Of Understanding the Tense Forms

Target Audience: First Year Polytechnic English teachers and students in Tamilnadu.
Subject: Communication English-1, M scheme, I semester
Objective: To enable the students understand and identify different tense forms in English.
 Question pattern in Exam: I.6. Identify the tense forms used in the following sentences. (3 marks) 
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Understanding Tense Forms:
What happens in the world?  Either actions or events. What man does is action.  What happens to man or what nature does is event.  How can we talk about an action or an event without the use of tense form?  It is impossible, except in the case of non- verbal communication.  Even to explain tense forms (that is an action!) one needs to use tense forms.

Time is generally divided into present,  past and future.  Tense forms are those forms purposely created by man to talk about the time and state of all actions and events taking place in the world. Tense forms are actually time- forms used to describe four states of an action or event in all the three time divisions-present, past and future. The four states are: 1. Incomplete state 2. completed state,  3. Progressive or long progressive state 4. Probable state
Got it?  No?  See the images below:

Exercises for you:
Identify the tense forms used in the following sentences.
1. India had won the match.
2. We enjoyed our holidays in Ooty.
3. I will submit my Record Note tomorrow.
4. Mobile had stolen much of our time.
5. Money plays a vital role in everybody’s life.
6. He is cheating you.
7. We have been living here since 2005.
8. The teacher had almost finished her lesson.
9. They were discussing the recent movie Kolamavu Gokila.

10. I will be waiting for you.

Find the Odd word based on the verb forms

Target Audience: First Year Polytechnic English teachers and students in Tamilnadu.
Subject: Communication English-1, M scheme, I semester
Objective : To identify and understand different verb forms in English.
Question pattern in Exam: I.5. Find the Odd word based on the  verb forms. (3 marks) 

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Introduction to Verbs :

Just try to form any sentence in English without the use of verb.   Can you?  You can’t.  Because verb is the soul of a sentence and no sentence can function without at least one verb.  “Can you make the shortest sentence in English with one word?” that was the question in an interview. Of course,  the answer is simple and you can make thousands of such sentences: Come,  Go,  Turn, Wait… …

What do you do?  What do you have?  How are you? How do you feel?  A word that answers these four questions is called a verb.  Now check it with the answers : 1. I speak truth.  2. I have her photo with me.  3. I am beautiful. (why to say always fine!)  4. I can lift even this mountain.
Understanding the Verb Forms through a  Simple Table:

                                                      
Examination  Patterns (find the Odd word)
Model – 1
Three past tense verbs and one present tense verb or the vice  versa will be given .

Examples :
1.Became,  completed,  worked,  take. (Odd word : take)
2.Bring,  sleep,  wrote,  think (Odd word : wrote)

Model 2
Three regular verbs and one irregular verbs or the vice versa will be given. 

Examples :
1.Call,  buy,  open,  connect (Odd word : buy because it is irregular while the  other three are regular verbs)
2.Prepare,  send,  come,  leave (Odd word : prepare because it is regular while the  other three are irregular verbs) 

Model 3
Mixture of main verb and auxiliary verb will be given and you have to find the Odd word. 

Examples :
1.Decide,  are,  have,  can (Odd word : decide because it is a main verb while the  other three are auxiliary verbs)
2.Ring,  clear,  argue,  would (Odd word : would because it is an auxiliary verb while the  other three are main verbs) 

Model 4
Mixture of one kind of auxiliary and other kinds will be given and you have to find the Odd one. 

Examples :
1.Was,  are,  should,  is (Odd word : should because it is a modal auxiliary verb while the  other three are be form auxiliary verbs)
2.Will,  may,  must,  have (Odd word : have because it is a have form auxiliary verb while the  other three are modal auxiliary verbs)

Beware of the common mistakes done by many students! : Students try to find the Odd word by pronouncing each word,  perhaps, getting confused with the first grammar exercise in the question paper.  Remember that here odd word should be found based on verb forms only not based on pronunciation .

