Few questions....

[abrilsp]

Hi :)

Last day I was doing a derivation exercise from nouns to verbs and I realized that many of then could have either form -ize and -ise such as hospitalize-hospitalise, emphasize-emphasise, criticise-criticize and many more. Does it happen in most of the cases and there are just few exceptions like advise? If so will it make my learning easier :)

The sentence "When I first came to London", What is the meaning? You have come to London many times after that and you like to say something about this particularly time? or could it refer to the time when someone came to the city but never left?

Are the following sentences correct?

1- I was studing here before.
2- You should look up this word in the dictionary.

Thanks a lot,
abrilsp

[Tdol]

1. Americans use -ize mostly, while in BE we use both spellings quite happily and the vast majority can take either in BE.

2. 'First came' implies that there have been other trips since.

3. I was studing here before. It should be 'studying', and I would go for 'have studied here before'.

4- You should look up this word in the dictionary. This is fine. You could also say 'look this word up;, which does sound a bit more natural to me.