2020-01-27 Grammar: intensifiers

Greg Malivuk
gmalivuk@staffordhouse.com
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - Notes from all classes
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Homework (optional): part B of the handout (write questions with “how many” or “how much”)
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Quantifiers (last week) - how much or how little of a noun you’re talking about (“I have a little money.”)
	(some, many, a few, several, a little, etc.)
Intensifiers (this week) - adverbs for how strong or weak an adjective or adverb is (“I feel a little cold.”)
	(very, somewhat, a little)
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Extreme Sports Worksheet (https://www.teach-this.com/downloads/2950-extreme-sports-worksheet/file)
part A - Underline all the intensifiers you can find in the text.
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Note: If you intensify something, you make it stronger, and if you mitigate it, you make it weaker.  For this reason, “weak intensifiers” are sometimes called mitigators.
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Intensifiers and Mitigators worksheet (https://www.teach-this.com/downloads/2952-intensifiers-and-mitigators-worksheet/file)
part A - With your partner, put the words in order, from weakest to strongest
	(“completely” is also a bit different from the others)
extremely
	(“too” works differently from the others)
so
really/very
quite/rather
pretty
kind of/a little
slightly
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“too” is different because it means there’s some problem with the intensity; it prevents something
If I have $100, then something that costs $101 is slightly too expensive. I can’t buy it.
Something can be cheap, but too expensive for me.
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“completely” is different (along with “totally”) because it doesn’t work with some kinds of adjectives
These words mean something like 100%, but you can’t have a price that is “100% expensive”
You can be “100% focused” on something, so “totally focused” or “completely focused” are fine.
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“I learned too much.” = This causes some problems for me. I want to forget some things.
“I met too many people.” = It’s a problem. For example, I can’t remember everyone’s name.
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Homework: “too and very” handout from EnglishForEveryone.org