I find that this is one of the most common and important mistakes that students make. Why is it important to learn? Consider the following two examples;
(1) I’m working in Edinburgh for 6 months.
(2) I have been working in Edinburgh for 6 months.
In the first example, we are saying that we will stay in Edinburgh to work for 6 months. In the second example we are talking about the past up till now. Now look at the next two examples;
(1) I know Steven for 6 months.
(2) I have known Steven for 6 months.
The first example MAKES NO SENSE. It’s totally incorrect! The second one is correct because the present perfect talks about the past up till now. But hold on…why is this one present perfect whereas the other example was present perfect continuous. What the?!
Today only Gurrumina was present. As usual, the lesson plans are as follows; talk about various topics and write any grammar / vocabulary points here on the website. Conditionals are still a priority….I want to write a good document on this subject but so far I only have this which I found in my archive. When I have a spare moment, I’ll rewrite it with better examples.
Anyway here are some of the grammar points that came up in the lesson. First of all, I want to talk a little bit about conjunctions and prepositions (I gave Ona and Gurrumina an excellent table containing a list of these and I want to offer a little guidance on how to use it).
You’ll notice that some of the words in the table are marked with either (P) or +. Most of them aren’t marked with anything.
The words marked (P) are prepositions. These can be followed by either a noun or a gerund (-ing form). For example:
Today we reviewed the video ‘The Netherbeast of Berm-Tech Industries’ to check for understanding. I’ve now written out the complete transcript but I haven’t written any vocabulary explanations yet. You can download the transcript here.
In the last five minutes of the lesson we also watched a news report from The Onion News Network about the shocking revelation that Andorra is not a war-torn African region. The transcript for this video (also without vocabulary explanations) is available here.
Welcome to the new site design, powered by WordPress and designed by ‘Tom Stardust’.
If you are or have been one of my students, then you should have been supplied with a username and password which will allow you to both leave comments and access the upcoming ‘Resource’ area where you will be able to download of the handouts, MP3 files, exercises…etc, that I’ve created over the years.
My PET class will be the first to find this site useful, so if you are in that class then you can take advantage of class summaries and materials to help you with your homework!
Also you can use your login to add some comments. Students have requested various materials recently, so you can use the comments feature to tell me what you would like to see on the site first. Then I can make an informed decision. For example, would you like to see a summary of verb tenses? Or are you craving prepositions?
Eventually I will add sections to the site which will be designed only with the intention of getting a job in insurance. So ignore those sections if they come up (unless you are a potential employer!).
Today we had four people in the grammar club. Bluecheese, Mysterious, Ona and Gurramina. We spent four hours drinking wine, eating Stilton and studying verb tenses. I was asked if I had a chart which summarised all the verb tenses. In fact, I’ve been asked that many times before. I already had a few diagrams lying around on my computer so I decided to put them together into one big chart. In honour of the grammar club, it’s called the Blue Cheese Tense Chart. Click on the picture to download it!
Sometimes it’s easier to start with the first four tenses so I’ve decided to include my original verb tense chart
First of all, we talked a lot about pipas and Quicos. These are delicious snacks in Spain and Andorra. I wish to consume them. Ona told us that when she asked a shopkeeper for pipas, he told her that they were parrot food!
For homework today I decided to show Ona and Gurrumina the introduction to a video on YouTube. The video consists of a CEO of a company trying to explain why he killed one of his members of staff. I asked the group to summarise his argument.
Anyway, rather than follow Headway, the new course content is strictly conversation. While we speak, I make notes on the computer of grammatical mistakes. Here are the grammar points that came up in the class today:
Little / a little / few / a few
Little and few (without a) are negative ideas whereas a little and a few have a more positive meaning. To help understand this, it’s useful to imagine that a little > little.When I go out, I much prefer to have a few beers rather than few beers. Here are some of the example that we came up with in class:
I’m so sorry, I have little money left and so I can’t go out with you tonight.
I have a little money left so I’ll join you for a few beers.
(In the arcade) I have few coins left. I can only play one more game and then I have to go.
(In the arcade) I have a few coins left. Let’s go and play the racing game over there!
Make and do
This is a common mistake for many European students. This is because verbs like hacer in Spanish or faire in French translate into make or do (and many others!). It’s important at first to understand the concept of make and do. Consider the following examples;
I made the garden.
I did the garden.
In the first example, I created the garden. In the second example I simply cut the grass or trimmed some flowers! Make usually has the sense of creation whereas do is an action.
Of course this is a very general rule and will only help you for certain expressions. There are a lot of expressions with make and do, and the more abstract expressions need to be learnt by heart. I promised Gurrumina and Ona that I would give them one of my own exercises on this.
So far / until now / up till now / up to now
All of these expressions mean ‘up to the present’ and can often be used interchangeably. Sometimes there are subtle differences in meaning. In other cases, only one expression sounds correct. For example, in the expression, ’so far, so good’. I wouldn’t worry about the differences but if you want to know then you can feel free to ask!
After and afterwards
At this point in the lesson, my teaching skills disappeared and I was unable to explain the difference! Bluebell should have explained it by now though. All I was able to do was to find some translations!
Ejemplos:
After I ate lunch, I had coffee. Después de almorzar, tomé café.
I ate lunch, and then had coffee afterwards. Almorzé, y tomé café después.
After that, I saw my friend. Después de eso, miré a mi amigo.
I saw my friend afterwards. Miré a mi amigo después.
The words look the same in Spanish. However, in English after is used as a conjunction and afterwards as an adverb. That’s all I can offer at this point!
