HAD BETTER (Give specific advice)

Had better ('d better)
We use “had better” plus the infinitive without “to” to give advice. Although “had” is the past form of “have”, we use “had better” to give advice about the present or future.

La fórmula sería Had better + verbo sin to: "you'd better study" para dar consejo. Pero el consejo sería específico, ya que para consejos en general, usamos Should.

•You'd better tell her everything.

•I'd better get back to work.

•We'd better meet early.

The negative form is “had better not”. La forma negativa tampoco va seguida de to:
You'd better not walk over the snake" (mejor no camines encima de la serpiente.)
•You'd better not say anything.

•I'd better not come.

•We'd better not miss the start of his presentation.

We use “had better” to give advice about specific situations, not general ones. If you want to talk about general situations, you must use “should”.

•You should brush your teeth before you go to bed.

•I shouldn't listen to negative people.

•He should dress more appropriately for the office.

When we give advice about specific situations, it is also possible to use “should”.

•You shouldn't say anything.

•I should get back to work.

•We should meet early.

However, when we use “had better” there is a suggestion that if the advice is not followed, that something bad will happen.

Cuando usamos "had better " da la sensación de que el consejo no va a ser seguido por quien lo recibe o que algo malo pasará.

•You'd better do what I say or else you will get into trouble.

•I'd better get back to work or my boss will be angry with me.

•We'd better get to the airport by five or else we may miss the flight.


Online activities to practice grammar:

ACTIVITY ONE (MATCH SENTENCES)

ACTIVITY TWO (PUT IN ORDER)

ACTIVITY THREE (should  or  had better ? )

Singular nouns that refer to group of people agreement : The Government has or have?

The government have (or has?)

In English, we often use singular nouns that refer to groups of people (eg government, committee, team) as if they were plural. (This is less true in US English. )
This is because we often think of the group as people, doing things that people do (eating, wanting, feeling etc).
In such cases, we use:

- plural verb


- plural pronoun (they)


- who (not which)

Here are some examples:

- The committee want sandwiches for lunch. They aren't very hungry.


- My family, who don't see me often, have asked me home.


- The team hope to win next time.
 
Here are some examples of words and expressions that can be considered singular or plural:


choir, class, club, committee, company, family, government, jury, school, staff, team, union


the BBC, board of directors, the Conservative Party, Manchester United, the Ministry of Health

But when we consider the group as an impersonal unit, we use singular verbs and pronouns:

- The new company is the result of a merger.


- The average family consists of four people.


- The committee, which was formed in 1983, has ceased to exist.

Quatifiers: compounds nouns made with SOME and ANY ( Compuestos con some y any)

THE QUANTIFIERS: Compound nouns made with SOME, ANY and NO


FORM:
Some + -thing -body -one -where

Any +

No +

Compound nouns with some- and any- are used in the same way as some and any.

Positive statements:
•Someone is sleeping in my bed.

•He saw something in the garden.

•I left my glasses somewhere in the house.

Questions:
•Are you looking for someone? (= I'm sure you are)

•Have you lost something? (= I'm sure you have)

•Is there anything to eat? (real question)

•Did you go anywhere last night?

Negative statements:

•She didn't go anywhere last night.

•He doesn't know anybody here.

NOTICE that there is a difference in emphasis between nothing, nobody etc. and not ... anything, not ... anybody:

•I don't know anything about it. (= neutral, no emphasis)

•I know nothing about it (= more emphatic, maybe defensive)

More examples:

SOMETHING, SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE(algo, aguien, alguna parte)

a. I have something to tell you.

b. There is something to drink in the fridge.

c. He knows somebody in New York

d. Susie has somebody staying with her.

e. They want to go somewhere hot for their holidays.

f. Keith is looking for somewhere to live.

ANYBODY, ANYTHING, ANYWHERE (alguien, algo, algún lugar en ?; nadie, nada, ningún lugar en -)

a. Is there anybody who speaks English here?

b. Does anybody have the time?

c. Is there anything to eat?

d. Have you anything to say?

e. He doesn't have anything to stay tonight.

f. I wouldn't eat anything except at Maxim's.


NOBODY, NOTHING, NOWHERE (nadie, nada, ningún lugar)

a. There is nobody in the house at the moment

b. When I arrived there was nobody to meet me.

c. I have learnt nothing since I began the course.

d. There is nothing to eat.

e. There is nowhere as beautiful as Paris in the Spring.

f. Homeless people have nowhere to go at night.


ANY can also be used in positive statements to mean 'no matter which', 'no matter who', 'no matter what' (Any en oraciones afirmativas significa cualquiera) :
Examples:
a. You can borrow any of my books.

b. They can choose anything from the menu.

c. You may invite anybody to dinner, I don't mind.

