Sentence Variety

Diversity in your speech or writing requires a good knowledge of vocabulary, phrasal verbs, and idioms; otherwise you'd say the same thing in the same way every time. How boring is that?! Think about adding variety to your new language (and your mother tongue too) to increase complexity and interest for yourself and your audience.

Let's create some sentence variety to this basic sentence: I play soccer.

1. Turn it into a question: Do you know what my favorite sport is? Soccer.

2.Turn it into a passive sentence: The soccer match was won by my favorite team.

3. Turn it into an exclamatory sentence: We scored another goal!

4. Combine it with your next sentence: I played soccer on Saturday afternoon and went to the cinema on Saturday night.

5. Use a transitional phrase: Even though I like playing soccer, I sometimes enjoy being a couch potato.

6. Start with a participle: Riding the bus, I daydreamed about being a soccer star.

7. Put modifiers in different places: My favorite soccer player generously signed multitudes of autographs for his adoring and excited fans.

I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.

Really? Do you have such a large appetite that you could eat an entire horse? I don’t think so. What you are using here is a figure of speech known as hyperbole (pronounced: hy-PER-buh-lee) which is an exaggerated or extravagant statement used to create a dramatic or humorous effect.

Surely you will get a strong reaction when you speak this way. Not meant to be taken literally, using hyperboles is simply a way to be dramatic or humorous with overstatements. I like using hyperboles because they’re funny, excessive, and entertaining. Sometimes people think I'm serious so that gives me an extra laugh. How could someone take you seriously when using exaggerations? I don’t know, but here are some examples of hyperbole:

I had to wait an eternity for the file to download.




He has tons of friends
.

He ate a mountain of mashed potatoes.




I will die if she asks me to dance.


I have told you a million times not to use my car!

There's a spider in my bathroom that's the size of a Buick (line from a Woody Allen movie)

Try applying hyperbole to your conversations and see what kind of reactions you receive....and don’t wait an eternity. Start today!

Pardon me?

When learning a language, listening can be just as challenging as speaking because it often seems like native speakers talk too fast, doesn’t it? I’m always trying to improve my skills in Italian and Spanish and, when conversing, I usually think, “What did they just say???”

Of course it’s normal to ask someone to repeat something but politeness is important. It's best not to simply say, “What?” on its own. It can sound rather harsh, blunt, and informal. Here are some suggestions to ask for repetition:

Could you repeat that, please?

Pardon me? I beg your pardon? Pardon?

Would you mind repeating that?

Excuse me?

(I’m) sorry?

Sorry, what did you say? What was that again?

Sorry, could you say that again please?

Sorry, could you repeat it more slowly?

Sorry, would you mind speaking a bit slower?

I’m sorry, I couldn’t/didn’t hear (what you said).

Sorry, did you say…?

I didn’t quite catch that.

Did you catch that?