Today's lesson is by Tristan, English teacher at EC Malta
This is the word order we saw previously:
I gave her a gift.
The indirect object, ‘her’ is placed before the direct object ‘a gift’.
But it is also possible to put the indirect object in a prepositional phrase which comes after the direct object:
I gave a gift to her.
The relationship between subjects and verbs and objects can be quite complex. Here we are looking at the relationship between verbs with a subject and a direct object, and verbs with an indirect object.
When the subject of a verb is also the object we use a reflexive pronoun.
She looked at herself in the mirror.
‘She’ is the subject and also the object in this sentence so ‘herself’ is used.
The reflexive pronouns are:
Singular – myself, yourself, himself, herself and itself
Plural – ourselves, yourselves, themselves
‘in spite of’, ‘despite’ and ‘although’ are all used to show contrast and are used for the same meaning. The only difference is the way they are used; the structure in which they are used.
We use modal verbs in a situation where we need some level of deduction which means we say how sure we are about something.
We use 'must' when we feel sure that something is true because we have some information about the situation, we have strong evidence.
She must live close to where she works because she walks to work. (the speaker doesn’t know where but is sure it is not far away)
You’ve been working in the garden all day. You must be tired.
Being a sky diving instructor must be very exciting.
We can use modal verbs to talk about how sure or unsure we are about something in the past just as we use modals in the present with a slight change in the form.
He must be really happy about his promotion. (present deduction)
He must have been very happy when he was told about his promotion. (past deduction)
We are going to look the three basic rules about the use of article. There are many different rules some of which we have already presented but these are the main three.
When we talk about people’s jobs or the things they do we use ‘a/an’
He’s a teacher.
She’s a scientist.
He was a student of mine.
Should is a modal verb that has more than one meaning. The obvious meaning is that we use it to give advice (eg. You should quit smoking), but it could also mean that you expect something to happen in the future (eg. John called and told me he’s on his way. He should be here soon). The past tense of should is should have + PP.
Had better is similar to should, but it’s used for more urgent advice with bad consequences if you don’t follow it (eg. You had better quit smoking or you’ll die).
