expressed by the verb ending. If your English language learners often leave out the

subject, you may want to require them to stick to simple SVO sentences, with the

subject always stated explicitly. One more thing about verbs: the most common

verbs in English are the irregular ones, those that don 't follow the usual pattern of

adding -ed to form the past tense (walk, walked). Be patient with learners who

must master to be, is, am, was, were, are; do, does, did; go, goes, went; buy,

bought; and so on.

Talking about transportation is often puzzlement for English language learners

because of the prepositions in and. When the vehicle can carry only one person, or

when it carries more than a handful of people, we use on: a bicycle, an ocean liner,

a train. When a small number of people can ride in a conveyance, we use in: in a

rowboat, in a car. In English the conjunctions and and but are so common that

native speakers take them for granted, but you may need to explain the difference

between them for English language learners. English is rich in metaphors, idioms,

and figurative language. You can imagine how these nonliteral expressions would

bewilder the novice. An idiom such as used to (Our library used to be open on

Sundays) is famous for mystifying newcomers to English. Remember that

conventions for capitalization differ from language to language. Nationalities are

not capitalized in Spanish. Not all punctuation looks like English