Gareth King - Colloquial English - A Complete English Language Course

‘I buy every morning a newspaper’

✕

I don’t like lemon tea at all

✓

‘I don’t like at all lemon tea’

✕

We’ll phone you on Saturday

✓

‘We’ll on Saturday phone you’

✕

The time expressions can also come at the start of the sentences: Every morning I buy a newspaper

✓

always

never

often

frequency

usually

generally

definitely

probably

These adverbs come:

1

after the first AUXILIARY:

I’ve usually gone to bed

2

after beif there is no other verb or auxiliary: I’m usually back from work

I’m never in the house

3

before the main verb when there is no auxiliary: I often watch the soaps

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Notice what happens in questions:

Do you always leave the TV on?

Have you often visited Italy?

– the adverb comes after the SUBJECT.

Exercise 8

Decide which of these sentences have the adverb in the wrong position, and correct them. Some of the sentences are okay.

1 Simon reads often in the evenings.

2 You probably’ll miss the bus.

3 Does Gerry usually drive to work?

4 They’ll definitely want to come with us.

5 Suzie likes a lot Indian food.

6 Is often the weather wet in this part of the country?

7 Barry doesn’t like at all Indian food.

8 We every Saturday go to watch a football match.

9 Every evening I have a bath.

10 I have a bath every evening.

Exercise 9

Turn these statements into questions – watch out for the adverbs.

1

Henry’s often in the local library.

2

James is always working in the Internet café.

3

Tom’s brother and his wife have often visited France.

4

You usually go to the restaurant next door.

5

He often has to go abroad.

6

George goes to the pub every Friday evening.

Phrasal verbs

drive (around)– ‘drive to lots of different places’; we can drive around, or we can drive people around. Let me drive you aroundmeans ‘Let me take you to different places in the car and tell you about them’.

show (a)round– ‘show someone lots of different places’; Will you show us round?means ‘Will you take us to different places and tell us about them?’. You can show someone round a town or city, or you can show them round your house! When people come to look at your house to see if they want to buy it, we say Let me show you round.

224

Life and living – people and population

There’s a lot of talk about people in this unit, and in the United Kingdom there’s certainly no shortageof people. Nearly sixty million people live in the four constituent countriesof the UK – by far the majority(48 million) live in England, with 6 million living in Scotland, 3 million in Wales and 2 million in Northern Ireland.

Also part of the British Isles, but not part of the UK, is the Republic of Ireland with over 3.5 million people.

Britain is famous for the multiculturalnature of its population.

Particularly in the cities – not just London but other cities such as Birmingham (Britain’s second city), Bristol and Brighton (where Helen and Justine in Dialogue 2 come from) – you’ll meet people from all parts of the world. Just walk down the street and you’ll encounterBritish citizens whose family linksgo back to Africa, India, China and just aboutanywhere else in the world you can think of. Many of these people speak languages in addition to English – for example, in London there are over 200 languages spoken among the 8 million inhabitantsof the city! If you want to broadenyour experience of this side of things, you can buy books in the same series as this one to help you learn: Chinese, Cantonese,

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Hindi, Urdu, Panjabi, Gujarati, Somali, for example, as well astwo language which, like English, are indigenousto the UK: Welsh and Scottish Gaelic.

This cultural and linguistic diversityis what many people think makes Britain a very special place to live and work, and of course a greatcountry to visit!

Glossary

shortage– not many (so no shortagemeans ‘a lot’) constituent countries– the countries that together form the UK

majority– most, the greatest number

multicultural– having people from many cultural backgrounds encounter– meet

links– connections

just about– almost, very nearly

inhabitants– people who live in a place

broaden– widen, make more broad

as well as– and also

indigenous– something or someone that arose or was born in a place rather than being imported or coming from somewhere else diversity– variety, having many different aspects great– wonderful, very good

14 What would

you do?

In this unit you will learn how to:

• talk about things that haven’t happened

• talk about what might happen

• discuss possibilities

• identify and use the two main types of conditional in English Dialogue 1

Justine and Ann are in town. Suddenly Justine sees a newsagent’s and remembers something she has to do.

JUSTINE:

Hang on a minute, Ann! I need to go into the newsagent’s.

ANN:

What for? We’ve already got a newspaper.

JUSTINE:

I need to buy a lottery ticket.

ANN:

A lottery ticket? I’m surprised at you, Justine – really I am! What a waste of money!

JUSTINE:

What do you mean, a waste of money? If I play, I might win!

ANN:

Like hell! But anyway, even if you did win, what would you do with the money?

JUSTINE:

If I won I’d do lots of things – I’d go on a trip round the world, for a start. And I’d buy my Mum and Dad a new house. And I’d give money to charity. And . . .

ANN:

I bet you wouldn’t be happy, though.

JUSTINE:

[ snorts ] I bet I would! If you won the lottery, you’d be happy, wouldn’t you?

ANN:

I wouldn’t play in the first place, so it wouldn’t happen, would it?

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JUSTINE:

But if you did . You’d find plenty of things to spend the money on, wouldn’t you?

ANN:

Well, yes . . . I suppose I would. But . . .

JUSTINE:

Well there you are then! Wait here while I go in and buy a ticket.

ANN:

You’ll be wasting your money.

JUSTINE:

You won’t say that if I win.

[ Justine goes in, but Ann calls after her ]

ANN:

Justine!

JUSTINE:

Yes, what is it now ?

ANN:

Get me a ticket as well, would you?

Language point 79 – conditionals