What's the Difference - 8

ON TIME / IN TIME / BY THE TIME

ON TIME - means at the planned time; neither early nor late. Punctual.

It's always important to arrive on time to an interview if you want to make a good impression.
A typical stereotype about Spanish people is that they never arrive on time!

IN TIME - means with enough time to spare; before the last moment.

The man would have died if the ambulance hadn't got him to the hospital in time.
My car broke down on the motorway but luckily I got to the airport just in time to catch my flight!

BY THE TIME - means before the time that is specified.

I hope to be living in Santander by the time I am 40. (before I have my 40th birthday)
You'd better have cleaned the bathroom by the time I get home!

Something, nothing, anything, everything ?

Today we are going to look at a grammar point which causes many problems for learners of English; the difference between the compounds formed from some, any, no and every.

someone / somebody, something, somewhere

We use the above primarily in affirmative sentences, although they can be used in questions of invitation when the speaker expects an affirmative answer.

I'd like to go somewhere quiet on holiday next year.

Someone called for you while you were in the shower.

Would you like something to eat?

anyone / anybody, anything, anywhere

We use the above in questions and negative sentences. They can also be used in affirmative sentences when we want to say whichever, wherever, when we don't mind.

Is anybody staying in your spare room at the moment?

Julie never wants to go anywhere, she is really boring.

-What do you want to eat tonight?
-Anything, I'm not bothered.

nobody, no one, nothing, nowhere

We use the above in questions and affirmative sentences to convey a negative meaning, They are usually used as subjects of a sentence or question. They cannot be used in conjunction with a verb that is already in the negative.

I fell in the street and nobody stopped to help me!

My landlord has thrown me out of the flat and I have nowhere to go!

Nothing to wear? Don't worry we can help you!

everyone / everybody, everything, everywhere

We use these compounds in affirmative, negative and interrogative sentences when we want to be inclusive.

I left an egg boiling while I was on the phone and when I went back in the kitchen it had exploded and there was egg everywhere!

Does everybody have a holy communion in Spain?

I still don't have everything I need, I'll have to go back to the supermarket again.

Finally here is a little riddle to help you remember the difference.

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done, and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could ...

So If you think that you have understood all of that, you should try to do this quiz. Good luck!

Studying that's fun to do!

Students often ask their teachers for ways of improving their level of English outside of class time but can be less than enthusiastic when it comes to completing extra homework exercises or studying their list of irregular verbs. Englishfile, a series of coursebooks from Oxford University Press, has an excellent website where students can learn vocabulary, pronunciation, practical language and grammar in a fun and interactive way. I'm particularly addicted to the skating game / race against time. So if you are looking for a more fun way of brushing up on / practising your English at home you should check out the following address...

http://www.oup.com/elt/englishfile/

...then choose your level and away you go!

Pronunciation Spot

For many students the pronunciation of the -ed ending can be problematic. How do you know if you are supposed to pronounce the 'e' or not? Why do we say want-ed but not liv-ed? Do not fear, there is a general rule to follow;

The only time we pronounce the 'ed' ending is when it is preceded by the letter 't' or the letter 'd'.

So, for example, with verbs like visit, invite, decide, record and want you have to pronounce the 'ed' ending as an extra syllable. But with verbs such as travel, play, like and look, you must not. These endings are pronounced with either a 'd' sound or a 't' sound.

If the infinitive ends in one of the following sounds ('p', 'f', 's', 'k', 'sh', 'ch') the ending is pronounced 't'.

For example - wash (wosht), laugh (laft), like (laikt)

If the infinitive ends in any other sound the ending is pronounced 'd'.

For example - play (pleid), live (livd)

For pronunciation practice check out this website. Happy endings!

Human and humane

Sometimes languages are funny. I've found that often one language will have two similar words for two different things, while another will use the same word for both. Today's example: human and humane. These are two different things in English, but the same word in Spanish.

Human is a noun or an adjective. As an adjective, it simply means "related to human beings".

Humane is an adjective only. It most commonly refers to something "characterized by kindness, mercy, or compassion". The Humane Society, for example, has nothing to do with humans, but everything to do with being kind, merciful and compassionate towards animals!

Just to make things a little more confusing, the uncountable noun humanity refers to both of the above meanings!

It's been a long time...

I've been feeling a little homesick lately, so I thought we'd take a look at one of those English structures that's so different from Spanish that it always seems to throw Spanish speaks into confusion:

It's (been) a long time since
+
past simple/present perfect.

For example:

It's (been) a long time since I went/I've been home. (I last went home in December 2005!)

The Spanish translation would be:

Hace mucho que no voy a mi país. (or something similar)

The confusion lies in two things:

• In English, to express the idea of a period of time which began in the past and continues until the present, we use the present perfect, whereas Spanish uses the present.
• In addition, in English we don't use a negative, as the idea of not doing something is implicit in the construction: If the last time you did it was x time ago, you haven't done it in the entire intervening period.

Incidentally, "It's (been) a long time since" has several variations to express really long period of time, or for emphasis: It's (been) ages / forever / eons / yonks [very colloquial] since ...

