English for You Hastings language tips start today.

Our first two tips are taken from The Smugglers' Caves, the first in a series of mystery stories set in Hastings. (It's selling like hot cakes at The Smugglers' Adventure tourist attraction here in Hastings, but if you're a long way from Hastings UK, you can read the whole novel for free at www.thesmugglerscaves.blogspot.com). Here come today's tips:

This sentence from Chapter 1 (Beth moves in) contains two past participles used as adjectives. Look out for more past participles used as adjectives in The Smugglers' Caves. And notice that we usually put a hyphen in an adjective made of two words:

As he stood up, Beth pushed back her newly-coloured and straightened fringe and said, ‘What do you want, Jack?’

New language tip:

HOW TO USE THE INTERRUPTED PAST:

Look at this example from the final chapter and see if you can find more examples in the story. Remember, it's past progressive/continuous interrupted by simple past:

David, Joe, Jack, Madeleine and Joy were playing Scrabble on the floor in the living room when Steve rang the bell.