'She is in her mid-twenties'
For a man of about 78, we say:
'He's in his late seventies'
For a girl of about 32, we say:
'She's in her early thirties'
Now try the reading activity where you have to identify famous stars:
Part 3: Further practice
Now you know the basics about describing people, it's important to improve your vocabulary,
especially for clothes and body parts. There are a number of activities that follow to help you.
There are some things to remember:
1) Clothes like 'jeans' 'trousers', 'shorts' and 'pants' are always in the plural in English, so you can't
say:
You should say:
'I like your jeans.'
'I'm wearing new jeans'
2) In US English, 'pants' is word for 'trousers', but in UK English 'pants' means 'men's underwear'!
3 In English, adjectives NEVER agree, never change and generally are in front of the noun
' should be 'I like your new shoes'
should be 'He's got a red t-shirt'
5. Towns
Session five: Directions and town vocabulary
Part 1 – Town vocabulary
Part 2 – Understanding directions
Part 3 – Focus on pronunciation
OBSERVE - Have a look at the image below: do you remember how to ask for and give directions in
English?
Square prononce / eə /
Sta tion / eɪ /
Tree / iː /
Bri dge / ɪ /
Ca thedral / ə /
Rou ndabou t / aʊ /
A rea / e /
Le isure / e /
GO FURTHER
Telling people to do things
When we looked at directions we used the imperative form: 'turn right', 'go straight on' etc.
To use this form, simply use the verb alone. If you want to use the negative, just add 'Don't' at the
start.
Here are some things to remember:
Of course, being direct is sometimes important in situations where you are angry or it's urgent, but in
other situations in English, we don't always like to be too direct, so we often transform an imperative
into a question. This is quite different to French, which is a more direct language. Here are some
examples:
Instead of saying 'turn off the TV', we can say:
Could you turn off the TV?
or
Would you mind turning off the TV?
If everything is clear, try doing this listening comprehension activity:
Part 1 - Revising nationalities
Part 2 - Simple present 1 - Food - Likes and dislikes
nationalities - food - likes and dislikes
Part 1 – Routines, fill-in the gap and matching
Part 2 – Routines, listening
Part 3 – Focus on pronunciation
Simple present
Take a moment to think about the 'What do they do?' activity that you just did.
What did you notice about the verb? Here are two examples, but go back and
look at the activity again if you need to.
Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet act.
Taylor Swift sings.
First of all, you should notice that the present simple is used. As explained in
the intro video, in English, we use the present simple to express likes and
dislikes, habits and our routines (including jobs and hobbies).
Second, you should notice how the verb is conjugated. To form the present
simple, we use the base form of the verb, except for the third-person singular,
when we add an '-s'.
. Focus on vocabulary: Professions
What do your parents do for a living (= dans la vie )? What about your
grandparents?
Have you ever had a job? If so, what was it? What would you like to do for a
living when you finish your studies?
Here is a list of some different professions and an explanation of what people
do in that profession. Notice what tense is used to say what people do: the
present simple!
8. Time
Session eight: the time and questions about routines
AM vs. PM
We don't normally use the 24-hour clock in English.
We use a.m . (am) for the morning and p.m . (pm) for the afternoon and night.
3am = Three o'clock in the morning.
3pm = Three o'clock in the afternoon.
There are two common ways of telling the time.
1) Say the hour first and then the m inutes. (Hour + M inutes)
• 6:25 - It's six twenty-five
• 8:05 - It's eight O-five (the O is said like the letter O)
• 9:11 - It's nine eleven
• 2:34 - It's two thirty-four
2) Say the m inutes first and then the hour. (M inutes + PAST / TO + Hour)
For minutes 1-30 we use PAST after the minutes.
For minutes 31-59 we use TO after the minutes.
• 2:35 - It's twenty-five to three
• 11:20 - It's twenty past eleven
• 4:18 - It's eighteen past four
• 8:51 - It's nine to nine
• 2:59 - It's one to three
When it is 15 m inutes past the hour we normally say: (a) quarter past
• 7:15 - It's (a) quarter past seven
