Gareth King - Colloquial English - A Complete English Language Course

FIONA:

I’ve usually gone to bed by then!

M/RESEARCHER: Do you watch morning TV at all?

FIONA:

I never watch TV in the mornings because I’m never in the house. During the week I always leave very early for work, and I have yoga classes every weekend on both Saturday and Sunday mornings.

M/RESEARCHER: And finally, what do you think about the amount of TV you watch every week?

FIONA:

I definitely watch too much, but I find it really relaxing after a day’s work, so I probably won’t change!

M/RESEARCHER: Thanks for your time and your help.

FIONA:

Not at all.

Idiom

• We use Not at allas a polite response when someone has thanked us.

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Dialogue 4

Candace calls in on Brenda, who’s been a bit unwell.

CANDACE:

Hello, Brenda – I just thought I’d call in and see how you are.

BRENDA:

Hi – I’m still a bit iffy, but I’m definitely feeling better than I was.

CANDACE:

You certainly look a lot better. Still, you probably don’t want to come swimming today.

BRENDA:

I know we always do that on Wednesdays, but I probably shouldn’t. I don’t feel sick any more, but I’m still feeling a bit weak.

CANDACE:

[ suddenly concerned ] Shall I make you a cup of tea?

BRENDA:

No thanks, Candace – I’ve already had three this morning, and it’s only ten o’clock!

Idiom

When Brenda says she’s still a bit iffyshe’s using a colloquial word to describe how she’s feeling – iffycomes from if, one of the words we’ve been looking at in this unit, and it means uncertainor not completely OK. Here, she’s telling Candace that she’s still a bit uncertain about her health. More examples:

I’m not eating this – it smells iffy!

(it doesn’t smell right)

This car looks a bit iffy

(there’s something wrong with it)

Language point 77 – ‘do’ and ‘make’

We’ve seen doa lot in this book as an AUXILIARY – do, don’t, did, didn’t– in questions in the PRESENT SIMPLE and PAST SIMPLE, and in negatives, and in tags. But dois also a verb with a real meaning. In Dialogue 2 we see another verb as well: make.

These two verbs have similar meanings and it is easy for learners of English to confuse them. Let’s see how Justine uses them in Dialogue 2:

I was doing the shopping

The bakery that makes banana doughnuts

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Now, let’s imagine that Justine has given us a list of all the things she does in a day – if we arrange them into two lists, we will be able to see the difference between doand make: Justine

does

makes

the shopping

a cup of tea

the household finances

a shopping list

some yoga

an evening meal

the washing-up

a loaf of bread

the gardening

some paper aeroplanes

Can you see the difference?

do

=

perform an action

make

=

produce or create something

Doalso has many special meanings – look in a dictionary and see how many! In the Dialogue, Justine talks about:

the restaurant that does vegan dishes

Here do= serve.

Here are some more special meanings of do:

Liz is doing Law at university

(study)

The local theatre company’s doing

Hamlet this week

(perform)

That will do for today

(be enough)

This car does 150 mile per hour

(travels at a speed of)

I’m done for today

(finished)

Finally, remember that most forms of dohave unusual pronunciations:

do

/du/

does

/dz/

don’t

/dəυnt/

done

/dn/

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Exercise 6

Choose between the verbs in brackets for each sentence.

1

Have you (done/made) your homework yet?

2

Kath’s (doing/making) bread rolls for the picnic.

3

I can’t (do/make) this Maths problem.

4

Will you (do/make) the washing-up for me?

5

I’m thinking of (doing/making) the London Marathon this year.

6

This restaurant doesn’t (do/make) curry.

7

They’ve (done/made) a film of this book.

8

When the weather gets better I’ll (do/make) the gardening.

Exercise 7

Correct these sentences. Be careful – one of them doesn’t need correcting.

1

What have you did with my trousers?

2

The children maked a lot of noise at the party.

3

I done my homework already.

4

Suzie’s made an important decision.

5

Let’s be careful – we don’t want to do a mistake, do we?

6

James dids a good job.

7

Has Lucy doed her yoga exercises?

8

Let’s make the rest of the work later.

Dialogue 5

Andy and Brian are on their way to the pub, moaning about money as usual .

ANDY:

Oh, it’s always the same!

BRIAN:

What?

ANDY:

I never have any money on me when I go out. Every

week I carefully plan my spending, but by Friday it’s all gone.

BRIAN:

Never mind. Surely there’s a bank nearby. You definitely have got money in the bank, haven’t you?

ANDY:

We’ll soon find out. I was still in the black last week, but I’m often overdrawn by the end of the month.

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BRIAN:

I really hate being overdrawn, don’t you?

ANDY:

I often get rude letters form the bank about it, so they obviously don’t like it either.

BRIAN:

They certainly don’t.

Idioms

– on memeans ‘with me’ or ‘in my possession’ particularly when talking about money. Have you got any money on you?is the normal way in colloquial English of asking someone if they have money in their pocket on in their wallet or purse.

– I was in the blackmeans ‘I had money in the bank’; in the blackmeans ‘in credit with the bank’, in the redmeans ‘in debt to the bank’.

Language point 78 – adverb position

In Language point 58 we saw that the position of adverbs is important in colloquial English. In Dialogue 3 we see some more –

we can divide them into two groups according to the position they occupy in the sentence:

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every day

every weekend

time

on Saturday

( not) at all

degree

a lot

These adverbs usually come at the end of the sentence: I buy a newspaper every morning

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