Cafetalk Tutor's Column

Quick tips: pregnancy

As one of my students pointed out to me recently, there are many ways to express the idea of being ...

Quick tips: have + time vs. spend + time

To talk about the quality or duration of your experiences, you can use “have + (quality adjective) ...

Visiting Niagara Falls

This week I visited Niagara Falls for just the second time in my life. The bus ride from Toronto’s ...

Canadian sweets: Nanaimo bars

Dating back to 1953, the Nanaimo bar is a Canadian dessert that is named after the city of Nanaimo ...

Plans for summer 2024

The days are getting longer in Toronto (sunset is around 9 pm now) and summer will be here soon. Be...

Studying with textbooks: Survey

Today I’d like to ask some questions about people’s experiences learning with textbooks! I would lo...

Talking about humour in English: Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the basics, some common phrases, and different types of humo...

Talking about humour in English: Part 1

Since the weekly column topic is about humour and laughing this week, I’d like to share some vocabu...

Doors Open Toronto

Photo: Me in front of the ostrich food stall at the Evergreen Brick Works farmers marketThis weeken...

Too close for comfort

Although Toronto is still relatively safe compared to other major cities around the world, it has b...

It’s heating up over here!

It’s the day after the Victoria Day long weekend here in Toronto and the weather is really heating ...

Talking about weather in English (verbs): Part 3

(Unfortunately, the first time I wrote this article, I lost the file, and it has taken quite a whil...

Tim Hortons turns 60!

Tim Hortons is a cafe chain that can be found across Canada and also in 12 other countries worldwid...

3 weeks in Japan

I recently returned from a 3-week trip to Japan and I have to say that it was quite an adventure! ...

Quick tips: cheat vs. cheat on

What’s the difference between cheating someone and cheating on someone? It can be a big one! Basic...

One thing that makes me happy is…

Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash   Although there are, of course, many things that make me ha...

Quick tips: fish vs. fishes

Should you say “two fish” or “two fishes”? Well, it depends! Typically, “fish” (without “-es”) is t...

New year, new books: Searching for Franklin

After getting through two very interesting books in January, it took more than a month to get throu...

What I'm looking forward to this spring

Photo byRayia Soderberg onUnsplash One of the things that I was really looking forward to was watc...

Everything went black

Photo byYannick Menard onUnsplash Something interesting happened last night. Around 7:40 pm, I wa...

New year, new books: Sapiens

After finishing The Wager earlier this month, I dove into the next book on my list for this year - ...

Quick tips: eeny, meeny, miny, moe

Have you ever heard someone say “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” when trying to choose something? There are...

Talking about weather in English (verbs): Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at verbs for rain and snow. Today, we will continue by taking a...

Salty winters in Canada

Photo: my boots, covered in salt, after walking outside for 20 minutes in the winter When snow, sl...

Quick tips: news headlines

News headlines in English may be a little tricky to understand because they are grammatically diffe...

New year, new books: The Wager

One of my resolutions for 2024 is to get back into reading (paper) books and spend a bit less time ...

My 2023 in the rearview mirror

My biggest achievement of 2023 was finally visiting Nova Scotia for the first time in my life. In J...

Quick tips: exaggerating numbers

Many languages have words for large but indefinite numbers, and English is no exception! In fact, t...

How will AI affect language learning in the future?

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash   Two years ago, during my Master’s degree program, I took a cou...

Christmas movies: New(ish) favourites

Today I’d like to share two Christmas movies that are fairly new (they came out within the last 5 y...