Friday, December 2, 2011

Simple Present Tense

Simple Present

FORM

[VERB] + s/es in third person

Examples:

You speak English.
Do you speak English?
You do not speak English.

USE 1 Repeated Actions

Use the Simple Present to express the idea that an action is repeated or usual. The action can be a habit, a hobby, a daily event, a scheduled event or something that often happens. It can also be something a person often forgets or usually does not do.

Examples:

I play tennis.
She does not play tennis.
Does he play tennis?
The train leaves every morning at 8 AM.
The train does not leave at 9 AM.
When does the train usually leave?
She always forgets her purse.
He never forgets his wallet.
Every twelve months, the Earth circles the Sun.
Does the Sun circle the Earth?

USE 2 Facts or Generalizations

The Simple Present can also indicate the speaker believes that a fact was true before, is true now, and will be true in the future. It is not important if the speaker is correct about the fact. It is also used to make generalizations about people or things.

Examples:

Cats like milk.
Birds do not like milk.
Do pigs like milk?
California is in America.
California is not in the United Kingdom.
Windows are made of glass.
Windows are not made of wood.
New York is a small city. It is not important that this fact is untrue.

USE 3 Scheduled Events in the Near Future

Speakers occasionally use Simple Present to talk about scheduled events in the near future. This is most commonly done when talking about public transportation, but it can be used with other scheduled events as well.

Examples:

The train leaves tonight at 6 PM.
The bus does not arrive at 11 AM, it arrives at 11 PM.
When do we board the plane?
The party starts at 8 o'clock.
When does class begin tomorrow?

USE 4 Now (Non-Continuous Verbs)

Speakers sometimes use the Simple Present to express the idea that an action is happening or is not happening now. This can only be done with Non-Continuous Verbs and certain Mixed Verbs.

Examples:

I am here now.
She is not here now.
He needs help right now.
He does not need help now.
He has his passport in his hand.
Do you have your passport with you?

ADVERB PLACEMENT

The examples below show the placement for grammar adverbs such as: always, only, never, ever, still, just, etc.

Examples:

You only speak English.
Do you only speak English?

ACTIVE / PASSIVE

Examples:

Once a week, Tom cleans the car. Active
Once a week, the car is cleaned by Tom. Passive

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Nouns that can be Countable and Uncountable

Sometimes, the same noun can be countable and uncountable, often with a change of meaning.

Countable		Uncountable
There are two hairs in my coffee!	hair	I don't have much hair.
There are two lights in our bedroom.	light	Close the curtain. There's too much light!
Shhhhh! I thought I heard a noise. There are so many different noises in the city.	noise	It's difficult to work when there is too much noise.
Have you got a paper to read? (newspaper) Hand me those student papers.	paper	I want to draw a picture. Have you got some paper?
Our house has seven rooms.	room	Is there room for me to sit here?
We had a great time at the party. How many times have I told you no?	time	Have you got time for a coffee?
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's greatest works.	work	I have no money. I need work!

Uncountable Nouns

Uncountable nouns are substances, concepts etc that we cannot divide into separate elements. We cannot "count" them. For example, we cannot count "milk". We can count "bottles of milk" or "litres of milk", but we cannot count "milk" itself. Here are some more uncountable nouns:

music, art, love, happiness
advice, information, news
furniture, luggage
rice, sugar, butter, water
electricity, gas, power
money, currency

We usually treat uncountable nouns as singular. We use a singular verb. For example:

This news is very important.
Your luggage looks heavy.

We do not usually use the indefinite article a/an with uncountable nouns. We cannot say "an information" or "a music". But we can say a something of:

a piece of news
a bottle of water
a grain of rice

We can use some and any with uncountable nouns:

I've got some money.
Have you got any rice?

We can use a little and much with uncountable nouns:

I've got a little money.
I haven't got much rice.

Uncountable nouns are also called "mass nouns".

Here are some more examples of countable and uncountable nouns:

Countable	Uncountable
dollar	money
song	music
suitcase	luggage
table	furniture
battery	electricity
bottle	wine
report	information
tip	advice
journey	travel
job	work
view	scenery

Countable Nouns

Countable nouns are easy to recognize. They are things that we can count. For example: "pen". We can count pens. We can have one, two, three or more pens. Here are some more countable nouns:

dog, cat, animal, man, person
bottle, box, litre
coin, note, dollar
cup, plate, fork
table, chair, suitcase, bag

Countable nouns can be singular or plural:

My dog is playing.
My dogs are hungry.

We can use the indefinite article a/an with countable nouns:

A dog is an animal.

When a countable noun is singular, we must use a word like a/the/my/this with it:

I want an orange. (not I want orange.)
Where is my bottle? (not Where is bottle?)

When a countable noun is plural, we can use it alone:

I like oranges.
Bottles can break.

We can use some and any with countable nouns:

I've got some dollars.
Have you got any pens?

We can use a few and many with countable nouns:

I've got a few dollars.
I haven't got many pens.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Summary of Punctuation Marks

Click on the link for each punctuation mark to find out more.

Punctuation Mark	Name	Example
	full stop or period	I like English.
	comma	I speak English, French and Thai.
	semi-colon	I don't often go swimming; I prefer to play tennis.
	colon	You have two choices: finish the work today or lose the contract.
	hyphen	This is a rather out-of-date book.
	dash	In each town—London, Paris and Rome—we stayed in youth hostels.
	question mark	Where is Shangri-La?
	exclamation mark exclamation point (AmE)	"Help!" she cried. "I'm drowning!"
	slash, forward slash or oblique	Please press your browser's Refresh/Reload button.
	backslash	C:\Users\Files\jse.doc
	double quotation marks	"I love you," she said.
	single quotation marks	'I love you,' she said.
	apostrophe	This is John's car.
	underline	Have you read War and Peace?
	underscore	bin_lad@cia.gov
	round brackets	I went to Bangkok (my favourite city) and stayed there for two weeks.
	square brackets	The newspaper reported that the hostages [most of them French] had been released.
	ellipsis mark	One happy customer wrote: "This is the best program...that I have ever seen."