Talking about time in stories
Hi Jihad!
I hope you have had a good week and have completely recovered from your traumatic queuing experience!
I have enjoyed reading and re-reading your queuing story; the frustration you felt is clear and yet you write so humorously that I can’t help laughing! I like the way you set out the narrative as a detailed diary, using the times as headings: 10.00 am, 11.00 am, 12.00 am etc.
I have one small comment about deictic expressions* in the reported speech in this sentence:
Some people told me that they were here from 7.00 am till this moment!!!!!!!!
I wrote about deictic expressions in a post on representing speech on Monday, 27 April 2009, so I won’t repeat the information here. If you have time, perhaps you could review that post and have a go at changing the italicised words? If anyone else would also like to have a go, go ahead! I will give my suggestions for changes in my next post.
My second (and final) comment is about narrative tenses. In this sentence:
4.00 pm: After another hour of waiting that left me and rest of the people [absolutely] furious, the other clerk arrived,
instead of that left (past simple) me, you COULD say that had left (past perfect) me, to emphasise that you were already furious when the second clerk arrived. Sometimes, if we want to talk about an event or action that happened earlier than the main events in the past, we use a past perfect verb form.
Actually, your sentence is perfectly clear, so I’m not sure that it makes much difference whether you use the past simple or the past perfect here! Anyway, if you are interested in knowing more about the difference between the past simple and the past perfect for narrating events or actions in the past, there is some useful information here:
Ask about English: past simple or past perfect?
OK, I’m going to finish this post and then go to bed; tomorrow I’m attending a conference in Leeds (about 40 minutes by train from York) on teaching English, together with some of my students. I’ll try and record some video (without humming while I’m filming….) to post here.
Hope you have a good weekend!
Rachel
* deictic expressions = ways of pointing to time (for example, tenses and words like yesterday and ago), place (here, there, this shop, that university) and persons (she, they) at the moment of speaking.
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Comments on the comments:
Hyoshil (from the UK) – you asked about how to use the appropriate words or sentences in special situations, such as a giving a presentations or a making a speech, or when you disagree with someone. I have to say Hyoshil that your English already seems excellent to me, in the special situation of the BBC LE blog! As each situation is probably different from the next, perhaps careful listening to the way people are using English in that situation is a good start. If you get a chance, you may like to write down clusters of words that you frequently hear in a specific situation, and memorise them for later use in similar situations. You could organise your notebook based on the situations in which you are interested in learning more about. So, for example, you could have a section on presentations, a section on speeches, a section on disagreeing and so on. Gradually you will build up a bank of useful clusters of word that you have noticed, memorised and are ready to use.!
Toni (from Barcelona, Spain) – you asked about the difference between cluster and collocation….. According to my grammar book, collocations are regularly co-occurring nouns, adjectives, prepositions, verbs and adverbs, such as:
give a presentation
make a speech
blonde (not yellow) hair
a yellow (not blonde) car
a palomino (not blonde or yellow) horse
Clusters are also regularly co-occurring words, but can include grammatical words, for example:
do you know what I mean? [informal]
at the end of the day [informal: meaning after all or in the end]
Marianna (from Slovakia) – I loved reading about your trip to see your friend in Osrblie. Please tell us more of your stories!
Comments
Hi Rachel! Hope you are having a nice weekend. Today here was partly cloudy, partly sunny with a few rain. I hoped to see a rainbow, unfortunately I did not have the chance! Thank you for the link and for the examples on collocations. Could you write a post on this issue, maybe in future? Or give us some links? Many thanks
Hi Rachel, thanks for your kind explanation. I'm enjoying a lot your support. It's a mixture of a high level english philology and personal opinions with charming hums in the background. Don't worry about the last one, it makes you human. I'm going to take my chance to your challenge about diectic expressions. Here it is; 'Some people told me that they had been there from 7.00 am till that moment!!' Dices are thrown..... See you. Toni
Hi Rachel! Did you have a nice weekend and how did the conference go in Leeds? I hope to see some videos, and listen to lots of your humming in soon!!! I’ve not given any concern about humming to yourself in your previous videos, and I actually would like to encourage you to sing some of your favourite songs for us while you are making a new video next time. It would be wonderful to know what your favourite songs are. I understand this is not my place to keep asking you give me guide to improve my English, and please, don’t think of me that you give me an inch and I’ll take a yard. But could you help me how to familiarize myself with prepositions? Using prepositions effectively in my writing or speaking is always out of my comport zone and it’s so tricky to lean them for me. I think I am a spoon-feeding student. Thanks, and have a great day!!
Hello Rachel! I´ve got such an attentive reader, thank you Rachel. Do you think that are stories? In my simple and very slovak-like language? Just yesterday on my walk (you can´t imagine what our forests are like, mysterious places; do you have forests accesible for a free walks and cycling there?)I was thinking that I use this space more as a diary and remembering who recommended this as the method, but that surely was meant not to torture other people. That I am afraid any time I write. Actually, my life is highly monotonous and your blog gives always the feeling of a busy university life. I agreed to go on a trip after xx´s refusals to leave my flat and travel either to Bratislava where my friend lives or to hers weekend´s house. So we have had the meeting to our 50 birthday more than a year and a quarter delayed. She wished to get a picture as a present. After having a long choose a decision fel on the blau hortensia and I´ve sent it by post a month ago yet in avoiding any travel. She had e-mailed it was being her lovliest kind of flower. Anyway, she could see more of the works I was able to load up the car and took some others with. I am planning my works if worth one day to support the BBC LE in the future. Until than our candidates in to the EU parliament in their campaign plan to ask money from EU for teaching English here. PS: I could see forests on Carrie´s, Paul´s and a blog from Kaz but the land without a tree on Jonathan Mark´s blog too. See you!
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