Close menu
1

Unit 1: Pop-ups
Present simple, present continuous & present perfect

Select a unit

  1. 1 Pop-ups
  2. 2 Hidden talents
  3. 3 Can't buy me love
  4. 4 Travellers' tales
  5. 5 The colleague from hell
  6. 6 Jurassic mystery: unpacking the past
  7. 7 Career changes
  8. 8 Art
  9. 9 Project management
  10. 10 The dog ate my homework!
  11. 11 The diary of a double agent
  12. 12 Fashion forward
  13. 13 Flat pack skyscrapers
  14. 14 Extreme sports
  15. 15 Food fads
  16. 16 Me, my selfie and I
  17. 17 Endangered animals
  18. 18 A nip and a tuck: cosmetic surgery
  19. 19 I'm really sorry...
  20. 20 Telling stories
  21. 21 Fakes and phrasals
  22. 22 Looking to the future
  23. 23 Becoming familiar with things
  24. 24 From rags to riches
  25. 25 Against the odds
  26. 26 Our future on Mars?
  27. 27 Where is it illegal to get a fish drunk?
  28. 28 Dodgy dating
  29. 29 Annoying advice
  30. 30 I'll have been studying English for thirty weeks

Session 1

Hyphens: those little dashes we sometimes use in English to make compound nouns and adjectives like hard-working. But how do you know when to use a hyphen and when not to? This session will help you.

Sessions in this unit

1234

Session 1 score

0 / 14

  • 0 / 0
    Activity 1
  • 0 / 7
    Activity 2
  • 0 / 7
    Activity 3
  1. Activity 1
  2. Activity 2
  3. Activity 3

Activity 3

Are you a hard-working and well-respected person?

Two-word adjectives with hyphens

How do you describe someone who works hard and who people have a good opinion of?

John is really hard-working and is a well-respected member of our team.

We can add participles to some nouns, adverbs and adjectives to make two-word adjectives. They're easy to make, and fun to use - but do you know when to write these adjectives with hyphens - and when to leave the hyphens out?  

Complete the activity

To do

Time for a quiz! It's not too mind-numbing, so see if you can get them all right! Listen again to 6 Minute Vocabulary if you need help - or take a look at the vocabulary box on this page.

Hard-working? Here's a quiz!

7 Questions

Choose the correctly punctuated phrase for each gap

Congratulations you completed the Quiz
Excellent! Great job! Bad luck! You scored:
x / y

End of Session 1

That's it for another language-improving session! We hope you have learnt a lot about how hyphens work in some English phrases. Join us in Session 2 for a review of present tenses. See you there!

Session Vocabulary

  • Compound adjectives with hyphens:

    adjective/adverb + present participle
    a hard-working student

    adjective/adverb + noun
    a last-minute decision

    noun + adjective
    a world-famous athlete

    adverb/noun + past participle before a noun
    well-respected politicians

    three-word compound adjectives before a noun
    out-of-date fashion

    Compound adjectives without hyphens:

    adverb/noun + past participle after a noun
    the politicians were well respected

    three-word compound adjectives after a noun
    that voucher is out of date

    compound adjectives made with an adverb ending in –ly, both before and after a noun
    a carefully written letter
    the letter was carefully written

View full vocabulary reference

Download centre

Latest course content