You can also use "a while" instead of "a long time", or a specific period, such as "five years", "a weeks", "a few months", etc.

try + to infinitive or -ing

Try is one of a small group of verbs that can be followed by either the to infinitive or the -ing form. In this case, the meaning is different depending on which one you use. Let's try to illustrate this with a story.

My friend Don really wanted to get fit (get into shape). He was a little overweight and had an office job, and he never got any exercise. The thing is, he didn't have much time. He asked his doctor about it, and the doctor recommended that he try going to the gym, where he could get fit in a structured environment.

So Don called up his friend Peter, who worked about four or five days a week, and asked if he could go to Peter's gym with him. Off they went, and Don tried everything. He tried taking an aerobics class. Nope, he didn't like the music. He tried swimming. Nope, it irritated his eyes. He tried spinning, but that just seemed like a thing for crazy people. He tried running on the treadmill, but he got really bored and the headphones on his mp3 player kept falling out of his ears.

There was only one thing left to do: he would have to try weight-lifting. He went over to where Peter was working out and tried to pick up a 75-kilo barbell. Nope! It was impossible. He couldn't even get it off the ground. He tried to lift 50 kilos, but he couldn't do that, either. Peter told him to try starting with a much lower weight, something like 15 kilos. Don could just do that, but he was a bit embarrassed by how weak he was and didn't want to try to do 15 repetitions in front of Peter. Besides, by this time he was so tired all he wanted to do was go home and take a nap. Not a very successful visit!

With these examples, you may have figured out that the basic difference is between an activity which is difficult or requires a lot of effort, and an activity which you are doing for the first time or testing to see if it will work as a solution.

try + -ing (seeing if it works for you/testing)
Don wants to get fit. He doesn't know the best way to do this, so he tries a lot of new things: taking an aerobics class, swimming, spinning, runing on the treadmill. These were new things that he'd never done before, but that he was sampling. When he's having trouble with the weight lifting, Peter makes a suggestion of a possible solution: try starting with a much lower weight.

try + to infinitive (doing something difficult)
When he tried lifting weights, he found that some of them were just too difficult for him: he tried to lift a 75-kilo barbell and couldn't, the same happened when he tried to pick up 50 kilos. By this time he was so embarrassed and tired that he didn't want to try to do 15 repetitions with the 15-kilo weights.

This sentence might help you remember the difference: When we're trying to solve a problem, something which requires effort, we'll often try doing different a variety of things in order to find a solution. Another thing that might help you is to remember that the -ing form often works like a noun, grammatically speaking. So if you try weight-lifting, it's the same as saying you try lifting weights.

Money: . & ,

One of those odd little differences that aren't really linguistic is that when writing numbers in English we use a full stop (AmEng period) where Spanish uses a comma, and we use a comma where Spanish uses a full stop.

For example, let's look at a very big amount of money:

€23,256,945.46

In English this is said:
"23 million,
two hundred and fifty-six thousand,
nine hundred and forty-five euros
and forty-six cents".

Notice that essentially, saying large numbers in English is exactly the same in Spanish with one small exception: the "and" that we put betwen the hundreds and the tens. Most of the time you can hardly hear this "and", as it sounds more like 'n' when we speak normally.

Also note a few other things about writing numbers and amounts of money:
-- The euro/pound/dollar symbol goes BEFORE the number. $198, €53, £4,500.
-- When we write numbers from 21 to 99 (except for the tens, 30, 40, 50, etc.), they are hyphenated: twenty-one, thirty-five, seventy-six, ninety-nine.

Mahatma Gandhi assassinated

Today is the anniversary of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. If you'd like to read a little about his life, the BBC History site has a very readable biography of the man. It also contains links to articles on his historical context.

You may have noticed that I've used to talk about his death. Remember that in English, we only use "assassinate" (and its nouns assassination -- the event-- and assassin -- the person) when we are talking about prominant figures: politicians, stars, business leaders.

For a homicide (a technical police and legal term) involving your ordinary man on the street, however, we would use "kill" or "murder".

Machines that end in -er

vs.

A very common mistake for students learning British English is to confuse the words "cook" and "cooker". (In American English, a cooker is called a stove, removing the problem!) This isn't so surprising, as many job titles end in -er or -or, for example, driver, actor, waiter. Please remember, though, that the person is called a cook in this case.

However, there are lots of machines we use everyday at home or in the office, and whose names end in -er. Examples include:

computer
photocopier
printer
hair dryer/drier
washer and dryer/drier (for clothes)
dishwasher
mixer
blender
vacuum cleaner
toaster

What are you wearing?

Three verbs that often get confused are to wear [wore-worn], to carry and to dress.

When you use to wear, you talk about the clothes/clothing that are/is on your body. For example, today I'm wearing grey [AmEng gray] patterned trousers [AmEng pants], a long-sleeved purple top, a green wool cardigan sweater with grey, purple, white and beige flowers (not as horrible as it sounds), and short green suede boots.

