2019-11-09 Saturday: 7 Living space

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - Notes from all classes.
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Homework: units 5-6 test (If you graduate today, you don’t have to do the test.)
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With your partner, design the interior of a tiny house. (around 20 m2, 1.5 floors maximum = you can have a loft area, e.g. for a bed, but not a complete second floor)
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p. 82 part 1 - Which of these features are necessary when you look for a place to live? Which are important but not necessary? Which don’t matter? Then add other necessary things.
Make sure you understand the difference between these pairs of words:
garden/yard
- The yard is the large space around a house. It can have a garden in it or it can be just grass.
balcony/porch/terrace
- A balcony is on a higher floor over air, a terrace is on a higher floor over other rooms, and a porch is on the ground floor and you can enter and exit the house through it.
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p. 83 part 4 - Listen to the audio about houses and shelters and complete the sentences. Ignore the numbers in the audio.
1 bad weather
2 more basic
3 shelter
4 brick or stone
5 house
6 your home
7 design
8 cities
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Grammar: comparatives and superlatives
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comparatives
- to compare two things or groups of things
“short” adjectives (1 syllable, or 2 if the second one is just -y or -le)
cheap -> cheaper
big -> bigger
nice -> nicer
happy -> happier
“long” adjectives (3+ syllables, or 2 if the secondd one is big)
careful -> more careful/less careful
interesting -> more interesting/less interesting

paired comparatives: to show that two things change together
The colder the climate, the warmer your house needs to be.
The bigger your house, the more expensive it is to heat.
The more, the merrier. (If more people come, it will be happier.)

repeated comparatives: to show that something continues to change
Homes in cities are getting smaller and smaller.
Housing in Boston is getting more and more expensive. (repeat “more”, not the adjective)

equatives
- to show that two things are (or aren’t) the same
I am as tall as my dad. = We are the same height.
I am not as tall as my dad. = I am shorter than my dad.

superlatives
- to compare one thing to all the things (in the same category)
-er -> -est
more -> most
less -> least
Superlatives almost always use “the”, because you’re talking about one specific thing.
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p. 83 part 7 - Rewrite the sentences (to have the same meaning) using the words in parentheses and beginning with the words in bold.
1 Houses are less appropriate for local conditions.
2 A cave house is not as small as you think.
3 An igloo is not as cold inside as you might think.
4 New houses are getting more and more expensive every year.
5 My tent is the best in the camp.
6 This house is the oldest one.
7 A house on stilts survives more easily in floods.
8 You can put up a ger more quickly than a brick house.
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BREAK
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We can make adverb comparisons the same way. Adverbs almost always take “more” and “less”, except for fast/faster, hard/harder, late/later, early/earlier.
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Irregular comparatives and superlatives:
good/well -> better -> best
bad -> worse -> worst
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p. 84 part 2 - Complete the sentences with the correct words from the box.
1 atmosphere
2 public transportation
3 financial
4 modern
5 built-up (this describes an area with a lot of buildings, not necessarily tall; “up” doesn’t mean “tall” in this case, it means “complete”)
6 skyscrapers
7 residents (= people that live somewhere; “residence” = place where people live)
8 neighborhoods (areas or regions in a city, especially residential)
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Read “Before New York”
https://welikia.org/explore/mannahatta-map/
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Grammar: other ways to talk about the past (especially things that were true for a while)

used to
- things that were true for a while in the past and are not true now
- if it’s still true, or if it only happened once, you can’t use “used to”
I used to live in Mexico. - true for 1 year, now I don’t live in Mexico
*I used to teach English. - I still teach English, so this sentence is incorrect.
	I have taught English for many years.
I didn’t use to live in Boston. - true for 25 years, but now I live in Boston
*I didn’t use to live in New York. - true all my life, including now, so this sentence is incorrect
	I have never lived in New York.
Where did you use to live? I used to live in Michigan.

would
- repeated actions (for a while) in the past
- if it happened once or happened for a long time without repeating, you can’t use “would”
We would go swimming every day. - repated for a while in the past
*We would have a pool. - this isn’t repeated, so it’s incorrect
- “would” is very common for describing everyday life in the past; it’s often nostalgic
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p. 85 exercise 9 - Rewrite the sentences with “used to” if possible.
1 New York used to be a lot greener than it is now.
2 There used to be a lot of forests and natural landscapes.
3 Residents didn’t use to live in a large city. (Early residents don’t live anywhere now.)
4 People used to hunt beavers for their skins.
5 (no change - just happened once)
6 What originally used to be in the area where Fifth Avenue is now?
Which sentence could also use “would”?
- People would hunt beavers for their skins. (This is an action that was repeated many times.)
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part 11 - Complete the sentences so they’re true for you, using the correct grammar.
1 Before I studied here, I used to live in Italy.
2 When I was in elementary school, I would play baseball every day.
3 Before I moved here, my family threw a party for me. / my family used to eat every Sunday dinner together.
4 During the first vacation I can remember, I went to Las Vegas.
	(“first vacation” happened once, so whatever you say about it should be simple past)
5 Whenever I had a test at school, I would study. / I would get nervous. / I would cry. / I would cheat.
6 In my family, on weekends we would go to church and then go for dinner.
7 The first time I left home, I cried a lot. (“first time” is one time -> simple past)
8 As a child, I used to play piano a little bit.
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I cried like a baby. = I cried (more recently) similarly to how a baby cries.
I cried as a baby. = I cried when I was a baby.
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Homework: Write a promotional description of your current city for people who might want to live there. Use the text on p. 89 as an example.
Also: read p. 99 and do p. 98 parts 2, 3, 4