Blog

The Chinese Idiom Dictionary: The Complete Collection

The Chinese Idiom Dictionary: The Complete Collection by Mei Li & Maki Hayasaka All 3 volumes in 1 massive collection! The Chinese Idiom Dictionary is an enormous resource of over 4,100 traditional chengyu, carefully organized for easy reference. Each idiom is provided in its traditional form, with both Pinyin and English translations accompanying them. In Read More

Easy English: Future Perfect Tense

Future perfect simple: “Will” Usage The future perfect tense is used to describe an event that will be completed before another point in time. As a result, we often use time expressions (such as “by tomorrow,” “by midday,” or “by then”) or another activity (expressed in a different future tense) to help make the timeline Read More

Easy English: Indirect Questions

What are indirect questions? Indirect questions are statements or questions that reframe a direct question by relaying it in reported speech. To make this clearer, let’s look at some direct questions: “Is this your bag?” “Do you know the time?” “Have you seen Emma lately?” To form questions in English, we either change the word Read More

Easy English: Modal Verbs

What are modal verbs? We use modal verbs in order to express modality, such as permission, ability, suggestion, possibility, attitude, likelihood, order, or obligation. Here are the various modal verbs that we commonly use: may would might must can shall could should will ought to An important note is that modal verbs are always paired Read More

Easy English: Imperatives

What are imperatives? In English, the imperative is one of three verbal moods. These are the indicative, the subjunctive, and the imperative. We use imperatives to give commands, issue warnings, or provide emphatic instructions. And if we add “please” before an imperative phrase, it can also form a request. In the examples below, note that Read More

Easy English: Relative Clauses

What is a relative clause? A relative clause (also called an “adjective clause” because it gives us more information about a particular noun) is a type of dependent clause. Every relative clause has a subject and a verb, but these clauses can’t stand by themselves as complete sentences. How to identify a relative clause A Read More