Posobie po grammatike

1.6.Comparison of the Present Perfect Simple

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FOREWORD

The book is intended mainly for first-, secondand third-year students who study English as the first or the second foreign language. It aims at supplying students with the opportunity to form and develop grammar skills in English Tenses. There are several sections in the book. Each section concentrates on a particular tense, e.g. The Present Simple, The Present Progressive, etc. There are sections that compare and contrast different tense forms, e.g. Comparison of the Present Simple and the Present Progressive. There are also sections on revision of tense groups, e.g. Revision of Past Tenses. At the end of the Future section there is a special subsection entitled Different Ways of Expressing Futurity with comments and exercises on all ways of expressing future actions. There is no special section for Future Tenses in the Past. Exercises for the Future Simple in the Past are given in the subsection

Different Ways of Expressing Futurity, exercises for other Future Tense forms in the Past are in the section Indirect Speech and Sequence of Tenses.

Exercises in each section are given in the order of increasing difficulty. Simple exercises are given at the beginning of the section, more complicated exercises can be found at the end of the section. The book should not be necessarily worked through from beginning to end. It can be used selectively in accordance with the students’ needs. It is suitable for elementary, intermediate and advanced learners. For elementary students fulfilling all the exercises from beginning to end may be recommended. With intermediate and advanced learners simple exercises including exercises on formation of tenses may be omitted. On the other hand simple exercises might be fulfilled by intermediate and advanced learners for revision. Exercises can be done individually, in class or as homework. Alternatively individual students can be directed to fulfill certain exercises if they have particular tense difficulties not shared by other students in their class.

There is a set of Self-check Tests that might be used for revision and self-revision. There are 7 multiple-choice self-check tests in the book on Present Tenses in the Active Voice, Past Tenses in the Active Voice, Future Tenses in the Active Voice, Revision of Tenses in the Active Voice, the Passive Voice, Indirect Speech and

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Sequence of Tenses and Revision. These tests are recommended to be taken after fulfilling the exercises of the corresponding section or without it. Each self-check test contains 20 sentences. A scale of evaluation is given at the beginning of Self-check tests section. It is as follows: 20 right answers out of 20 maximum right answers is considered to be Excellent, 19-18 right answers – Very Good, 17-16 right answers

– Good, 15-14 right answers – Quite Good, 13 right answers – Satisfactory, fewer right answers – Failed. Keys to self-check tests are given at the end of Appendix IV of the book.

There are four appendices containing 1) tables of tenses, 2) verbs not used in the Progressive form, 3) a list of irregular verbs and 4) keys to some exercises. The authors considered it more effective to give the formation and usage of tenses altogether in tables in one appendix (Appendix I) instead of writing them separately in every tense section. The formation and usage of tenses are explained in Russian.

Appendix II contains verbs that are not used in the Progressive and the Perfect Progressive Tense forms. There are groups of such verbs and examples revealing the peculiarities of their usage.

In Appendix III the translation column in the list of irregular verbs is to be fulfilled by students. Elementary and intermediate students might not need all the verbs given on the list. Some verbs might be crossed out.

Forms of the verbs that are given on different lines have different meanings, e.g.

In the third column born and borne are given on different lines. It means they have different meanings. born means ‘to give birth to a baby’, e.g. I was born in July. borne means ‘to be strong enough to continue despite problems’, e.g. She has borne

the strain.

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Verbal forms given through slashes have the same meaning and are written in the frequency order, e.g.

The forms bet / betted for the Past Simple and bet / betted for the Past Participle have the same meanings. The order in which they are given (i.e. bet/ betted not betted/ bet) is due to the fact that bet is more frequently used than betted.

If forms of irregular verbs have any peculiarities they are given before the forms, e.g.

AmE before the form dove means that this Past Simple form of the verb dive is used in American English only. Check the list of remarks and abbreviations below for all the peculiarities.

The following reference books and on-line resources were used as a source for checking forms of irregular verbs in modern English (we excluded obsolete forms of irregular verbs and the forms of irregular verbs that are given in Russian references, but are not given in contemporary English references, e.g. the second and the third forms of the verb awake awaked, awaked are excluded from the list because they are not given in contemporary English references):

1)Murphy, R. English Grammar in Use: A Self-study Reference and Practice Book for Intermediate Students with Answers/ R. Murphy. – Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. – 350 p.

2)Hewings, M. Advanced Grammar in Use: A Self-study Reference and Practice

Book for Advanced Learners of English with Answers/ M. Hewings. – Cambridge:

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Cambridge University Press, 2002. – 340 p.

3)Alexander, L.G. Longman English Grammar/ L.G. Alexander. – London and New York: Longman, 1995. – 374 p.

4)Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English – London: Longman, 1995. – 1668 p.

5)Carter R., McCarthy M. Cambridge Grammar of English: A Comprehensive Guide: Spoken and Written English: Grammar and Usage/ R. Carter, M. McCarthy. – Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. – 973 p.

6)http://www.onelook.com (on-line British and American dictionaries)

7)http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk (British National Corpus)

8)http://www.americancorpus.org (Corpus of American English)

The following abbreviations may be found in the book:

Latin exempli gratia = for example Latin id est = that is

used in literary English used in American English used in British English

used especially in American English used especially in British English

The book may be also recommended to listeners of language courses and anybody who is eager to master the English grammar.

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1. TENSES IN THE ACTIVE VOICE

1.1. THE PRESENT SIMPLE

Ex. 1 Make up echoing questions in the Present Simple expressing surprise:

e.g. He plays tennis three times a week. – Does he? Jane doesn’t know French. – Doesn’t she?

1.We normally go to Spain for our summer holidays.

2.Dick never smokes before lunch.

3.They go dancing every other night.

4.The Andersons like to work in the garden.

5.Amanda is a brilliant student.

6.Agnes always wears too much make-up.

7.Nelly works at a nursery school.

8.Charles never goes to the disco.

9.Mr. Brown doesn’t help his wife.

10.I sometimes spend the weekend in the country.

Ex. 2 Turn the following statements into disjunctive questions and answer them expressing agreement:

e.g. Emma gets up early. – Emma gets up early, doesn’t she? – Yes, she does. Emma doesn’t get up early. – Emma doesn’t get up early, does she? – No, she doesn’t.

1.Tim never does his morning exercises.

2.Ann always sleeps late.

3.The Winsons normally have breakfast at seven thirty.

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4.My grandmother always wakes me up.

5.It doesn’t take Ted long to get to college.

6.My father never watches TV in the evening.

7.It often rains in England.

8.Mr. Wobble always keeps his schedule.

9.We usually do the shopping on Thursday.

10.The children help their mother to wash up.

Ex. 3 Ask and answer questions in the Present Simple using models:

Model I: Does Pete go to bed early? – No, he doesn’t. He never goes to bed early.

1.Does Mrs. Smith ever say anything?

2.Does Liz get up late?

3.Does Jim Rowley read bad comics?

4.Does Nick Green ever get to classes late?

5.Does Roger ever miss lessons?

6.Does Sidney Shooter ever laugh at Sally’s poems?

Model II: Do you get up early? (my mother) – No, I don’t. But my mother does.

1.Do you go for a walk every day? (sister)

2.Do you prepare for classes every day in the evening? (my roommates)

3.Do you speak German? (our teacher)

4.Do you go to the Central park every day in the afternoon? (my uncle Boris)

5.Do you have lunch in the university canteen? (my fellow-students)

Model III: Kate usually does her homework in the kitchen. – What does she do in the kitchen? – She does her homework there.

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