2017-12-06 Grammar: intro to comparatives

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - notes from all classes
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Homework: p. 135 exercise 9
1 Denise is too busy to take a vacation right now.
  Denise has too many responsibilities to take a vacation right now.
2 The pace of work is too hectic for Denise to do her best work.
3 Denise’s assistant works too slowly for Denise to catch up on her correspondence.
  (Denise’s assistant doesn’t work fast enough for…)
4 Mr. Green has assigned too little additional support for Denise to meet the contract deadline.
  (Mr. Green hasn’t assigned enough additional…)
5 Denise is too proud to ask her boss for more help.
6 Denise isn’t nice enough to Peter for him to help her with the contract.
  (Denise is too mean to Peter for him to help…)
7 There is always enough free time for Peter to spend on his friends, his music, and his family.
  (Peter always has enough free time to spend…)
8 Peter plays the clarinet well enough to be a professional musician.
9 He doesn’t like Denise enough to help her meet her contract deadline.
  (He likes Denise too little to help her…)
10 Work is not important enough for Peter to make it the focus of his life.
   (Work is too unimportant for Peter to make…)
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Degree complements with “too” and (sometimes) “enough” can also be expressed with “so...that” or “such...that”
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Denise has too many responsibilities to take a vacation right now.
= Denise has so many reponsibilities that she can’t take a vacation right now.
Peter plays the clarinet well enough to be a professional musician.
= Peter plays the clarinet so well that he could be a professional musician.
= Peter is such a good clarinet player that he could be a professional musician.
	(“such” goes with modified nouns, “so” goes with adjectives, adverbs, and quantifiers)
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If we want to compare the quantity, intensity, or degree of two things, we use comparatives.
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short adjectives and one-syllable adverbs: add -er
	bigger, prettier, faster, harder, earlier, easier
longer adjectives and adverbs: use “more” (or “less”) before the word
	more expensive, less interesting, more easily, less beautiful
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We can use intensifiers to show how much the things differ:
You are a little older than me but much older than my sister.
A house is far more expensive than a television. / A TV is far less expensive than a house.
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I am as tall as my brother. My English is just as good as yours.
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$101 is more expensive than $100
$100 is not as expensive as $101
	small difference: “not quite as expensive” or “almost as expensive”
$100 is not nearly as expensive as $200
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p. 171 exercise 4 - Ask your partner for this information, then use intensifiers and comparatives to talk abbout yourself and your partner.
For example:
	I am much older than my partner.
	My partner is a lot younger than me.
	My partner is not nearly as old as I am.
	I am 17 years older than my partner.
	I am twice as old as my partner.
	I have been studying English three times as long as my partner.
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four times a month (48x in a year)
three times a month (36x in a year)
twice a month (24/year)
once a month (12/year)
once every two months (6/year)
once every three months (4/year)
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My English skills are improving much faster than my partner’s.
My English skills are improving as slowly as theirs are.
(My English skill is improving as slowly as theirs is.)