Want to improve your English skills? Our selection of quizzes and articles on various aspects of the English language can help you reach your learning goals.
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English vocabulary … diving deeper
Build your English vocabulary, and explore some easily confused words and expressions.
Quizzes on vocabulary
Vocabulary building
- A bounty of apple idioms
- Body idioms: Let your body do the talking!
- Chilly expressions: Don’t be left out in the cold!
- Chilly expressions: Don’t get cold feet!
- Handy expressions
- Horsing around with animal expressions
- Sunny expressions
- Similes: As easy as ABC!
- Warning: Severe weather ahead
Easily confused words and expressions
- Affect or effect: What’s the difference?
- Assure, ensure or insure?
- Farther or further?
- Than vs. then: Test your knowledge!
- Confusable words: “Amount” or “number”?
- Confusable words: “Bring” or “take”?
- Confusable words: “Fewer” or “less”?
Other resources on English vocabulary
See English vocabulary … getting started and English vocabulary … reaching further.
Articles on vocabulary
Vocabulary building
- Vocabulary building: “Anglophone” and “Francophone”
- Vocabulary building: How to write the date correctly
- Vocabulary building: The prefixes “non-“ and “un-”
Easily confused words and expressions
- Easily confused words and expressions: “affect” and “effect”
- Easily confused words and expressions: “amount” and “number”
- Easily confused words and expressions: “assure,” “ensure” and “insure”
- Easily confused words and expressions: “bring” and “take”
- Easily confused words and expressions: “could have,” “could’ve” and “could of”
- Easily confused words and expressions: “different from,” “different than” and “different to”
- Easily confused words and expressions: “emigrate,” “immigrate” and “migrate”
- Easily confused words and expressions: “farther,” “further” and “furthermore”
- Easily confused words and expressions: “got” and “gotten”
- Easily confused words and expressions: “may be” and “maybe”
- Easily confused words and expressions: “put in place” and “put into place”
- Easily confused words and expressions: “supposedly” and “supposably”
- Easily confused words and expressions: “look over” and “overlook”
Other resources on English vocabulary
See English vocabulary … getting started and English vocabulary … reaching further.
English grammar and syntax … diving deeper
Explore different aspects of English grammar and syntax such as parts of speech, prepositions, plurals, agreement and sentence structure.
Quizzes on grammar and syntax
Parts of speech
- Review exercise: Parts of speech
- Parts of speech: Is that a preposition?
- Parts of speech: Is that a verb?
- Parts of speech: Is that an adjective?
- Adjectives: Keep them in order!
- Agile adverbs
- Types of phrases: Is it a noun phrase, verb phrase or other phrase?
- Bad vs. badly
- Poor or poorly?
Prepositions
Plurals
- English plurals: More than just adding “s”
- Irregular plural nouns
- Plural family names
- Plurals of nouns ending in “f” or “fe”
- Plurals of nouns ending in “y”
Agreement
- Pronoun agreement: Choose the correct option!
- Subject-verb agreement with “none”
- Subject-verb agreement: “Either” and “neither”
- Subject-verb agreement: “Number,” “range” and “total”
- Subject-verb agreement: Compound subjects
- Subject-verb agreement: Indefinite pronouns
Sentence structure
- The four sentence types: Spot the correct one!
- Active and passive voice: Stay passive or go active?
- Active and passive voice: Which one to use?
- Fun with Clauses: Dependent or independent?
Other resources on English grammar and syntax
See English grammar and syntax … getting started and English grammar and syntax … reaching further.
