Language How language works, for a curious pupil: sounds, words and rules, nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions, kinds of sentences, tenses, irregular verbs and brave mistakes, plurals, grammar puzzles and the spelling traps of their, there and they're.
The questions of the language course of Mova's primary school: 55 lessons, 822 questions, every question and option parsed by Mova with its syntax tree and pragmatics. How the student did on them: the course at school .
1 What language is: sounds, words and rules everyone shares 15 questions · Your mate goes "slang ain't proper language bruv, it's just noise." What's the best answer? 2 Nouns: the names of things, people, places and ideas 15 questions · Your mate goes "fear isn't a noun bro, you can't pick it up." What's the best reply? 3 Verbs: doing words and being words 15 questions · Your mate goes "a sentence with no verb is fine if it's well long." Is he right? 4 Adjectives and adverbs: describing things and actions 15 questions · Your mate writes "the massive huge giant spider". What would you tell him? 5 Pronouns: I, me, you, they and who 15 questions · Your mate goes "and I is always the posh correct one, innit." Which sentence proves him wrong? 6 Prepositions and conjunctions: little words that hold sentences together 15 questions · Your mate goes "prepositions are well pointless, tiny words innit." What sentence shows they matter? 7 Kinds of sentences: statements, questions, commands, exclamations 15 questions · Your mate goes "'Run!' ain't a sentence, it's one word, mate." What's the best reply? 8 Tenses: past, present and future 15 questions · Your mate writes "Last week we play footy and we win 3-0." What tense should he use? 9 Irregular verbs: goed, brung and other brave mistakes 15 questions · Your mate laughs at his little sister for "I runned fast." What's the kind thing to tell him? 10 Plurals that make no sense: mice, sheep and geese 15 questions · Your mate goes "it's one die, two dice, so one mice, two mouse, easy." What's right? 11 Grammar puzzles, part one 15 questions · Your mate goes "easy, there's four nouns in 'the dog chased the cat into the garden', 'cos 'chased' is a thi… 12 Spelling traps: their, there, they're and friends 15 questions · Your mate goes "they're, their, there, same thing innit, sounds the same." What's the best reply? 13 Silent letters and the mystery of -ough 15 questions · Your mate goes "silent letters were invented just to annoy kids, no cap." What's the truth? 14 Punctuation that changes meaning 15 questions · Your mate says "commas are just for breathing, they don't change nothing." What's the best reply? 15 The apostrophe war 15 questions · Your mate's market stall sign says "Fresh egg's £2." He goes "what, it's proper English, innit." What's the… 16 Formal and informal: a mate versus the head teacher 15 questions · Your mate goes "talking posh to teachers is well fake, bruv." What's the best reply? 17 Slang and how it changes with every generation 15 questions · Your mate goes "old people's slang is cringe, ours is the best, no cap." What's the fair view? 18 Accents and dialects of Britain and Ireland 15 questions · Your mate goes "Scousers talk lazy English, innit." What's the fair answer? 19 Accents and dialects around the world 15 questions · Your mate goes "all Americans talk the same, like in films, innit." What's true? 20 Is there one proper English? The big arguments 15 questions · Your nan goes "kids today are ruining English, it was perfect in my day." What's the fair answer? 21 British and American words 15 questions · Your mate goes "soccer is a dumb American word, innit, it's FOOTBALL bruv." What's true? 22 Where English came from 15 questions · Your mate goes "English has always been in England, it's English, innit." What's true? 23 Borrowed words: French, Norse and Latin 15 questions · Your mate goes "the Vikings just smashed stuff, they never left any words, bruv." What's true? 24 Borrowed words from far away: Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, Ukrainian and more 14 questions · Josh's mate goes "emoji is obviously from emotion lol, no cap." ("No cap" means no lie.) What's true? 25 Idioms taken literally 15 questions · Your mate goes "animals really fell off roofs in storms, that's where cats and dogs comes from, fr." ("Fr" m… 26 Phrasal verbs: get up, give up, make up 14 questions · Your mate goes "phrasal verbs are easy, any learner can guess 'em, bruv." What's true? 27 Homophones: words that sound the same 14 questions · Your mate goes "homophones are just the same word, innit, spell 'em how u like." What's true? 28 Puns and jokes that need a pun 15 questions · Your mate goes "puns are only for brainy kids, I don't get 'em, bruv." What's the best tip? 29 Sarcasm and tone of voice 15 questions · Your mate goes "people always mean what they say, bruv, words are words." What's true? 30 Texting, abbreviations and emoji 15 questions · Your mate goes "OMG is a phone word, invented like 2005, innit." What's true? 31 How babies learn to talk 15 questions · Your mate goes "babies don't learn nothing till they talk, bruv." What's true? 32 Sign language 14 questions · Your mate goes "sign language is just mime, innit, anyone gets it." What's true? 33 Ukrainian compared with English 15 questions · Your mate goes "Ukrainian is just backwards English, bruv." What's true? 34 Mandarin compared with English 14 questions · Your mate goes "tones are just a Chinese accent, innit, doesn't change nothin'." What's true? 35 French compared with English 14 questions · Your mate goes "French numbers are mad nonsense, sixty-ten, lol." What's fairer? 36 Grammar puzzles, part two 15 questions · Your mate goes "the mouse was chased by the cat means the mouse did the chasing, innit." What's right? 37 Building words: prefixes, suffixes and compounds 15 questions · Gran snaps "-ish isn't a word, it's lazy talk!" What's true? 38 Words that changed their meaning 14 questions · Your mate goes "words never change, bruv, a word means what it means, forever." What's true? 39 Talking well: politeness, listening and saying sorry 15 questions · Your mate goes "polite people say pardon, saying sorry when you didn't hear is wrong, innit." What's true? 40 The big language quiz 16 questions · Your mate goes "quickly's an adjective, it describes stuff, innit." What's true? 41 Alice's word games: puns, parodies and nonsense 16 questions · «the old crab taught Laughing and Grief lol what even is that» What is the joke? 42 Kipling's word games: «Best Beloved», the 'Stute Fish, «Humph!» and the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo 16 questions · «why does he keep saying the same Dingo line, is he lazy or what» What is the better answer? 43 Pan, panic and Ulysses: the old myths and old words inside «The Wind in the Willows» 15 questions · «the piper's just some random goat guy right» What is the best answer? 44 Starving, a million times and a ton: everyday hyperbole 16 questions · «bruh my mate says if u say literally it means its really true, so zoe actually flew??» What is right? 45 Dead, a mile long and everyone: more everyday hyperbole 16 questions · «priya keeps saying she's dead lol, should I call someone??» She is laughing at a video. What is right? 46 Which number counts? Hyperbole and real numbers in maths 15 questions · «miss it says a hundred times, so is it 100 × 3 × 4??» What do you say? 47 The best ever and shocking: adverts and headlines 15 questions · «bro this cereal says best breakfast ever so it's healthy right» What is right? 48 My dad could lift a car: playground boasting 15 questions · «Ali's dad can lift a car with one hand. Should I tell him he's a liar?» What is the wise answer? 49 A bit nippy and not ideal: British understatement 15 questions · «gran said it's a bit nippy so I'm going out in my t-shirt lol» There is snow on the ground. What is the pro… 50 Not unhappy and not half: litotes 14 questions · «my mum said she's not unhappy with my report, so she's sad, right??» What is right? 51 Just a scratch and I'm fine: when to worry and tell an adult 16 questions · «she said don't tell her mum so I didn't, it's still bleeding tho» What should you do now? 52 Sarcasm, hyperbole and understatement side by side 14 questions · «Jack said he loves the rain so I'll ask him to go to the park in it lol» What has gone wrong? 53 Told you a hundred times: how other languages exaggerate and play down 14 questions · «so Ukrainian mums only say a hundred times, English mums say a million, so English mums are way crosser lol… 54 Off with her head and the finest house on the river: Alice and Toad 15 questions · «the queen chops off heads every minute, Wonderland is literally a horror film» What does the book really say? 55 ★★★ Olympiad: hyperbole and downplaying puzzles 16 questions · ★★★ «Mum's said a hundred times her sister is 4 years older than her. Mum is 38. How old is her sister?» ← previous Historynext → Medicine↑ back to the questions This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/questions/language/