Phrasal verb is the name given to an English verb which is composed of two or three words. One verb is combined with a preposition (like "on, in, under)" or an adverb (like "up, down, away"). Sometimes a phrasal verb can have a meaning that is very different to the meaning of at least one of those two or three words separately. Some text books call these verbs multi-word verbs. Phrasal verbs are used more frequently in everyday speech than in formal, official writing or speaking.
Here are some examples:
"Maria didn't know the word, so she" looked it up "in the dictionary."
"Oh no, we've" run out of "milk! I'll have to buy some more."
"Farmers have to" get up "early in the morning."
"The rocket" took off "with a loud roar."
Often these phrasal verbs have a one-word equivalent in other languages.
In Spanish, to get up can be translated as "levantarse", in French as "se lever" etc.
There are four different types of phrasal verbs.
These are:
Instead of "separate" or "separable", some text books use the word "split" or "splittable".
A useful piece of advice to confused students of English is this:
If you do not know if a phrasal verb is separable or inseparable ALWAYS use a noun or noun phrase and do not try to separate the verb.
Season
A season is a part of a year. Many areas of the Earth have four seasons in a year: spring, summer, autumn (British English) or fall (US English), and winter.
In some areas, there are a different number of seasons. For example, the tropical parts of Australia (the northern parts of Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory) have wet and dry seasons. These are in addition to, or replace the regular season names.
In places which are tropical and subtropical, there are two seasons: the rainy (or wet, or monsoon) season and the dry season. This is because the rain changes more than the temperature.
Summer is a warm season because the days are longer and the Sun is high in the sky, giving direct light to the ground. Winter is a cold season because the days are shorter and the Sun is low in the sky, giving indirect light to the ground. Both the changes in the length of the day and the height of the Sun at noon are caused by the tilt of the Earth's spin axis with respect to the plane of the Earth's path around the Sun. At any time, in any season, the northern and southern hemispheres (halves of the Earth) have opposite seasons.
Seasons begin and end on different dates in different countries. In the United States, people say the seasons begin at the solstices and equinoxes. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, and the winter solstice is the shortest. The equinox is the time when the day and the night are the same number of hours, assuming the sun were a point of light at its center. Since civil dawn occurs when the edge of the sun first appears over the horizon and civil dusk occurs when the edge drops over the horizon, the civil length of day is 12 hours long several days prior to the equinoxes. In the USA, summer begins at summer solstice, winter at winter solstice, spring at the spring ("vernal") equinox and autumn at the autumnal equinox.
In Britain, people traditionally say that the seasons begin about seven weeks earlier: spring begins on Candlemas (February 2), summer on May Day (May 1), autumn on Lammas (August 1), and winter on All Hallows (November 1). These are near the cross-quarter days halfway between the solstices and the equinoxes. The Irish calendar is similar, but Spring begins on February 1.
In Denmark, spring begins on March 1, summer on June 1, autumn on September 1 and winter on December 1. In Australia, summer begins on December 1, autumn on March 1, winter on June 1, and spring on September 1.
In the Chinese calendar and the Northern parts of India, the solstices and equinoxes are in the middle of each season. Summer happens in the hemisphere tilted towards the sun.
High season is the time of year that people travel. During high season hotels and resorts increase their prices because demand is higher than in offseason. For example, winter is high season for skiing; summer is high season for beaches.
Carisbrooke Castle
Carisbrooke Castle is the Isle of Wight's only remaining medieval castle. It was built on a Roman site. The castle earthworks were begun in 1070.
The shell keep was built on the site some 70 years later. None of the Norman domestic buildings now remain. The gatehouse with its drum towers dates from the 14th and 15th centuries.
In 1377 the French landed on the island but the castle was not attacked.
During Elizabethan times the threat of a Spanish invasion was avoided when the Spanish Armada was turned away at a nearby battle. However, the castle was considerably altered to resist the new artillery. Outer lines of defence were built enclosing the old castle. The curtain walls, bastions, and bulwarks remain in good condition to this day.
Charles I was held as prisoner at the castle in 1647. An attempt to escape failed when he got stuck in the bars.
Later the castle was the occasional residence of the governor of the Isle of Wight and it became home to Princess Beatrice, youngest daughter of Queen Victoria, when she was governor.
Atlantis
Atlantis is a name for a fictional large island or small continent that was (in the legend) in the Atlantic Ocean many years before it sank into the depth of the sea .
The name Atlantis first appears in the writings of Herodotus - he describes the western ocean as "Sea of Atlantis." Then, one generation later, Atlantis is described in detail in the stories Timaeus and Critias by the Greek philosopher Plato. He used this story to help explain his ideas about government and philosophy. Plato was the only ancient writer who wrote specific things about Atlantis.
According to Plato, the Atlanteans lived 9000 years before his own time and were half human and half god. They created a very good human society. When they stopped being good people and did bad things, the gods sent earthquakes and fire to destroy Atlantis.
Many scholars think Plato could have been thinking of a real place when he wrote about Atlantis. Many, many people have thought of many, many places where the real place that inspired Atlantis could have been. For example, there was a Minoan kingdom on the island of Santorini. The Minoan kingdom was very powerful thousands of years before Plato, and their society was damaged when a volcano erupted on their island. According to Plato, Atlantis was very large, as big as North Africa, so it should not have been hard to find.
After the discovery of the Americas, some people in Europe thought they might be Atlantis. However, after Plato, the idea of Atlantis was mostly forgotten until 1882, when a writer named Ignatius Donnelly wrote a book saying that Atlantis was real and that the culture of Atlantis had started many other ancient cultures, such as the Egyptian and Mayan. Then other people became interested in Atlantis.
Atlantis has appeared in many works of fiction. In Marvel Comics, Atlantis is at the bottom of the ocean and exists in modern times, with people who breathe water. Other works of fiction use Atlantis as background. For example, Robert E. Howard set his Conan the Barbarian stories in a fictional time called the Hyborian Age, which began with the destruction of Atlantis and ended when real written history started.
Comparative
Adjectives and Adverbs can be comparative in English and some other languages. When people are talking about two or more nouns, they can compare them (say the differences between them). The word which explains how they compare is called the comparative. They can also compare actions using adverbs.
Examples: (The comparative is in bold).
Many words can be made into a comparative by adding "er" to the end of the word.
Words that end with the letter 'Y' can still be made into a comparative, but people change the 'Y' to an 'I' and then add 'ER'.