although there are some notable exceptions, most product names are based on a special naming system developed by IKEA in conjunction with Colin Edwards (international naming expert and furniture enthusiast).

• Upholstered furniture, coffee tables, rattan furniture, bookshelves, media storage, doorknobs: Swedish placenames (for example: Klippan)
• Beds, wardrobes, hall furniture: Norwegian place names
• Dining tables and chairs: Finnish place names
• Bookcase ranges: Occupations
• Bathroom articles: Scandinavian lakes, rivers and bays
• Kitchens: grammatical terms, sometimes also other names
• Chairs, desks: men's names
• Materials, curtains: women's names
• Garden furniture: Swedish islands
• Carpets: Danish place names
• Lighting: terms from music, chemistry, meteorology, measures, weights, seasons, months, days, boats, nautical terms
• Bedlinen, bed covers, pillows/cushions: flowers, plants, precious stones
• Children's items: mammals, birds, adjectives
• Curtain accessories: mathematical and geometrical terms
• Kitchen utensils: foreign words, spices, herbs, fish, mushrooms, fruits or berries, functional descriptions
• Boxes, wall decoration, pictures and frames, clocks: colloquial expressions, also Swedish place names

For example, DUKTIG (meaning: good, well-behaved) is a line of children's toys, OSLO is a name of a bed, BILLY (a Swedish masculine name) is a popular shelf, DINERA (meaning: (to) dine) for tableware, KASSETT (meaning: cassette) for media storage. One range of office furniture is named EFFEKTIV (meaning: efficient, effective), SKÄRPT (meaning: sharp or clever) is a line of kitchen knives.

A notable exception is the IVAR shelving system, which dates back to the early 1970s. This item is named after the item's designer.

Because IKEA is a worldwide company working in several countries with several different languages, sometimes the Nordic naming leads to problems where the word means something completely different to the product. While exotic-sounding names draw attention, e.g., in anglophone countries, a number of them call for a snicker. Notable examples include "Jerker" desk and "Fartfull" workbench. Also, the most recent new product, Lyckhem (meaning bliss). The products are generally withdrawn, probably after someone pointed at blunders, but not before generating some news. Similar blunders happen with other companies as well.

Company founder Ingvar Kamprad, who is dyslexic, found that naming the furniture with proper names and words, rather than a product code, made the names easier to remember.

Word Formation

Hello my dear students!
Please follow these two links and download these wordformation sheets :)
- http://www.esl-galaxy.com/prefix/prefixwordmeaning.pdf
- http://www.esl-galaxy.com/prefix/Common%20prefix%20match.pdf

Route 66

U.S. Route 66 (also known as the ‘Will Rogers Highway’ after a very famous humorist). It is colloquially known as ‘the Main Street of America’ or ‘the Mother road’. It runs from Chicago to Los Angeles. If you travel following this route you can see Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Tulsa or Springfield among others. In popular culture, it is recognized by two things: first, because it is a hit song that many bands play (Depeche Mode, The Rolling Stones, Nat King Cole Trio); and second, because there was a television show called ‘Route 66’ in the 1960s. It is not a highway from the United States Highway System anymore. Now, it is a very important historic place.

Present simple!

Hi there! Do you need any further help with present simpe??
Try doing this exercise:

Present Tense - To Be

Type the correct word in the boxes below.

am

are

is

1.	He from India.
2.	You a good friend.
3.	I very happy today.
4.	The cat brown.
5.	Annette tired.
6.	We hungry after our long walk.
7.	I always late for class.
8.	The exercises for homework easy.
9.	It very hot now.
10.	You in the same class as my brother.

Taken from: http://www.members.iinet.net.au
If you need any further practice, visit THIS SITE!

Ordering food in a restaurant

Have a look at this Menu
Starters
Chicken Soup $2.50
Salad $3.25
Sandwiches - Main Course
Ham and cheese $3.50
Tuna $3.00
Vegetarian $4.00
Grilled Cheese $2.50
Piece of Pizza $2.50
Cheeseburger $4.50
Hamburger deluxe$5.00
Spaghetti $5.50
Drinks
Coffee $1.25
Tea $1.25
Soft Drinks $1.75
- Coke, Sprite, Root Beer, etc.

Read this dialogue

Waiter: Hello, Can I help you?
Kim: Yes, I'd like to have some lunch.
Waiter: Would you like a starter?
Kim: Yes, I'd like a bowl of chicken soup, please.
Waiter: And what would you like for a main course?
Kim: I'd like a grilled cheese sandwich.
Waiter: Would you like anything to drink?
Kim: Yes, I'd like a glass of Coke, please.
Waiter... After Kim has her lunch.: Can I bring you anything else?
Kim: No thank you. Just the bill.
Waiter: Certainly.
Kim:I don't have my glasses. How much is the lunch?
Waiter: That's $6.75.
Kim: Here you are. Thank you very much.
Waiter: You're welcome. Have a good day.
Kim: Thank you, the same to you.

Pay attention to how the waiter asks: What would you like? and Kim responds: I'd like ...

"Would like" is the polite form used when asking and requesting.

Please CLICK HERE in order to practise the dialogue filling some gaps.

You can't control your stress? Play with it!

If you want to further practice English stress try THIS LINK. You can practice stress by playing! You can choose three levels of difficulty ;)

The boy does nothing by Alesha Dixon

Even though the boy does nothing... she uses the present simple incredibly well! check this out! ;)

I got a man with two left feet
And when he dances down to the beat
I really think that he should know
That his rhythms go go go

I got a man with two left feet
And when he dances down to the beat
I really think that he should know
That his rhythms go go go

CHORUS
Does he wash up? Never wash up
Does he clean up? No, he never cleans up
Does he brush up? Never brushed up
He does nothing the boy does nothing
(Repeat chorus)

Hey boy how you been?
I got a thousand lines
Where do I begin?
And II been here, been there
Traveling
I saw you at the corner
My vibe kicked in

And
Two fields
I clock you
Wearing tight jeans
A real nice suit
He was smiling like you
Was just seventeen
I asked him for a dance
He said 'yes please'

Take a sip of dancing juice
Everybody's onto you
Through the left and to the right
Everybody hit the rhythm
It's on tonight
I'm gonna feel the heat within my soul
I need a man to take control
Let the melody blow you all away

CHORUS
Does he wash up? Never wash up
Does he clean up? No, he never cleans up
Does he brush up? Never brushed up
He does nothing the boy does nothing
(Repeat chorus)

Work it out now
Work it, Work it out now

Do the mumbo
Shake it all around now

Everybody on the floor
Let me see you clap your hands

I wanna see you work
I wanna see you move your body in turn
I wanna see you shake your hips and learn

I wanna see you work it, work it, work it out now

I wanna see you work
I wanna see you move your body in turn
I wanna see you shake your hips and learn

I wanna see you work it, work it, work it out now

CHORUS
Does he wash up? Never wash up
Does he clean up? No, he never cleans up
Does he brush up? Never brushed up
He does nothing the boy does nothing
(Repeat chorus)
And if the man can't dance, he gets no second chance

Postcard

,

Hi Josh!
How are you?
I'm now in London and I thought it would be nice to send you this postcard.
I've seen many things this morning. I went to Picadilly Circus, I walked along Oxford Street, Regents Street, Tottenham Court Road... And I've bought a super nice jumper in GAP!
You should have come man! You can't imagine how nice this city is. The streets are packed with people and the shops are amazing!!
Looking forward to hearing from you,
xoxo
Ann