English grammar structures can be quite tricky, and some words have a completely different meaning than it might seem. Visit this page to have your questions answered and your language problems solved!

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Jaka jest róznica pomiędzy 'football' and  'soccer'?

'Soccer' is the American equivalent of the British word - 'football'. 

Czy 'friendly' jest przysłówkiem, bo ma końcówkę '-ly'? 

Not really. It's an adjective just like cowardly and orderly. If you want to change these into adverbs, you need to use in a cowardly/friendly/orderly way.

Czy 'last week' i  'the last week' różnią się od siebie?

They do. The last week talks about the last seven days from now and is mainly used with the Present Perfect Tense. Last week describes the time from the last Monday to the last Sunday and is mainly used with  the Past Simple Tense.

 Czy w angielskim istnieje talie słowo jak 'peoples'? Czy to nie jest przypadkiem liczba mnoga od liczby mnogiej?     

No, it isn't. A people is more or less the same as a nation, so peoples are nations.   

Czy można powiedzieć: 'She smiled to me'?

Although it sounds good to a Polish speaker of English, it's incorrect. The English would rather say: 'She smiled at me.' 

Jaka jest różnica pomiędzy 'a gossip' i ' gossip'?

A gossip is a person who likes gossiping while gossip is unchecked information about a person or some people. 

Czy jest w wymowie jakaś różnica miedzy  wyrazami  'won' i 'one'.

No, there isn't. These words are homophones, which means that they sounds exactly the same.

Yet jest zazwyczaj używane z Present Perfect. Czy będzie w takim razie 'I didn't finish it yet' jest błędne?

In British English it's a mistake, but it's absolutely correct in American English.

Czy nazwa zespołu U2 coś znaczy?

It does. In English U sounds the same as you and 2 sounds the same as too. So, U2 is a play on words and may actually mean you too.   

Czy tytuł utworu grupy The Scorpions: 'I'm Still Loving You' jest poprawny gramatycznie? 

Not really, but you need to remember two things:

1. It's a song and sometimes in songs grammar is not the most important thing. 

2. The Scorpions are a German band so there's a chance that they don't know English perfectly .

Czy 'can't' to jedno słowo czy dwa?

Most British people would say it's one word: cannot but Americans tend to believe these are two words: can not.

Czy 'What do you do after school today?' jest poprawne?

Not really. The word today suggests that the situation is not a habit and so you need to use the Present Conitnuous Tense. Thus, the correct sentence should go: What are you doing after school today?.

Czy mówi się 'I have to go to school' czy 'I must go to school'? 

It depends if you really want to go to school or if somebody (or the situation) makes you go to school. If it's the first situation than you say: I must go to school. Otherwise it's: I have to go to school.

Co jest lepsze 'I wish I was' czy 'I wish I were'?

Both are correct. The things is that I wish I was is more colloquial and I wish I were more formal.

Jeśli 'orange' to pomarańczowy i pomarańcza to jak je odróżnić w zdaniu?

If you want to talk about the fruit, you'll say an orange and if it's about the colour - orange.

e.g. 'What's this?' 'It's an orange.'

       'What colour is it?' 'It's orange.'

Czy lepiej używać: 'have to' czy 'need to'?

It doesn't really matter so feel free to use whichever you prefer.

Która wersja jest lepsza: 'Neither do I' czy 'Nor do I'?

Well, both neither and nor mean the same in this expression but it's easier to say nor, isn't it?  Anyway, it's up to you which of these you choose. 

Dlaczego niektórzy Anglicy piszą 'I should of listened to him '? Czy to jest poprawne?

No, it's not correct. They write it like that because that's what they THINK they hear when people say: I should've listened to him. And this, in turn, is short from:  I should have listened to him.

Czy zdanie: 'I'm being awful' jest poprawne?

Yes, it is. It means that you're not an awful person in general, but you're only pretendng to be an awful person in this particular situation.