AN HORRIBLE OR A HORRIBLE?

Frequently I am asked about if it is "a horrible" or "an horrible". Since I'm checking some Halloween essays and I constantly find this mistake. this is the explanation:

It's "a horrible" because if you say the word "horrible" out loud, then you realize the h  isn't silent. And even if a letter is silent you always say a unless the 1st letter of a word is a vowel.

PERFECT MODALS 2

THESE are the Forms and Uses of Perfect Modals:

PERFECT MODALS

 ABILITY to have done something but in fact did not : COLUD+ HAVE+ PP

It was a stupid thing to do you COULD HAVE cut yourself

WILLINGNESS to have done something but in fact did not: WOULD + HAVE+ PP

I WOULD HAVE gone to the party, but I was too busy

PROBABILITY in the past MAY/ MIGHT + HAVE+ PP

Mary MAY/MIGHT HAVE taken the wrong bus

CERTAINTY that something didn't happen: COULD NOT+HAVE+ PP

Eric COULDN'T HAVE broken the vase. He wasn't at home

CERTAINLY something happened : MUST + HAVE +PP

I heard you've been to Scotland. That MUST HAVE been interesting

CRITICISM or REGRET after an event : SHOULD / OUHGT TO + HAVE +PP

You SHOULD/OUGHT TO HAVE warned me earlier

I SHOULDN'T HAVE eaten so much

SUMMARY:

PERFECT MODALS

These notes are devoted to Modal perfects. If you have any doubt ask at the email or in class, (for those lucky students) i hope you find it useful.

Perfect Modal Verbs Bachillerato

from

VERB TENSES REVISION CHART

This is a great chart to revise verb tenses uses and forms. I hope you like it.

Verb Tense Revision

Today, it's Raining cats and dogs

Meaning:


Raining very heavily. / Llover a cántaros o estar diluviando

Origins:


This is an interesting phrase in that, although there's no definitive origin, there is a likely derivation. Before we get to that, let's get some of the fanciful proposed derivations out of the way.

The phrase isn't related to the well-known antipathy between dogs and cats, which is exemplified in the phrase 'fight like cat and dog'. Nor is the phrase in any sense literal, i.e. it doesn't record an incident where cats and dogs fell from the sky. Small creatures, of the size of frogs or fish, do occasionally get carried skywards in freak weather. Impromptu involuntary flight must also happen to dogs or cats from time to time, but there's no record of groups of them being scooped up in that way and causing this phrase to be coined. Not that we need to study English meteorological records for that - it's plainly implausible.

One supposed origin is that the phrase derives from mythology. Dogs and wolves were attendants to Odin, the god of storms, and sailors associated them with rain. Witches, who often took the form of their familiars - cats, are supposed to have ridden the wind. Well, some evidence would be nice. There doesn't appear to be any to support this notion.

It has also been suggested that cats and dogs were washed from roofs during heavy weather. This is a widely repeated tale. It got a new lease of life with the e-mail message "Life in the 1500s", which began circulating on the Internet in 1999. Here's the relevant part of that:

I'll describe their houses a little. You've heard of thatch roofs, well that's all they were. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. They were the only place for the little animals to get warm. So all the pets; dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs, all lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery so sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Thus the saying, "it's raining cats and dogs."

This is nonsense of course. It hardly needs debunking but, lest there be any doubt, let's do that anyway. In order to believe this tale we would have to accept that dogs lived in thatched roofs, which, of course, they didn't. Even accepting that bizarre idea, for dogs to have slipped off when it rained they would have needed to be sitting on the outside of the thatch - hardly the place an animal would head for as shelter in bad weather.

Another suggestion is that 'raining cats and dogs' comes from a version of the French word 'catadoupe', meaning waterfall. Again, no evidence. If the phrase were just 'raining cats', or even if there also existed a French word 'dogadoupe', we might be going somewhere with this one. As there isn't, let's pass this by.

There's a similar phrase originating from the North of England - 'raining stair-rods'. No one has gone to the effort of speculating that this is from mythic reports of stairs being carried into the air in storms and falling on gullible peasants. It's just a rather expressive phrase giving a graphic impression of heavy rain - as is 'raining cats and dogs'.

BUSINESS ENGLISH with Visual Activities.

The following visual activities are great to learn lots of new terms related to office/business English.

Click on the activities and you'll learn essential terms related to that area of English language:

Things around the office/Business English 1




Things around the office/Business English 2


Things around the office/Business English 3



Things around the office/Business English 4



Things around the office/Business English 5

CUMULATIVE VERB TENSE REVIEW Activities

These activities are developed to help those students who need a revision about verb tenses. You can download the activities and the answers , but don't have a look at them before doing the exercises.

Cumulative Verb Tense Review