Affordable?

Many of you will be thinking about planning your summer holiday [AmEng vacation]. One thing that inevitably comes up at a time like this is money, you know, dosh [BrEng], dough [AmEng], cash, readies [BrEng], green stuff [AmEng], moola [AmEng], scratch [AmEng], brass [BrEng]. This brings me to a very common word that in my experience is hardly ever known by students: "afford", which means something like have enough money to do something.

"Afford" is usually found with the auxiliaries "can" and "can't", most especially "can't", I think because when we use the word, it's often because we DON'T HAVE THE MONEY!

Just this morning, one of my students was telling me that she was going to Portugal on holiday. Where she'd really love to go is either London or Rome, but they're so expensive that she can't afford to go. I've been to both cities, and I'd definitely have to say she's right, they're really very expensive for a student, but still well worth a visit!

Things I want but can't afford:

• to visit my aunt in Australia.
• that pair of wonderful Dolce and Gabbana boots I saw in a shop window last winter.
• a summer house by the sea.
• any house in Madrid.
• to fly home more than once a year.
• to have my brother squatting in my house in Scotland and not paying me any rent.
• to use taxis.
  

What's on your list?

'I want' never gets

Although you might say '"I want" never gets.' to a child (or Big Brother participant) to show them that you should ask for thinks politely, the fact is that we use 'I want' A LOT in everyday speech. A common grammar mistake for Spanish speakers involves this phrase.

Here's an example:

• Native speaker: I want you to eat all your vegetables, young man!
• Spanish speaker: I want that you eat all your vegetables, young man!

When you see the two side by side, the influence of the Spanish verb + que + subjunctive structure is clear. In English, the verb pattern for want is simple, and IT DOES NOT CHANGE when you add an object to the sentence.

want + (object) + to infinitive

Of course, when you add an object you change the meaning of the sentence. To wit,

'I want to go.' means I will be the one who (hopefully) goes.
'I want you to go.' means that you will go.

Now, I want you to go away and practice: write 10 sentence with want + object + to infinitive and post them as a comment.

Wish III - regrets

Well, we've already looked at "I wish" and "wish" plus the past to talk about wishes for the present or future. Today we're going to talk about regrets. You regret something (or regret doing/having done s'thing, or regret not doing/having done s'thing) when you look back at the past and think to yourself, "Why, oh why did I (not) do that?!", "What on earth was I thinking?"

For example, when I was in high school, I had the opportunity to go to a Talking Heads concert. At the time I liked them, but wasn't super crazy about them. They later released a concert film called Stop Making Sense, which I absolutely adored. I then realized [BrEng realised] that I'd missed a really great show. I have always regretted not going to that concert. I wish I'd gone to that concert!

WISH + PAST PERFECT*
=
something you regret doing or not doing in the past

My other regrets:

• I wish my father had taught me Spanish as a child, things would have been much easier when I moved to Spain.
• I wish I'd studied more at school.
• I wish I had visited my sick friend in the hospital more.
• I wish I hadn't let my cat scratch up all the furniture. Now I'll have to get it re-upholstered.

I sincerely hope you don't have any regrets, but if you do, feel free to share them in a comment.

* Both past perfect simple and continuous are possible.

Wish, Part II (present/future)

A long long time ago, we started to look at talking about wishes, with a look at "I wish!" and "I hope so!".

Today let's look at a bit of grammar for talking about situations you're not happy with. The little girl is blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. What could her wishes be?

Imagine this girl, Priscilla, really wants to take piano lessons, but she can't because her family doesn't have a piano. She could say, "I wish I HAD a piano." It is understood that Priscilla doesn't have a piano, and we use the past simple to express the contrast between her wish (an imaginary situation) and reality, NOT to talk about the past. We're still talking about the present here. So...

WISH + PAST SIMPLE*
=
something you'd like to be different about the present (or sometimes the future when talking about plans or obligations)

She could also say:
- I wish I had a baby brother. (She's an only child.)
- I wish I were old enough to drive. (She's only 8.)
- I wish I had a big dollhouse like Molly's. (Her friend Molly has one, but she doesn't.)
- I wish my bike was/were** pink. (It's white.)
- I wish I didn't have to go to school tomorrow. (Unfortunately, she does.)
- I wish knew French, so I could speak to my friend Etienne in his own language. (We can only speak to each other in English.)
- I wish my mother wasn't going on a two-week business trip. (She is, and Priscilla will miss her a lot when she's gone.)


* You can also use the past continuous, if appropriate.
** Both are correct with the first and third person singular (I & he, she, it). "Was" is more informal and more common in BrEng, and "were" is more formal and more common in AmEng.

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.