Search results for 'tag:Present simple tag:Definite articles' matching tags 'Present simple' and 'Definite articles'

Looking for some tips and/or curriculum suggestions

mikesusangray — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:50:11 GMT

Hi all!

I've been giving English conversation lessons to a theology professor for about a year now. He's getting on in the years - a couple years from retirement - and his primary goal has been just to get his spoken English going a little stronger. His mother tongue is French but he's been teaching at a German language university for many years.

I'd like to add some more specific inputs to our lessons but I can't seem to find the right material. His passive skills are excellent - he reads widely and with perfect comprehension in his field - and he can communicate quite understandably. He is a linguistics specialist and can grasp any concept about the language immediately. I brought along Cambridge Advanced Grammar in Use and he could plow through a chapter in five minutes with perfect conceptual comprehension.

However, he also continues to make very simple errors - for example, he has trouble choosing between present simple and continuous or often uses the present tense for past events. Sentence order tends to get wander hither and yon while definite and indefinite articles come and go with the tide. (Prepositions are a problem too, but I won't beat him to hard there - prepositions are difficult in any new language.) In many cases his mistakes are typical of French or German speech patterns.

One other limitation is that he enjoys the weekly lessons (a good hour), but doesn't have much time to study in between.

Right now we spend about 15 minutes reading a chapter from Advanced Grammar in Use and about 45 minutes talking about just about anything under the sun, while I take notes and show him problems under the categories Pronunciation/Articles & Prespositions/Word Order/Other Grammar/Vocabulary/Idioms. However, I don't think the work book is a good choice - particularly since he doesn't do the homework - and it seems like he isn't making very good progress with his typical problem patterns - though he greets them like old friends when I point them out.

Any tips here?

active\passive

Newguest — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 12:57:59 GMT

Active sentence: Somebody stole my bicycle.

Passive sentence: My bicycle has been stolen.

Is the passive sentence OK, in your opinion? I would write: My bicycle was (simple past) stolen.

As far as I know if the active sentence is written in simple past than the passive one should also be written in simple past?

One more question. I never know whether I should write it with the definite article or not: present simple, simple present, present simple tense etc. Should I put the "the" before each of them or always omit it?

thanks

Re: Check my mistakes,please

CalifJim — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:23:47 GMT

<<Do we have to use the definite article "the" for each tense or not? >>
To be very strict about it, yes, but we frequently write telegraphically and leave out the the, especially on this site, where we use the names of the tenses so often.

<<1.In the use of the Present Simple. I would use the here, yes.
2.The Present Perfect Tense or Present Perfect Tense. Either, as explained above.
3.Translate the following sentences into the Past Unreal Conditional. With the is better.
4.Complete the sentences using Past Simple or the Past Simple. Either. >>

Adding the the sounds better when the tense name comes after a preposition.
_____________

<<Check the following sentences,please:
   A: Why didn't you prepare anything yesterday? OK.
   B: Because I didn't know they ~~will~~ would come. (Sequence of tenses. did - would)
       If I had known that they would come, I would have prepared everything. OK.
    - If they had told me they would come, I would have prepared everything. OK.
>>

<<1. This program is on the air ~~everyday~~ every day except on Sundays.>>

<<Which one is correct?
1. Why ~~I couldn't~~ get in touch with you yesterday?
2. Why couldn't I get in touch with you yesterday? >>

Only the second. You have to invert subject and verb for a question unless the subject is being questioned.(Which came first? or Who did that?)
____________

In the future it would be more convenient if you made separate posts for each of your questions instead of putting so many different ones all in one post.

CJ

Check my mistakes,please

Kittixay — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:09:32 GMT

There are twelve tenses in English grammar. Do we have to use the definite article "the"
for each tense or not? Can you give me some explanations,please?

In the below examples, Do we have to use "the" or not?
1.In the use of the Present Simple.
2.The Present Perfect Tense or Present Perfect Tense.
3.Translate the following sentences into the Past Unreal Conditional.
4.Complete the sentences using Past Simple or the Past Simple.