We also use to wear for accessories: jewellery [AmEng jewelry] such as earrings, rings, necklaces and bracelets; belts; glasses (and contact lenses/contacts); and hats or caps.

We use to carry for things that you have in your hands or arms or hold on your shoulder: briefcase, umbrella, (hand)bag [AmEng, also "purse"]. For backpacks, it depends whether its on your back (to wear), or you have it over your shoulder or in your hand (to carry).

To dress refers to the style of one's clothing and accessories. So you could dress casually, scruffily, formally, smartly or trendily.

Very often to avoid the adverbs, we use an adjective:
Curt usually wears smart/formal/sporty clothes.
Stephanie is a very trendy/casual/nice dresser.

What are you wearing?

Another and other

OTHER vs. ANOTHER

These two words are often confused by Spanish speakers. Let's try to explain the basic difference by looking at when they are used:

We use "other" when talking about two things. It has the idea of "not this one, but that one".

We can use "another" when talking about any number of things (more than one). It has the idea of "one more" or "not this one, but a different one".

Examples of use:

Woman holding up two dresses to show her husband: "Should I wear the blue one or the other one?" (not the blue one)
Somebody giving directions: "It's on the other side of the street." (not on this side)
To someone who's just come back from the hair dresser's: "I liked your hair better the other way." (not this way)
Telling a story: "The other day I was walking down the street when I saw ..." (recently, but not today)

A hostess to a guest: "Would you like another cup of coffee?" (one more)
A customer in a shop (AmEng store): "This shirt has a stain on it, have you got another one in my size?" (a different one from this one)
Someone who's just returned from holiday (AmEng vacation): "That was too short. I need another week off!" (one more week)

The end

What do you see on the screen at the end of a film/movie?

So it it's "the end", why then do we talk about a happy ending, a tragic ending, a Hollywood ending?

Basically, we say "the end" when we are talking about the final point in time or space. "The ending" refers to the story and what happens in it. This is why we use adjectives like happy, sad, strange, confusing, etc. with "ending".

So and such

These two words are often confused, because they have a similar meaning, but different grammar.

SO
- so + adjective: That dinner was so good! [used for emphasis]
- so + adjective + (that) + clause: It was so cold that I put on another sweater. [to express cause and result]

Variations on these are so much and so many
- so many + plural countable noun: I've never seen so many people in one place in all my life.
- so much + uncountable noun: I spent so much money on holiday [AmEng vacation] that I had to borrow some from my parents.

SUCH
- such + noun: I had such fun in Venice! [emphasis]
- such + a/an + noun: I'm such a fool! [emphasis]
- such + (a/an) + adjective + noun: Paul's such a good cook! / We've had such rainy weather this month. [emphasis]

As with so (many/much), these can be followed by a result clause starting with (that): It was such an interest film (that) I recommended it to all my friends.

Dishes, plates, courses

Which do you prefer to do, cook or do the washing up? Personally, I prefer cooking; I absolutely hate doing the dishes! Of course, I might not mind if I had pretty dishes like the ones in the picture.

Speaking of dishes, what's your favourite (AmEng favorite) Spanish dish? Personally, I absolutely adore paella. I also think I would die without gazpacho.in the summer.

I don't know how I can possibly think about food right now. I've just been for a three-course meal with my students. I'm absolutely stuffed! For the first course we had tempura vegetables, then chicken teriyaki for the main course. For desert we had Japanese green tea ice cream.

My favorite part of going to a Japanese restaurant is the dishes. Our food was served on lovely square plates of different sizes.

All day and every day

A common mistake made by students is to confuse "all day" and "every day". (In English, you CAN'T say "every days", because "every" is used with a singular noun.)

All day refers to the entire day, or most of it. A shop like 7-11, Tesco Express, or any other convenience store which is open 24 hours, is open all day (and all night!). In summer, you might take your holiday (AmEng vacation) in some place like Valencia, and if you really love to sunbathe, you would probably spend all day at the beach.

When you do something every day, you do it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday! Of course, you can also say, for example, that you get up at 6.30 every day during the week, but that at weekends (AmEng on weekends), you get up at 9.00 or 10.00. During the World Cup, there's at least one football game every day from 9 June to 27 June.

-----------------

All-day and everyday are adjectives:

When something is an everyday occurrence, it happens very often.

An all-day meeting would probably last at least eight hours.

I wish!

In Spanish you have a single lovely word that expresses so much: ¡Ojalá!. In English, to express the same one-word idea succinctly, you've got to say something like "I wish!" or "I hope so!".

There's a difference here, though. "I wish!" (sometimes "If only!" to express a stronger desire) refers to something that isn't really possible. For example, if someone asks you if you have tickets to see a World Cup match in Germany, and as it's very late you have no possibility of getting any, you might answer "I wish!" or "If only!".

However, if someone asks you if you think that Spain is going to win (talking about the future here) the World Cup, you would say "I hope so!". If you said "I wish!", you would be implying that they're going to lose. Now you don't want to do that, you'll jinx the team!

In a future post, we'll look at some more details and grammar of "wish".