Search results for 'tag:Present simple tag:Plurals' matching tags 'Present simple' and 'Plurals'

Re: 3 sentences

Madhulk — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:20:28 GMT

1.Is it OK to say: They're going to celebrate their 30th marriage (you could omit marriage) anniversary.

2. These are the politicians who trigger off wars and civilians die. You've used the Present simple.

Is this something usual for these guys? If not it should be '... triggered off wars and many civilians died.'

(I do not know why, but I was thinking for a while that it should be: This is the politicians No. Because you're talking about

many politicians. 'This' is for singular while 'these' is for plural.

Re: a question of "Simple Present Tense"

Mr. Profenglish — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:47:48 GMT

Anonymous wrote:

Hi everybody,

I have a question about the Negative Form of "Simple Present Tense", please help me.

Can I use "I don't read the book right now" to express the meaning of "I'm not reading the book right now"?

Thanks a lot in advance.

***********

Here is a summary about the present simple tense with all the forms of it plus examples

* * *

Form

Examples

Notes

Affirmative( Positive ) form:

Base form

S- form

1. Water consists of hydrogen and oxygen.

2. The world is round

3. He always eats a sandwich for lunch

4. My classes begin at nine.

5. She prefers to stay at home.

6. He appears to be asleep.

7. That belongs to me.

8. I remember my first teacher.

9. If you study hard, you will pass the exam.

10. If he comes early, he will catch the bus.

Present Simple Tense is used :

i. to show general statement of fact

ii. to express habitual or everyday activity

iii. with verbs of: senses, mental activity, possession and attitudes

iv. with conditional clauses type one.

Remarks:

Â§ Singular subjects take the S-from

Â§ Plural subjects take the Base form

Â§ ( he, she, it ) + S. form

Â§ ( we, they, you, I ) + Base form

S. = subject

inf. = infinitive form of the verb

S- form = verb + s

Base form = verb without ( s )

Negative form:

(do, does + not + inf.

1. They do not work at the hospital.

2. She does not go to the university everyday

Contracted Negative form:

donât + inf.

doesnât + inf.

1. They donât work in a bank.

2. I donât recognize that man

3. She doesnât prefer to stay at home.

Wh- question form :

Wh- + ( do / does ) + S. + inf. + ...?

1. Where do you live?

2. When does she go to work everyday?

3. Why do I like that nonsense?

Yes/No question form :

(Do / Does ) + S. + inf. + â¦ ?

Do they need a help?

Does he mean that book?

Short Answer form :

Yes, + S. + ( do / does ).

No, + S. + ( donât / doesnât )

Yes, he does. / yes, they do. / Yes, I do.

no, I donât. / No, he doesnât / No, they donât.

***

Regards,

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Re: How do we say them?

Tam Sadek — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 00:25:56 GMT

1. Yes.

How many fish are there? 'Fish' is both singular and plural in Standard English. The same as 'sheep'. However, many English native speaker children as well as adult Geordies from the North East of English also say 'fishes'. But this regarded as none standard by many speakers.

2. What kind of things do you shop for? Present Simple indicating normality and 'in general'. For example; What kind of things do you shop for online? I'd like to know what products you generally buy online.

What kinds of things are you looking for? Present Continuous indicating 'now'. At the moment and specifically.

Note that we can say 'What kind of...' or 'What kinds of...' here. The difference being that we expect a single item in the answer in the first and a plural answer in the second. Although in reality many speakers ignore this and give single or plural answer based on the facts of what they do!

3. No.

These kinds of things (plural) versus This kind of thing (singular)

Hope that helps

Re: Spanish (or German) student Vs Japanese student!

Novalee — Tue, 02 Nov 2004 15:45:04 GMT

Hello meg2589 and all,
I almost exclusively teach Spanish students, with the exception of some American students who are learning Spanish but this is a different story. I can tell you the most common mistakes and difficulties that we, Spanish people, find when studying English.
The first problem that you mention is the 'false cognates' which we call 'false friends': they are similarly written words or expressions that have different meanings in both languages. The funniest example I can give is 'to be constipated', which I'm sure you know the meaning. Well, in Spanish we have 'constipado' which means to have a cold: not at all the same meaning
The overuse of articles is also a problem. But students learn the rules of when to use it and when not.
As for more grammar mistakes:
- 'Auxiliary verbs': there is no such thing in Spanish, so a lot of emphasis must be put on the use of them. A useful and popular exercise is to change an affirmative sentence to negative and interrogative.
-Third person singular s in the Present Simple: Even with 18-year-old students, we still have this problem. They simply skip it and we, teachers, must put a lot of emphasis in this simple aspect of grammar.
-Adjectives: 'they have no plural form'. I repeat this sentence thousands of times and they don't catch it. This doesn't happen in Spanish: adjectives have gender and number, unlike English. The same happens with the order: in Spanish they usually go after the noun, not before it.
-Speaking of order...: Word order in a sentence. In Spanish it's much more free, but in English is more fixed. Another point to be taken into account if they want to be understood. Common mistakes are, for example, Said the teacher that would give we more homework which should be The teacher said that he would give us more homework Do you see what I mean?
Well, the list would go on and on, but I'm giving you some examples. I don't know if you were looking for this. If I'm right, feel free to ask for more, and I'll post more examples of common mistakes Spanish students make.

See you.

Re: Grammar tests

Guest — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 12:56:23 GMT

1. Jane and May are in class right now
Names of people always have a capital letter
There is more than one person in class - Jane and May, therefore it is plural.

2 Why do you live in this cold place?
A question always ends with a question mark and has the verb to do in it ( You need to get a good grammar book and revise questions

3. My name is Takeshi, I come from Japan. Wait for me I am coming with you.
Again capital letter as it is a name.
present simple is used here as you are already here, not in Japan and there is no action
Use of present continuous. Again read up on the difference between Present simple and present continuous

4 I went to the zoo on Saturday
Capital letter for Saturaday
Past action - not happening now - use of past simple tense

Re: Emphasize

miriam — Sat, 26 Jun 2004 09:07:17 GMT

Of course I don't mind your asking
I don't know what your first language is, but in my country, Spanish speakers find it difficult too to understand that the "s" is necessary to form the simple present of a verb for the 3rd. person singular. The reason is that we associate the addition of an "s" at the end of a word only with plural forms.

In English, most nouns add an "s" to form the plural:
example (singular) --- examples (plural)
Some nouns add "es", and there are several irregular plurals.

Now, the "s" you may add to the word "mean" is not the same "s" that you add to a nounn in order to from the plural.
You intended to use the verb "mean" in the simple present in your post. Now, the rule for forming the present simple of verbs in English is the following:
You use the base form of the verb (that is, the infinitive, the verb as it appears in a dictionary entry) for all the persons but the third person singular, for which you have to add an "s" (or "es") to the verb. To form the negative and the interrogative, you need the auxiliary "do" for all persons except the third person singular, which uses "does".
The exceptions to this rule are the verb "to be", which is the most irregular of the English verbs, and the modal verbs (can, could, may, might, should, will, would, etc).
The verb "mean" in the simple present would be:
I mean
you mean
he, she, it means
we mean
you mean
they mean

In the case of verbs, the addition of the "s" does not mean pluralisation.

Other examples of the simple present:

"I go to school."
"He goes to school."

"My sister and I like icecream."
"Susan likes icecream."

"I speak English."
"You speak English."
"She speaks English."
"The boys speak English."
"We all speak English."

"The word 'easy' means 'not difficult'."
"What does this word mean?"
"What do these words mean?"

Let me know if you still find it confusing?