The Story So Far ...

We said farewell to our work friends at the RSPCA and BBC on 14 September, farewell to our families on 3 October, and set off for Africa to save cheetahs, decorate school buildings, and look around a bit. After a trip home for Christmas, we headed for South East Asia on 6 January -- where we were stunned by Qatar and Cambodia, taught novice monks in Laos, and acted as security guards at an Elephant Festival. It was back home for four weeks to look after John's dad, before we tangoed our way through five South American countries in fifteen days. We then snooped our way through New Zealand, dipped our toes into Fiji, drove-thru California and were home from home with family in Vancouver.

Now, we are home itself. Fulfilled, happy, and ready to earn the respect of our friends and family by knuckling down and earning some money once again ...

Thursday, 10 February 2011

English Test

You have five minutes, and you may start scrolling down now.  (See the foot of this entry for Answers and Assessment.)

Questions:
1.  What is the past participle of the verb "to read"?
2.  What is the subject of the sentence "the ruler is on the teacher's head"?
3.  Is the statement "I am learning a very great deal" Present Simple or Present Continuous?
4.  What, if anything, is wrong with the following sentence:  "He didn't use to go to the shop"?
5.  Why does "twenty" end in a "-y" and "twentieth" contain an "-ie"?

Answers:
1. "read", as in "I have read this blog entry".  But it's pronounced red, not read.  Clever, eh?  I've been using the word for about 42 years and only just noticed.
2.  "The ruler." ("The teacher's head" is the object, "is" is the verb, "on" is the proposition.)  I found myself placing said ruler on said head in class yesterday by way of demonstration.
3.  Present Continuous.  "I learn" is Present Simple.  The English language has two present tenses.  I learned (Past Simple) that last week.
4.  Just about everything, as far as I'm concerned.  But it appeared in the text book from which I was teaching last week, and I decided to grit my teeth, avoid chaos, and put it on the board.
5.  Don't ask me. (Unlike the Lao English teacher who insisted there must be a reason, and seemed to hold me personally responsible for the fact that there wasn't.)

Assessment:
5 correct:  Well done!  Log off  immediately.  You're needed over here.
2-4 correct:  Fair enough!  You can speak it, after all.
0-1 correct:  Say a silent prayer of thanks, as I have done, that you were born an English speaker, spared the pain of hour after hour of evening study, whilst holding down a job in a cafe, and raising a family -- in the hope that you might just grasp enough of this perplexing language to reply politely when a tourist, unwilling to learn a word of Lao, complains, as I have done, that his coffee isn't hot enough.

So much to learn

John

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