Check the following sentences,please:
   A: Why didn't you prepare anything yesterday?
   B: Because I didn't know they will come.If I had known that they would come, I would
      have prepared everything.
    - If they had told me they would come,I would have prepared everything.

1. This program is on air everyday except on Sundays.

Which one is correct?
1. Why I couldn't get in touch with you yesterday?
2. Why couldn't I get in touch with you yesterday?

Giving directions

Pastsimple — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 18:41:28 GMT

Hi,

could you please answer the questions below? They're all related to giving directions.

1. Someone is asking for directions to the bank. What can you say instead of the highlighted part below to sound most natural?

Take the first right. Take the first right. The bank is the first building on the/your left.

Some suggestions:

Take the first right twice.
Take the first right and then take the first right again. (not sure about the second article - underlined)
Take the first right and then take another right.

2. Which articles would you use in the sentences below?

a. Well, go straight ahead until you come to a / the church, then...
b. Take the first left into Long Street. Go straight down the street. You('ll) come to a / the church on your left. The bank is opposite it.

3. Which article would you use here?

Sentence 2.a above followed by ...take a / the right. (I'd use the indefinite article here)

4. Would you use the present simple or the future simple tense in 2.a and when giving directions in general?

Other examples (note - these senetences have been preceded by other "commands" and are not the first piece of "information" you're giving):

a. ...ahead of you is / will be a large car park.
b. ...take a right at the cathedral. You are (now) / will be in High Street.
c. ...there is / will be a post office on your left.

I'd use the present simple here.

Thank you in advance.

P.S. All of the examples above use BrE prepositions.

Re: Star Heritage:Translation, Part II

Ant_222 — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:40:11 GMT

Yeah, that was a bit more helpful. Thanks again, Goodman.

I understood my simple mistakes (was->were, vigors->vigor,...) after your first post. Now I have understood a few more ones.

Here are the problems that I still haven't resolved:

Sorry for maybe stupid questions, but even a correction given, I sometimes don't understand it and ask for an explanation.

«The swamp had been left behind. I was on a field overgrown with grass. Now I distinctly saw strange metal constructins (metal construction is a structures. Not sure what you tried to depict in the preceding sentense !) in the east.»

You wrote: «metal construction is a structures». I don't understand it. What's the problem with «metal constructions»? And which sentence did you refer to as the «preceding sentense»? «I was on...» or «Now I distinctly...»?

«In the north I was amazed to find an _uncomely_ (choice of word) path going across the swamp.»
Is one of the below alteratives appropriate: imperceptible, unremarkable, unnoticable? I wanted to say that the path was difficult to note (spot).

«I stood at the territory of an abandoned factory. Everything here had grown over with grass. (Everything here had been covered by the over-grown vegetation / grass)»

Ok, but maybe «was covered by overgrown vegetation»?
I think the Past Pefect and the definite article are not needed. Am I right?
And is «to be grown over with» incorrect? I am asking it becasue I derived this phrase from my dictionary.

«..._addle_ (not familiar with is word) wooden crates»
As an unexperienced non-native speaker, I have troubles with word choice. So, I commented in the previous post: «(I) Don't know a word to express what happens to wood with time, especially when it's in a humid environment.» Then I listed some words, one of which I thought to be suitable: decomposed, decayed, corrupt... Which adjective can be applied to wood?

«To the north of the factory were rocks, (and ) the swamps stretched (stretching) to the south.»
«... and the swamps stretching to the south» â is this what you propose? Maybe you didn't understand what I wanted to express here:
To the north of the factory were rocks. To the south of it were the swamps. In order to be not repetitive I said the second in this way: «The swamps strethed to [in] the south». Maybe replacing «to» to «in» will do?

«It seems (tense, seemed), that it was a weapon factory.»
Yes, I have read that in your previous post and wrote (in my previous post) why I used Present Simple here. It's not so easy to me to deal with tenses in a text adventure... Maybe I'll ask this in a seperate thread...

«I passed the factory by. It was (silently uncomfortable) _silent and comfortless_ here.»
Silently uncomforable? «Silent and comfortless» doesn't sound right to you? Why? Of course it can be a sort of the feeling of the language, so you may not know the answer...