HOUSES

Although we are now dealing with a new topic, in the previous lesson we talked about houses and we could not listen to a song which I promised to upload here, so there you are:

OUR HOUSE, by Madness

(a hit from the 80's)

Back to school

From Monday 23rd March, lessons go back to normal.

If I hadn't slipped, I wouldn't have sprained my ankle

Hi, everybody!

As you know I'm on a sick leave due to a sprained ankle (a serious one, believe me) but I can still post here and want to use my situation to introduce/revise the third conditional in the context of "regrets", one of the commonest uses.

This is the uninteresting story of the sprain (but if you don't read it now and ask me how it happened when I get back, I'll make you read it as homework):

"Last Wednesday I went to the gym after breakfast. I got changed and was ready to start when I felt the need to visit the toilet. On my way to the toilet I noticed something strange in my left eye and as I was passing in front of a mirror, I turned to check if there was something wrong. Unfortunately, this mirror was above a washbasin and the floor was wet. It was when I was turning that I placed my foot in the wrong position and on the slippery floor. And then it happened, my ankle twisted and I felt a very intense pain while the whole weigh of my body fell on it. I had to get a taxi to go to the doctor's and now I must spend 15 days without leaning on that foot. A silly accident with serious consequences. Something to regret. If I hadn't gone to the gym, I wouln't have sprained my ankle...(but I did and there's nothing I can do to change the past, is there?)

Conditional sentences: If + past perfect (type III)

Task 1.

Can you think of other situations in which you could use this structure to express regrets?

You can write a composition beginning or ending with a third conditional and then explaining your story and the reason for your regret. I'll be happy to read it in my (hopefully brief) retirement.

Here you are another story in which someone has something to regret. And it also happens in a changing room! (You can also find it in Yapper, where you can read the subtitles but try first without any help)

But not everything must be about regretting. Watch the following video and send your answer to this question as a comment.

What would you have done if you had been there?

Songs and conditional sentences

We've been working with conditional sentences in class and these are some songs to practise them:

If + present
(type zero and type I)

If you don't know me by now (Simply Red)





You can get it if you really want (Jimmy Cliff)

If + past simple
(type II)

If I had a hammer (Trini López)

If I were a bell (from Guys and Dolls, Doris Day version suggested by María)

If I were a rich man, a classical from Fiddler On The Roof. In this song you will also find some first type and mixed type (second and third) conditional sentences.

More than words, by Extreme (one of my favourite songs). Although the version below is clearer, this group sang this song live in Seville at the Expo 92. If you were lucky enough to see them (I wasn't), here is a reminder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE1XRob6KkU

In the following song, the subjunctive "if I were..." is replaced by the more and more frequently used simple past "if I was...", something considered incorrect from a traditional grammar perspective:


All I want is you (

Barry Louis Polisar), from the film "JUNO"

I also think "If I could" by Seal is a good song for this purpose but I couldn't find a listenable version on the web. Any more suggestions?

Accents

There is a tendency among English students to think that one particular accent or variety of English is "better" than others. In this sense, Europeans mostly support the British accent while people from other latitudes support the American. I personally love accents and think we should enjoy the variety English has to offer in spite of the extra difficulty they might add to the understanding of a foreign language . As a matter of fact, we should not forget that the standard English we try to learn in our school is spoken by a really low percentage of native speakers and that we will have to deal with infinite variations when facing real situations (starting with the Spanish accent most teachers will probably have).

To start with, I would like you to watch a video from YAPPR, a very interesting link for students of English. They have a wide variety of videos (songs, film trailers, excerpts from TV programmes, etc.) accompanied by their transcription and sometimes translation. You can also join their community and help with the translations and transcriptions.

In this particular video an Australian actor, Simon Baker, is interviewed in a popular American programme, the Late Show, where the speaker, David Letterman, comments on the Australian accent while he praises the actor's ability to hide it in the American series he stars, The Mentalist:

As an intermediate student, can you really tell the difference between David Letterman and Simon Baker? Probably not, so why all the fuss about accents at this stage?

More accents? The following link is just about accents in Britain and includes recordings of different conversations from a wide variety of places around the British Isles:

The following one is a link about North American accents which works in a similar way:

So, now the question is: Why do we use "RP" as our reference in class if so few speakers use it in everyday life? Surf the net and find some information about the concepts of "international English", "standard English" and "English as lingua franca" before trying to answer this question.

To express your opinion on this topic, please use the "comments" link below.