Exercises for you:
Find the Odd word based on the  verb forms.
1.Look,  learn,  lift,  left
2.Sang,  rang,  sing,  failed
3.Read,  advise,  kill,  bill
4.Run,  slip,  bring,  lay
5.Tear,  was, has,  must
6.Can,  could,  ought,  thought
7.Do,  did,  could,  does
8.Shall,  should,  may,  am
9.Repaired,  finished,  submitted,  left
10.Sit,  stand,  jump,  go

Use of Plurals in English

Target Audience: First Year Polytechnic English teachers and students in Tamilnadu.
Subject: Communication English-1, M scheme, I semester
Objective: To enable the students recognize, form and use Plurals in English.
Question pattern in Exam: I.4. Write the Plurals in the blanks (3 marks)
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Why plurals?
We generally use plurals to refer to countable nouns which are more than one in number.  Example : boy-boys,  city – cities and message – messages .  If everything ends with one,  then Maths has to lose its entire property.  Imagine the world without plurals :A man has to remain a bachelor (singular) with the ego “I”, not with love to say “we”.  A wife can make only a complaint,  not Complaints. People will have worry,  not worries.  There will be only God,  not gods.

Regular and Irregular  Plurals :
Most of the English singular nouns become plurals by just adding -s to them. These plurals  are called regular plurals. Yes,  chair-chairs,  girl-girls and chance-chances.

Irregular plurals are those which are formed not just by adding -s but in different ways and sometimes in mysterious ways like sages without any change both in singular and plural: tax-taxes,  wife-wives,  strawberry -strawberries,  child-children,  man-men and fish-fish.

Rules for changing singular into plural:
Rule 1
Add -es if a word ends in -ch,  -x,  -s or -ss

Examples : watch -watches,  batch-batches,  box-boxes,  fox-foxes,  bus-buses, gas-gases  kiss-kisses

Rule 2
Change the -fe and -f endings into –ves

Examples: life- lives,  knife-knives,  leaf-leaves,  shelf-shelves

Rule 3
A vowel + y ending just adds -s but a consonant +y changes the -y into -ies.

Examples : boy-boys, ,toy -toys , way-ways but lorry-lorries,  baby-babies,  lady-ladies

Rule 4
Certain nouns become plurals with internal vowel change.

Examples : man-men,  woman-women,  foot-feet,  tooth-teeth,  mouse-mice,  goose-geese

Rule 5
Nouns ending in -o are careless guys since they take -s or -es or both sometimes to form their plurals.

Examples : (-es only) hero-heroes,  potato -potatoes,  echo-echoes,  tomato-tomatoes
                    (-s only)  auto-autos,  photo-photos,  video -videos,  memo -memos,  piano -pianos
                    (both -s and -es are correct)  motto -mottos and mottoes,  mosquito -mosquitos and mosquitoes, zero -zeros and zeroes,  volcano -volcanos and volcanoes

Rule 6
Some words totally change in plural forms.

Examples : person – people , child -children , ox-oxen,  penny -pence,  die-dice , he - they,  I - we

Rule 7
Some words never change both in singular and plural.

Examples : fish, deer,  sheep,  swine,  aircraft and spacecraft , you - you

Rule 8
Some nouns have no plural at all and they are only used as singular.

Examples : Information,  luggage,  baggage, furniture, equipment

Rule 9
Foreign plurals are formed differently in the following ways :

A. -is ending into -es: axis-axes,  basis-bases,  synopsis -synopses,  thesis -theses
B.Change -us ending into -i : alumnus-alumni,  syllabus. -syllabi,  nucleus -nuclei,  stimulus -stimuli
C.Change -um and -on ending into -a : bacterium -bacteria,  medium -media,  datum-data, symposium -symposia , criterion -criteria

Rule 10
Beware of some problematic singular nouns that will tempt you to change their adjectives into plurals not the nouns.  If both words are nouns in a compound word,  change both into plural as in the fourth example given below.

A. Brother-in-law ----- brothers-in-law (not brother-in-laws)
B.Passerby ------- passersby (not passerbys)
C.Poet laureate ------ poets laureate (not poet laureates)
D.Man- servant ------- men -servants
(Sister-in-law ,  father-in-law  and mother-in-law follow the same way as given for the first example above.)

Exercise for you:
Write the plurals in the blanks.

1._________(kid)  like ice-cream,  don’t they?

2.They were punished for hunting _________ (deer).

3.The fight between _________(mother-in-law)  and _________ (daughter-in-law )is an eternal issue in India.

4.These engineers are actually _________(alumnus)  of our college.

5.The dentist replaced my ________ (tooth) with artificial ones.

6.Some ________ (lady) are like ________ (lorry) and are likely to be met with accident but some others are like _______ (baby) who teach you innocence.

7.________(wife)  are _______ (knife) and need to be handled with utmost care.

8.The _______ (syllabus)  framed by experts nowadays are substandard or impractical.

9.Downloading _______ (photo)  and _______(video) more brings your data balance into zero soon.

10._______ (person)  with ______(penny)  are without _______ (child)  and vice versa.