Skoro 'an' stawia się przed wyrazami zaczynającymi się na samogłoski to czy mówi się 'an yellow car'?

The thing with 'a' and 'an' is that it isn't important what the first letter, but what the first sound in the word after 'a/an' is. So if the first sound in a word is a vowel then you write 'an' before it. To answer the question: it's correct to say 'a yellow car'. (vowel = samogłoska)

Czy prawdą jest, że nie należy używać wyrazu 'mankind'?

If you want to be politically correct, it's better to use 'humankind'.

Unfortunately, it is. If you want to use 'every' with 'of', you need to put 'one' after 'every'.

e.g. Every one of us present here today feels honoured to witness the change.

No, it isn't. 'Actually' means 'in fact'. Words like 'actually' are sometimes called 'false friends' because when you look at them, you think you know what they mean but, actually ;-), they  mean something different.

By the way, let's make a list of false friends on www.englishperfect.pl . If you have any suggestions send them to: Ten adres e-mail jest ukrywany przed spamerami, włącz obsługę JavaScript w przeglądarce, by go zobaczyć  .

Czy po 'everybody' należy używać czasownika w liczbie pojedynczej czy mnogiej? 

ALWAYS the verb after 'everybody' must be singular. It helps if you think of 'everybody' as ''każdy' rather than 'wszyscy'.

e.g. Everobody knows Doda.

W którym miejscu w zdaniu znajduje się 'enough'? 

It must be used before a noun: 'enough bread' and after an adjective 'old enough to vote'.

Czy 'a suit' to garnitur czy garsonka?

It can be both this and that. A suit is an item of clothing that consists of two, or sometimes even three, pieces that are worn as 'one thing'. That's why you can also wear a tracksuit or a swimming suit.

Czy można stawiać 'a' przed nazwiskami?

Normally, you don't use 'a' with names, but it's possible to say 'a Mr Brown' if you want to stress that you don't know who the man is. 

Jaka jest liczba mnoga rzeczownika 'brother'? Czy może to być 'brethren' czy tylko 'brothers'? 

In most stuations, the plural form of 'brother' is 'brothers'. However, when you talk about people from a religious community you may refer to them as 'brethren'. It's important to know that 'brethren' is not a very popular word - according to www.googlefight.com 'brothers' is used  1000 times more often than 'brethren'. There are also certain religious orders such as "The Christian Brothers."

Pink Floyd śpiewają: 'We don't need no education' , chociaż w angielskim nie można używać podwójnego zaprzeczenia. To czy w takim razie to zdanie jest błędne? Przecież Roger Waters to Anglik.

The thing is that it depends on the kind of English you want to use. In some kinds of English, including Black or Afro-American English, it is absolutely OK to use the double negative. However, if you learn English from most of the books available on the market, you have to be aware of the fact that in the kinds of English (i. e. dialects) that they teach the double negative is considered non-standard and should be avoided.

There is also the point that the song is against formal education. Using double negatives was one of the things children were told not to do. So using a double negative is showing you are anti-education (at least in the song). What is strange is that double negatives were once an accepted part of English and used by writers such as Shakespeare and Chaucer.

Co jest lepsze: 'if somebody wants to be good, he must practise a lot' czy 'if somebody wants to be good, they must practise a lot'?

It depends on how politically correct you want to be. Politically correct grammar says that 'somebody'  can be either 'he' or 'she', so it's safer to use 'they'. However, if you don't care about political correctness, it's OK to use 'he'.

Co jest lepsze 'a hundred' czy 'one hundred'?

'A hundred' is more often used in everyday English but if you want to be more precise and stress the fact that it's not 'two hundred' but 'one hundred' it's better to use 'one' instead of 'a'.

Co znaczy 'Xmas'? 

These days it's a 'politically corrected' version of the word 'Christmas'. However, many people celebrating this holiday aren't Christian so, instead of 'Christ', some people put 'X' to avoid talking about religion. In fact, the symbol X has been used for centuries to write the word "Christ" (possibly because it represents the Cross, or perhaps because of the Greek alphabet). The name "Christine" was once written "Xene".

