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How can you tell good stories in
English? how-to-tell-a-story-in-english
Tenses
We often use the narrative tenses to tell stories:
Past simple – -ed endings on regular verbs Episode 60 and irregular
verbs Episode 73
We can use the past simple to talk about events that happened in
chronological order:
I parked the car, got out, crossed the road and suddenly the bike hit
me.
Past continuous – Episode 88
Use the past continuous to describe activities in progress at the time
of your story, or to describe the background.
“When I left my flat the sun was shinning, the birds were singing,
people were walking to work and having breakfast outside cafes.”
NB. The length of time of the action is irrelevant as regards choosing
between Past Simple and Past Continuous:
“I lived (Past simple) in Salamanca for 2 years”
They are only used for contrast of background and main verbs:
“When I was living (Past continuous) in Salamanca, I met (Past simple)
my friend Lara.”
Sometimes, we change past continuous to the present continuous when
we’re telling a story:
“I was waiting in McDonalds for my Big Mac and my children were playing
outside when suddenly….”
“So, I’m waiting in McDonalds for my Big Mac and the kids are playing
outside, when suddenly…”
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Compound Nouns compound nouns
A compound noun is a noun that is made with two or more words, often
nouns but not always, noun + noun or adjective + noun
noun + noun: bus stop, football, table leg (we don’t say X’a table’s
leg’X or X’the leg of the table’X, coffee beans, love story, record
player.
(You can also have 2 nouns with an apostrophe + s on the first noun,
though these aren’t compound nouns: My brother’s phone, the teacher’s
shirt, Craig’s chocolate, Reza’s obsessions.
adjective + noun: whiteboard, software, greyhound.
There are 3 ways of writing compound nouns. Dictionaries don’t always
agree
1. separate – full moon, car bomb, video recorder, football stadium (which
contains the compound noun “football” within the compound noun!)
2. together – classroom, toothpaste, lighthouse, laptop, tearaway
3. with a hyphen (guión) – check-in, six-pack, water-bottle, carry-on
If you take a phrasal verb and make it a compound noun, generally
speaking it has a hyphen.
Compound nouns tend to have more stress on the first word. – classroom,
football, table tennis
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Johan Vega Chaverri send us a voice
message about the prepositions out, up, of and off
There are many different uses and this is a difficult area to explain.
There aren’t any rules and you need to learn the collocations of these
prepositions with verbs, nouns, adjectives etc.
Here are some common uses:
OUT
go out – Reza didn’t go out last night, he stayed in.
walk out (the room, the door)
fall out (with)
to be out – He/she’s out (He/she’s not here)
I’m out of milk, biscuits (I don’t have any)
Out it often used with ‘of’
out of touch
out of town
out of the way
out of bounds (fuera del límite)
out of date
out of sight (“out of sight, out of mind”)
out of touch
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