Week 10th – 12th June
Hello again!
Nearly finishing the course! This is the
countdown for the summer holidays.
It was nice to see Eduardo again. But better yet, was to
know that he has done it well in his exams.
Last week we only had
a class. Remember we are making up for (recuperating)it next Friday 20th
at 10.00a.m.
But, what did we do in our class last week?
We went through verbs
followed by infinitive with to,
bare infinitive, that is, without to
and verbs followed by –ing
In other words, verb patterns.
·
I was so happy to receive your present. (After adjs, to +infinitive)
·
She was busy looking after her little sister. (Exception;after “busy”, ing)
·
He went to the sop to buy some bread. (To express purpose, why?)
·
Doing sport is healthy. (When
the verb is the subject, ing)
·
The kid wasn’t tall enough to reach
the door knob.(After too and enough)
·
Don’t leave
the office without locking the door. (After prepositions)
·
They didn’t
know where to run.(After question words, except “why”)
·
We went swimming last weekend. (After
“go” for physical activities)
·
My niece would like to become a teacher when she grows up.(After would like, would love etc.)
After
certain verbs we use to + infinitive and after
other verbs we use
“–ing”. And this is the most difficult
part to remember because there are no rules for it. Read a lot. Do exercises
and above all, learn the verbs in context with sample sentences.
·
What did they plan to do?
·
My friends agree to stay in the hotel closer to
the beach.
·
She promised not to tell anybody.
·
I refuse to go by bus. It takes longer than the
train!
·
I hope to finish my degree next year.
·
They seem to have forgotten what happened before.
·
I decided to take the job.
·
Avoid drinking
tap water if you travel to India.
·
There’s
no point
warning
him, he’ll go anyway.
·
He denied taking the money.
·
He confessed to killing the man.
·
They objected to having the shop open until 9pm.
·
We are looking forward to hearing from
you.
More exercises on Verb Patterns
Then, we continued with conditional
sentences.
At this level, of course you have perfectly clear the three types of conditional sentences and even,
the ‘Zero conditional’; the problem being the mixed conditional sentences. My advice? Even though I usually recommend
not to translate into Spanish, this could be the solution and in
this particular case it makes a lot of difference between understanding the use
of mixed conditionals or not.
We usually mix 2nd
type and 3rd type conditionals. We do it so as to refer to the present and
the past in the same sentence. Bear in mind that these sentences must
make sense, they must have a ‘sound
meaning’.(being coherent)
Mixed: They wouldn’t get a table if they hadn’t booked in advance.
(type 2) (type 3)
Present
situation: they have a table. Past
situation: they booked-in advance-
Second: They wouldn’t get a table if they didn’t book in advance.
Type 2
Hypothetical
situation in the present /future. They have to book if they want a table.
Third: They wouldn’t have got a table if they hadn’t booked
in advance.
Type 3
Hypothetical
situation in the past. They booked, they
got the table.
And we finished the
class reading about “persuasion”.
It’s amazing how a
single word can make a lot of difference when it comes to persuasion,
isn’t it? Take the example of a stranger approaching some people waiting to use
a photocopier. He asked, “May I use the machine? I’ve only got five copies’.
People let him go first. The percentage
of people who agreed to him being
first increased when the statement was ‘May I use the photocopier because I’m in a rush?’ This
proves that when a request is followed by ‘because’, no matter how petty
(unimportant) the reason is, persuasion works!
Beggars or charities asking for some money
also know persuasion techniques. It’s been proved that if they say something
along these lines ‘Could you collaborate with us? Even a little money can help’
instead of just saying ‘Could you collaborate with us?’ the outcome (result) will be quite different!
And so the class
finished! See you this evening.
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