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

Find Out your English Level with this test / TEST NIVEL DE INGLÉS

We show this level test today to check your students' level or your own English level // Os presentamos este  test de Inglés de 100 preguntas muy útil para saber qué nivel de Inglés tenemos : Advanced, intermediate, etc...

Test de Nivel de INGLÉS

THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. (Reading Comprehension) (CAE)

The Great Wall of China


Walls and wall building have played a very important role in Chinese culture. These people, from the dim mists of prehistory have been wall-conscious; from the Neolithic period – when ramparts of pounded earth were used - to the Communist Revolution, walls were an essential part of any village. Not only towns and villages; the houses and the temples within them were somehow walled, and the houses also had no windows overlooking the street, thus giving the feeling of wandering around a huge maze. The name for “city” in Chinese (ch’eng) means wall, and over these walled cities, villages, houses and temples presides the god of walls and mounts, whose duties were, and still are, to protect and be responsible for the welfare of the inhabitants. Thus a great and extremely laborious task such as constructing a wall, which was supposed to run throughout the country, must not have seemed such an absurdity.

However, it is indeed a common mistake to perceive the Great Wall as a single architectural structure, and it would also be erroneous to assume that it was built during a single dynasty. For the building of the wall spanned the various dynasties, and each of these dynasties somehow contributed to the refurbishing and the construction of a wall, whose foundations had been laid many centuries ago. It was during the fourth and third century B.C. that each warring state started building walls to protect their kingdoms, both against one another and against the northern nomads. Especially three of these states: the Ch’in, the Chao and the Yen, corresponding respectively to the modern provinces of Shensi, Shanzi and Hopei, over and above building walls that surrounded their kingdoms, also laid the foundations on which Ch’in Shih Huang Di would build his first continuous Great Wall.

The role that the Great Wall played in the growth of Chinese economy was an important one. Throughout the centuries many settlements were established along the new border. The garrison troops were instructed to reclaim wasteland and to plant crops on it, roads and canals were built, to mention just a few of the works carried out. All these undertakings greatly helped to increase the country’s trade and cultural exchanges with many remote areas and also with the southern, central and western parts of Asia – the formation of the Silk Route. Builders, garrisons, artisans, farmers and peasants left behind a trail of objects, including inscribed tablets, household articles, and written work, which have become extremely valuable archaeological evidence to the study of defence institutions of the Great Wall and the everyday life of these people who lived and died along the wall.

Q1 - Chinese cities resembled a maze


because they were walled.

because the houses has no external windows.

because the name for cities means 'wall'.

because walls have always been important there.

Q2 - Constructing a wall that ran the length of the country
honoured the god of walls and mounts.

was an absurdly laborious task.

may have made sense within Chinese culture.

made the country look like a huge maze.

Q3 - The Great Wall of China

was built in a single dynasty.

was refurbished in the fourth and third centuries BC.

used existing foundations.

was built by the Ch’in, the Chao and the Yen.

Q4 - Crops were planted

on wasteland.

to reclaim wasteland.

on reclaimed wasteland.

along the canals.

Q5 - The Great Wall

helped build trade only inside China.

helped build trade in China and abroad.

helped build trade only abroad.

helped build trade only to remote areas.

(las soluciones / keys as usually in the comments section)