My Community and I
Senior 5 · English
My Community and I
Lesson 3 of 4
25 min
Let's begin
Keza's essay in Lesson 1 needed only four grammar tools to describe a whole community: the present simple for routines, the present continuous for what is happening now, the past simple for what has changed, and comparatives for how much it has changed. You met all four in O-level. At A-level the marks go to using them precisely, especially where two of them compete. Every example in this lesson comes from the essay or the interview.
Figure 1.3 What the three tenses say about time.
| Present simple | Present continuous | |
|---|---|---|
| Form | base form; -s or -es after he, she, it | am / is / are + -ing |
| Use | routines and habits; permanent facts; timetables | actions in progress now; temporary situations; changes in progress; fixed future plans |
| From the unit | The SACCO opens at eight. Mr Habimana sews uniforms. | The carpenter is planing a door. Gatare is changing. |
| Signal words | every day, usually, on Tuesdays, twice a week, never | now, at the moment, this week, these days, currently |
Stative verbs describe states, not actions, and are not normally used in the continuous: know, believe, understand, want, need, belong, own, seem, like, prefer. Wrong: Eric is knowing every customer. Right: Eric knows every customer. Some verbs have both meanings: She has a kiosk (owns) but She is having lunch (an action); I think it is a good idea (opinion) but I am thinking about it (mental activity).
Worked example
Choosing the tense: "The choir ___ (rehearse) on Tuesdays, but this week it ___ (rehearse) every evening before the wedding."
Answer: The choir rehearses on Tuesdays, but this week it is rehearsing every evening before the wedding.
Use the past simple for a finished action or state at a definite past time, often with ago, last year, in 2015, when …. When my mother opened her shop, the centre had no electricity. To describe a past habit or state that is no longer true, you can also use used to + base form: She used to keep her drinks cool in a tub of water. The road is busier than it used to be.
| Spelling rule for regular verbs | Examples |
|---|---|
| Most verbs: add -ed | open → opened, weigh → weighed |
| Verbs ending in -e: add -d | rehearse → rehearsed, plane → planed |
| Consonant + -y: change y to i and add -ed | carry → carried, study → studied (but play → played) |
| One stressed syllable ending consonant-vowel-consonant: double the last consonant | stop → stopped, plan → planned, prefer → preferred (but visit → visited, open → opened: the stress is not on the last syllable) |
Common irregular verbs in community writing: build → built, dig → dug, pay → paid, sell → sold, teach → taught, bring → brought, buy → bought, find → found, keep → kept, take → took.
| Adjective | Comparative | Superlative |
|---|---|---|
| one syllable: clean, cheap, big | cleaner, cheaper, bigger (double the consonant after one short vowel) | the cleanest, the cheapest, the biggest |
| two syllables ending in -y: busy, noisy, dirty | busier, noisier, dirtier | the busiest, the noisiest, the dirtiest |
| two or more other syllables: crowded, modern, expensive | more crowded, more modern, more expensive | the most crowded, the most modern, the most expensive |
| irregular: good, bad, far, little, many/much | better, worse, farther/further, less, more | the best, the worst, the farthest/furthest, the least, the most |
Grading a comparison. A big difference: much, far, a lot + comparative (far dirtier). A small one: slightly, a bit, a little (slightly bigger). No difference: as … as; a difference stated politely: not as … as. A change that keeps going: busier and busier, more and more expensive. Two changes linked together: the + comparative …, the + comparative: The busier the road gets, the more careful children must be.
Worked example
Upgrading a plain comparison for an A-level answer
Plain: Gatare is more busy now. It is more dirty too.
Upgraded: Gatare is far busier than it used to be, and the busier the market gets, the dirtier the road becomes.
Warning
Present Simple and Present Continuous, 6 Minute Grammar, BBC Learning English (6 minutes). As you watch, note which verbs the presenters say are not usually used in the continuous, then check them against the stative verbs above.
The letters ea spell at least seven different sounds in English, so the spelling alone cannot tell you how to say a word. Learn them in families.
| Sound | Symbol | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| long "ee", as in see | /iː/ | eat, clean, teacher, weak, leave, meat, reason |
| short "e", as in bed | /e/ | bread, head, health, weather, ready, breakfast, pleasant |
| "ay", as in day | /eɪ/ | great, break, steak |
| "eer", as in here | /ɪə/ | near, clear, year, ear, dear |
| "air", as in hair | /eə/ | wear, bear, pear, swear |
| "ur", as in turn | /ɜː/ | learn, early, earth, heard, search |
| "ah", as in car | /ɑː/ | heart, hearth |
Two more traps. In idea and area the e and the a belong to different syllables (/aɪˈdɪə/, /ˈeəriə/). And some words are spelt the same but said differently according to meaning: I read (/riːd/) every day but I read (/red/) it yesterday; a tear (/tɪə/) ran down her face but don't tear (/teə/) the page; to lead (/liːd/) a team but a pipe made of lead (/led/).
Tip
One anchor word per sound. Learn one sentence that holds the commonest four: "Early each year we eat bread." (/ɜː/, /iː/, /ɪə/, /iː/, /e/). When you meet a new ea word, check it in a dictionary and add it to the family of the anchor it rhymes with.
Practice
Sources and credits
