Comments

Dear Amy, I have tried to highlight about third conditional to your answer your question. In my opinion, she should use third conditional in her situation. So it should be “If I had known the exam was cancelled, I wouldn’t have gone. When we are discussing past situations we normally use past perfect in the if-clause, followed by would have + past participle in the main clause. In aforementioned sentence: if clause contain third form of verb know (know,knew,known), and in main clause wouldn’t have gone is used. In this sentence, the time is past, and the situation is contrary to reality. The facts they are based on are the opposite of what is expressed, and they refer to an unreal past condition and its probable past result. My heart went out to you –feeling in your favour A fiasco- something planned that goes wrong and is a complete failure, usually in an embarrassing way Intrigued- to interest someone a lot, especially by being strange, unusual or mysterious To branch out- to start to do something different from what you usually do, especially in your job To digress - to start talking about something that is not related to what you were talking about before. An all-time favourite -best liked or most enjoyed Prevalent - existing a lot in a particular group, area, or at a particular time To be up to something – as expected Faint-hearted- people who are not brave

Hi Amy! Fret not, gnocchi are very difficult to make. The same thing happens to my mum and my grandma when they make them. I think it basically depends on the ingrendients:the kind of potato is very important. Plus, the flour and if you use the eggs too. Anyway, about our homework, here are my answers: a=future, b=future, c=past. I think Adriana should use the third sentence. 3) a) if clause= present+ main clause= future. b) if clause= simple past + main clause= present conditional. c) if clause= past perfect+ main clause= past conditional. As for the writers, Arundhati Roy is very popular over here as well. I also find her essays very interesting. Do you know Vandana Shiva? All the best

Hi Ami. I usually read your blog entries, but it's the first time I make a comment to them. I suppose I'm a bit idle, and a little shy. Today I've had the need to respond the homework you send to us. So, I'll give it a try: The sentence a)is talking about the present, the sentence b)is talking about the future and the sentence c) is talking about the past. The sentence that fit the situation that Adriana had to bear, is the sentence c), because Adriana is talking about a past situation. the third question you ask, for me is more difficult; so, I'm going to wait to read it from you. Best wishes.

Hello Amy! Oh, I bet you are right now having good dreams under the Morpheus protection, while I´m writing this comment to you :-). Oh my goodness! I love it talking about books Amy and therefore they are so fascinating, aren´t they? From all those books you mentioned above, and which I´m very intrigued, I´ve just read 'The God of Small Things'. This book is so well written, delicate and sadly poetical. Oh, I just loved it read it. Anyway, you know I´m going to look for those books, just like I´ve looked for 'Eat Pray Love' :-). Moreover, A Suitable Boy sounds very interesting, but I guess... Oops! Just one second Amy... I´m looking for Suitable Boy at the virtual bookstore... Oh Gee! Oooh, this book is... is very expensive indeed. Ok, maybe I give to myself on Christmas:-). Well, some books are so exciting! Don´t you think so Amy? Sometimes when I´m working my thoughts go miles away, and I wonder what´s going to happen next in the book that I´m reading. Ah... Now the homework: 1) When is each sentence talking about? Past, present or future? a)first conditional-future( describes the result of something that probably will happen); b)second conditional-future( describes the results of something that probably or certainly won´t happen); c)third conditional-past(describes a imaginary situation and its results in the past). 2) Which of these sentences would best fit your situation, the first time you flew to Brasilia for the exam? Letter c. 3) What is the form for each of the sentences? E.g. If + subject + etc. a)If + present simple + future simple; b)If + simple past + would + first form of the verb; c)If + past perfect + would have + third form of the verb. I´m looking forward to seeing the answers. When I wrote my blog last April, I made conditionals mistakes that Alex kindly pointed out. Moreover, it´s always good practice. Let´s try the vocabulary: My heart went out to you: to feel sympathy for someone who is facing some problem; A fiasco: a complete failure; Intrigued: to feel interested in or curious about something; To branch out: diversify; To digress: to deviate from the main subject; An all-time favourite: the favourite one; Prevalent: predominant, most common; To be up to something: to do something ( this one I kick); Faint-hearted: lack of courage. And the oldies(so cute): To ply: to work at some busines, especially trading-bying and selling; To rain cats and dogs: to rain very heavily; To have a laugh: to have fun; To be blown away: to be totally surprised or shocked; Appealing: attractive. Phew! I´m afraid I made my comment too long, didn´t I Amy?:-) Enjoy your Wednesday, Ana Paula.

