Модальные глаголы: Глагол may

в вероятностном («может». «вероятно») ) и уступительном значении(“и хотя»)

1. RadioShack may have been one of the first retailers to sell mobile phones (back in the 1980s, naturally) and it may have sold 73m since then. But today’s consumers mostly buy their phones directly from the wireless carriers - or head for the Apple Store.

2. Voters may say they oppose big government, but the programs that actually dominate federal spending – Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security – are very popular. So how can the public be persuaded to accept large spending cuts?

3. Honesty may well be the best policy, but it often deserts us when no one is watching, psychologists report today. Experiments with an honesty box to collect payments for hot drinks reveal that people are better at paying up when under the watchful gaze of a pair of eyes.

4. The new safeguards may boost consumer prices, which for several years have been under pressure due to worldwide weaker demand.

5. The Celestica name may not mean much to you but as one of the largest electronics manufacturing services (EMS) companies in the world, anyone who uses a computer or any electronic gizmo needs its products to make the equipment work.

6. Health savings accounts thus could offer a great way to save for post-retirement health care, which many employers have dropped. Yet even more companies may dump the benefit once their workers have a pot of money with which to buy their own.

7. A rally in palm oil futures in China, the biggest consumer of cooking oils, may be peaking as momentum slows, according to technical analysis by Shanghai Cifco Futures Co.

8. Gold may extend its 19 percent slump since January as prices on charts form a “head and shoulder” pattern that signals more selling, according to Credit Suisse Group AG.

9. There are so many maybes involved in playing the stock market.

Exercise № 25

Модальные глаголы: Глагол would в качестве модального и смыслового глагола

WOULD часто обозначает 1) повторяющиеся действия или события в прошлом, но в отличие от привычных состояний, обозначаемых used to, WOULD переводится как «бывало», «обычно». Как и другие модальные глаголы, может выражать 2) предположение, сомнение – тогда возможный перевод: «должно быть», «очевидно»; реже – «может быть», «возможно», «как бы всё сложилось, если», либо «вряд ли» для отрицательной формы (Why do you ask him? He would’t know. – Зачем его спрашиваешь? Откуда ему знать?). Смысловой глагол WOULD выражает также 3) желание, готовность, волю, склонность что-то сделать (I would rather stay home – Пожалуй, останусь дома). Глагол может выражать 4) упорное желание/нежелание делать что-либо; либо 5) иметь оттенок вежливого выражения желания/нежелания что-то сделать.

1. I wouldn’t invest all my money in the Internet business, for economy is so unpredictable today.

2. What would you do if your boss didn’t promote you after three years? Would you wait another year, then would look for another job.

3. That small country, at least for now, would not be invited to become a full WTO member.

4. Poorer countries feel the proposed changes would tip the balance in favour of wealthier WTO members. In fact, most developing countries argue that most proposed changes would serve the interests of rich WTO members at the expense of poorer ones.

5. Customers would buy again these premium tyres but for the recent steep price increases.

6. Jemella Group, which owns the Fashion World and Simply Be brands, said summer sales would have been stronger but for the unusually poor weather. Its performance will now depend on the late summer and autumn catalogues.

7. Shippers saw that economies of scale from bigger vessels would make up for the inconvenience of not being able to cross the Panama Canal. That led shipyards to build nearly 200 vessels, each able to hold 5,000-7,000 containers that were too wide to squeeze into the canal’s locks. The new ships take that gigantism one step further.

8. Why would businesspeople from China, with super-low-cost production and compliant workers, want to produce in Germany, with its costly social welfare system and powerful unions, economists wonder.

9. Traditionally, Radio Shack traded on convenience and its inventory of odd electronics parts that one could not find elsewhere. In its heyday, RS customers would willingly pay premium prices for the value it provided.

Exercise № 26