Decide, Decision, Decisive, Indecisive, I May, I Might...

Week 20^th- 22^nd April

Hello! How’s your weekend going?

I don’t really like rainy days. Oh, this reminds me of a sentence from an old song. It is called ‘I like Chopin’. You can listen to it in here. It’s also practice 
for ‘use to +infinitive’ referring to past repetitive actions that are no longer true.

Last week we finished talking abot conditionals zero, first and second. Here’s the summary:

   Zero conditional. (Real situation/ facts)

 if + present simple >>>>>present simple

 If you begin the sentence with “if”, you have to use a comma.

·First conditional.

·  Possible and very probable situation
 if + present simple >>>>will / won’t + infinitive

If it doesn’t rain on Saturday, we’ll go for a walk.

·  Instructions

 if + present simple >>>>>>>> imperative

 If you can’t attend to the meeting, email us in advance.

·        Second conditional.

·Unreal situation
If + past simple >>>>>>would / wouldn’t + infinitive (Present conditional)
If I were you, I wouldn’t wear these shoes with that suit.
(You can use ‘were’ with all person of verb ‘to be’ in 2^nd conditional clauses)

·  Possible but very improbable situation
If + past simple>>>>>> would / wouldn’t + infinitive (present conditional)
If I won £5,000,000 on the lottery, 
I wouldn’t tell anyone, except my family.
 Second Conditional 
More exercises on second conditional 

Then, Mónica asked about the differences among these connectors: although, though, even though, despite, in spite of.

There’s no difference in meaning because they add contrast. Their meaning is the same as ‘but’. The difference is grammatical.

·      We use although, though, even though with a clause, that is S + V. Though is more informal and usually goes at the end of the sentence. It’s more frequent in speaking than in writing. Even though is more emphatic.

Although it was raining, we went out. We went out although it was raining.

We went out even though it was raining.

It was raining. We went out, though.

·      After despite and in spite of, you can use a noun, pronoun or verb +ing never a clause. If you want to use a clause after them, you’ll have to add despite/in spite of the fact.

We went out in spite of/despite the rain.

We went out in spite of/despite being raining.

It was raining; we went out in spite of/despite it.

We went out in spite of/despite the fact that it was raining.
We finished the week talking about decisions.

Are you indecisive?                                                                 

Do you find difficult to make decisions?

Do you have problems deciding…

… what to wear when you go out?

…what to eat in a restaurant?

…where to go on holiday?

Do you often change your mind about something?

We use may, might, could to express possibility.

·         I may wear (it’s possible that I wear) the long black dress to the party.

·         She might not go (it’s possible that she doesn’t go) if she doesn’t know everybody.

·         Take the umbrella. It could rain (it’s possible that it rains) late this afternoon

And we finished with a ‘word building’ exercise. We built nouns from verbs.

VERB	NOUN	VERB	NOUN
Invite	invitation	educate	education
Organize	organization	communicate	communication
Imagine	imagination	Elect	election
inform	information	Confuse	confusion
translate	translation	Decide	decision

And that was all! See you tomorrow