Dear Amy!I am highly delighted with your post about books, fascinating stuff about Bhutan (I envy you that experience) and your grammar explanation to my question as well. It´s cleared another language puzzle for me. You guessed well that using conditional sentences is on the top among all of them for any student. Time flies so quickly, which means I´ll be half a century soon?, and scared of that I thought I would die and not even undersant this language, ha ha. I came across this blog page a year befor and alike to Adriana I considered teacher´s blog dedicated to teachers of English only and didn´t open it for two month. Now, I bought English books in an internet shop and this language with a huge help the BBC page and its teachers is my great pleasure. And I owe to say thank you for giving me such vivid insight on to the life in India (with other readers comments too) and Brasil pictured with love by Adriana.

Hi dear Amy , It's me again ,Pary . Have you read my first comment ? it's my second comment . Here are my answers [ I confess that I cheated from MR Gooch ,APR/MAY Blog teacher ,past Blogs , but it was good for revising ;-) ] a) If I know the exam is cancelled, I won’t go. First conditional and we say , perhaps the exam will cancel in the future . ( future time ) [ If+ present simple ] , [ future simple ] b) If I knew the exam was cancelled, I wouldn’t go. Second conditional , in this case we know that the exam will not cancel in the future . ( future time ) [ if + past simple ] , [ ' would ' + first form of verb ] c) If I had known the exam was cancelled, I wouldn’t have gone. The third conditional , we know that unfortunately you have gone to the exam in the past. ( past time ) [ if + past perfect ] , [ 'would have ' + third form of verb ] Dear Amy , your Ginger bread sounds delicious and it made my mouth watering ?Could you do me a favor and give us it's recipe . I 've tried to make potato salad and that was good and easy to make . But I had to use red onions instead of spring onions . Also I go to the web page that you give us it's link for vegetarian food and I liked it . I hope , I will catch time finally and could make some of them . At that case , I will take an English cookery course , it's a good job , is n't it ? The tiger's nest sounds very interesting and breathtaking place . I 'm a sightseeing lover and I hope some day my family and I can start our overseas travels . Have a nice time With truckloads of kisses Xxx

Hello Amy :-) As I can see you are a hard working woman, but then again your life seems to be very interesting. I'd like to be in your shoes! I agree with you that the Taksang Monastery IS absolutely beautiful and the way it's perched on a cliff is amazing. In your previous blog there's one thing that puzzles me a little bit. In the first sentence you said 'I had looked forward to; as you began your sentence with 'Well it's now...' what suggests using present perfect in the second part of the sentence shouldn't you have said 'I have looked forward to'? Until next time.

Hi Amy, it´s me again :-). I was at BBC World Book Club site today, and I found in the archives an interview with the author of A Suitable Boy, Vikran Seth. In this interview( you can listen to it), the author answers some readers questions and read some book passages, which is very nice. Besides that, there are interviews with lots of interesting writers in the archives, including Arundhati Roy. I love it the BBC World Club website because we can listen to the authors talking about their books and interacting with the readers. Therefore this site is wonderful for practicing our listening. Well, here is the site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/world_book_club.shtml Sorry if I´m boring you Amy, but I really would like to tell you about this site ( maybe you´ve already visited it). Good bye, Ana Paula.

Hello Amy! I did something wrong then my unfinihed comment has gone. :-( Amy, I will try reading some of the books you recommended. This is the homework: 1/ sentence a is a real condition (Type 1)talking about future; sentence b is unreal conditional (Type 2)talking about present or future; sentence c is also unreal but about the past (Type 3). 2/ sentence c would best fit Adriana's situation. 3/ Here go their forms: Type 1: If + subject + verb (in Simple present)... + comma + subject + will/can + bare verb ...; Type 2: If + subject + verb (in past simple) ... + comma + subject + would/could + bare verb ...; Type 3: If + subject + verb (in past perfect) ... + comma + subject + would/could + have + bare verb ... That's the lesson from Alex. Amy, I can't find any kind of fruit that begins with X. Bye for now. Best regards, Myen.

Hi Amy, I must accept the fact that as far as reading is concerned I am a school boy. Of late I develop the habit of reading. In the last one year, I have read stories about Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, C.N.Annadurai, some of the short stories for the school students and ‘Malgudi Days’ short story by R.K.Narayan. I am not sure the author you have mentioned is suitable for my level. Any how I’ll try some of the books. Only recently I realize how importance is reading for acquiring other learning language. Githanjail I have gone through some of the Tamil version.

The fruit beginning with an 'x' in English is 'xigua', which is a kind of watermelon.