Articles on grammar and syntax
Parts of speech
- Grammar terms
- Using adverbs and adjectives
- Adjective clauses
- Adverb clauses
- Conjunctive adverbs
- Noun phrases
- Compound personal pronouns
- Indefinite pronouns
- Correlative conjunctions
- How to use the phrases “you and I” and “you and me”
Prepositions
- Prepositional phrases: An overview
- Prepositions: “beside” and “besides”
- Prepositions: “by” and “near”
- Prepositions: “in” and “into”
- Prepositions: “on,” “on to” and “onto”
- Prepositions: “upon,” “up on” and “on”
Plurals
Agreement
- Verb agreement: An overview
- Verb agreement in questions
- Verb agreement with the word “couple”
- Verb agreement with the word “none”
- Verb agreement with the word “number”
- Verb agreement with the word “range”
- Verb agreement with the word “total”
Sentence structure
- Complex sentences
- Compound sentences
- Fragments and sentence fragments
- Indirect objects
- Active voice and passive voice
Other resources on English grammar and syntax
See English grammar and syntax … getting started and English grammar and syntax … reaching further.
English verbs … diving deeper
Learn about English verbs, tenses and moods, and phrasal verbs.
Quizzes on verbs
Verbs: General
Tenses and moods
- Review exercise: Verb moods
- Review exercise: Verb tenses
- Verb tenses in storytelling
- Verb tenses: Context is everything
- Conditionals: “If” and other clues
- Conditionals: Iffy verbs
Phrasal verbs
- Phrasal verbs: Break time!
- Phrasal verbs: Bring it on!
- Phrasal verbs: Don’t fall behind!
- Phrasal verbs: Fall in line!
- Phrasal verbs: Take a break!
Other resources on English verbs
See English verbs … getting started and English verbs … reaching further.
Articles on verbs
Verbs: General
Tenses and moods
- Verbs in conditional sentences
- How to avoid incorrect uses of the verb “would”
- Modal auxiliary verbs: “may” and “might”
Phrasal verbs
- Phrasal verbs with the adverb “up”
- Phrasal verbs: “agree on,” “agree to” and “agree with”
- Phrasal verbs: “associate to” and “associate with”
- Phrasal verbs: “depart for” and “depart from”
- Phrasal verbs: “divide in,” “divide into,” “divide in half” and “divide in two”
- Phrasal verbs: “face off,” “face-off” and “faceoff”
- Phrasal verbs: “follow up on” and “follow up with”
- Phrasal verbs: “invested as,” “invest in” and “invest with”
- Phrasal verbs: “live by,” “live off” and “live on”
- Phrasal verbs: “point at,” “point to” and “point out”
- Phrasal verbs: “prevent from” and “prevent to”
Other resources on English verbs
See English verbs … getting started and English verbs … reaching further.
English spelling … diving deeper
Learn about some of the common spelling challenges in English such as homonyms, Canadian spelling and tricky endings.
Quizzes on spelling
Homonyms
- Homonyms: Choose the correct word!
- Homonyms: Council, counsel, councillor, counsellor
- Homonyms: Is it “discreet” or “discrete”?
- Homonyms: Let the context guide you!
- Homonyms: Same sound, different meaning!
- One word or two: Fun with homonyms!
Canadian spelling
- Canadian spelling challenge: Are you an “adviser” or an “advisor”?
- Canadian spelling challenge: Pretty tricky, eh?
- Canadian spelling challenge: Spot the preferred spelling!
- Spellbound: Is it “gray” or “grey”?
Tricky endings
- Words that end with “-able” and “-ible”
- Words that end with “-sion” and “-tion”
- Words that end with the sound “-er”
Other resources on English spelling
Articles on spelling
Homonyms
- Homonyms: “all ready” and “already”
- Homonyms: “all together” and “altogether”
- Homonyms: “back up” and “backup”
- Homonyms: “cite,” “sight” and “site”
- Homonyms: “complement” and “compliment”
- Homonyms: “council,” “councillor,” “counsel” and “counsellor”
- Homonyms: “discreet” and “discrete”
- Homonyms: “incidence” and “incidents”
Canadian spelling
- Canadian spelling: “behaviour,” “behavioural” and “behaviourism”
- Canadian spelling: “grey” and “gray”
- Canadian spelling: “honor,” “honorary,” “honour” and “honourary”
- Canadian spelling: “licence” and “license”
- Canadian spelling: “manoeuvre” and “maneuver”
- Canadian spelling: “practice” and “practise”
Tricky endings
Other resources on English spelling
Additional information
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