Czy zdanie: 'People in this company can be very rude to their customers.'  jest poprawne?

Unfortunately, it's not. You can use 'can' when you talk about probability only when you talk about something in general.

For example:

Managers can be awful to people who work for them when they want to have better results.

If you talk about something less general you should use 'may'.

She may be irritating if you take her too seriously. 

1) Czy idiomy są slangiem? 

2) Czy często są stosowane?

3) Czy te znajdujące się na stronie English Perfect są brytyjskie czy amerykańskie?

1) Some idioms are slang but most of them are not. However, they are informal.

2) Idioms are quite common in everyday English but if you use them too often you may sound funny.

3) The idioms that you can find in the Idiom of the Week section are just English.

Czy, skoro do mówienia o czynnościach powtarzających się używany jest Present Simple, to zdanie: 'You're always complaining!' jest błędne? 

 Surprisingly, it is not. It's OK to use the present continuous and always to show that something iritates us.

Jak się poprawnie pisze 'traveling' czy 'travelling'?

And again, it's a matter of British vs American English. In the USA, people usually write traveling and in the UK travelling.

It sounds better in American English. A British person is more likely to say: Have you ever seen this film?

There is also a suggestion with "Did you ever..." that someonebody once said they intended to see the film and the questioner wants to know if they did what they intended.

Jak jest bardziej poprawnie 'at the cinema'  czy 'in the cinema'?

Basically, both are correct but in the cinema stresses the fact that you are in the building where the cinema is.

'Na obrazku' mówi się 'in the picture', ale czy 'on the picture' jest źle?

If what you want to describe what the picture shows, then it is incorrect. But on the picture is OK if you want to say that, for example, you've put a picture on a chair and somebody is sitting on the picture.

Czy wszystkie rzeczy w angielskim są 'it' czy może jakieś mają rodzaj? 

When you talk about most things in English, you use 'it'. But if you really want to, you can call a car, a ship or a country 'she'. 

Not really. Hard means 'with difficulty' or 'in a tough way' while hardly  is used to say that something is just true.

e.g.

He'd worked hard and that's why he won.

I hardly know him. I've only seen him twice.

BE CAREFUL!  Hardly is not used with not.

Also, hard can be an adjective.

e.g.

It was a hard test, but everybody passed it.

Czy Tinky Winky nosi "purse" czy "handbag"?

Well, it depends if Tinky Winky is in the UK or the USA. In the UK it's definitely a handbag; in the USA a purse.

A purse in British English is the thing you keep your money and credit cards in, especially if you're a woman. A small money container for men is called a wallet.

A co z "borrow" i "lend"?

If you borrow something that somebody else has, you take it (in most situations with their permission ). You want to give it back some time in the future.

If you lend something that is yours, you let somebody else have it or use it for some time.

Czy to prawda, że "classic" i "classical" znaczą to samo?

Unfortunately, they don't. They have the same Polish equivalent -'klasyczny'  but in English their meanings are different.

Classic means a typical example of something while classical is used to talk about things which are traditional and have existed for a long time.

e.g.

'Master of Puppets' is a classic heavy metal song.             

I love classical music, escpecially Mozart and Bach.

Jak jest w końcu benzyna po angielsku? "Gas" czy "petrol"?

In British English it's petrol, in American it's either gas or gasoline.

In British English gas is the substance that people often burn in their homes to cook or make their homes warmer. 

Czym się różni "arrive at" od "arrive in" ? Czy można powiedzieć "arrive to" ?  

You usually say that people arrive at a place.

However, you normally say that people arrive in a city or a country.

BE CAREFUL! You say: arrive home.

You do not say that somebody arrives to a place, city or a country.

Jaka jest różnica między "wood" i "forest" ?

A wood is a large area of trees which are close to one another.
A forest is an extremely large area of trees. It can be usually found quite away from towns and cities such as the Amazon forest.