UNIT 1

1. Starter – Sentence – Communication or Confusion

One way of mastering English language is through using it. It is necessary for you to try to
use English as much as possible in both speech and writing. For a start, it will be helpful to
take a look at the sentence.

A sentence can be divided in two parts: the subject part and the verb part.
SUBJECT VERB

Rosita walks to school

She wore a blue dress for the party
The fat boy ate two loaves of bread for breakfast
The child cried for a long time
The old
man refused to pay for the meal

For practice, look at the text below and decide the subject and verb part for each sentence.

2. Reading
Smokers in China

Chinese men are literally dying for a smoke. With 320 million smokers-more
than 90 percent of them male-China consumes a whopping one third of the world’s
cigarettes each year. And Chinese smokers are starting to pay the price. One in
every eight male deaths in China is caused by smoking, and scientists predict the
ratio will rise sharply.

Kicking the habit is not easy preposition in China, where cigarettes are a fixture
of daily life. Need to find a wedding gift, pay a bribe or welcome guests in your
home? In China, cigarettes will do the trick every time. A recent survey showed that
57 percent of Chinese doctors smoke. No wonder the dangers of smoking are only
dimly understood. A US trained surgeon, Chen Haiquan, has performed more than
200 operations a year. He is the lone surgeon in the hospital ward. “By the time I see
 patients,” He says, “They understand how bad smoking is for their health, but it’s
often too late.”

*Notes:
Whopping : great, (very) big
Proposition : unproved statement
To bribe : to influence unfairly

Decide whether the statements below are true or false. Write N (No) if the
statements are unknown.

a. Most of Chinese men are social smokers.

b. Cigarette is served in some important occasion in China.
c. It is not uneasy to stop smoking habit in China.
d. Chen Haiquan performed all the operations with his team.
e. Chinese smokers have already got the bad result of smoking habit.
f. Most of Chinese people like smoking very much.
g. Chinese did not know that smoking can cause lung cancer.
h. People in China start smoking under the age of ten.

3. Grammar Focus – Part of Speech

English has several kinds of words, which are called the ‘parts of speech’: nouns,

pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and

interjections. Individual words can become different parts of speech depending on

their function in a sentence. For example, the word question can be either a noun or a
verb.

• The question was easy

noun
• The police questioned several people
verb
Four prominent parts of speech explained in this handout are noun, verb, adjective and
adverb..

a. Noun
A noun names a person, place, thing, or idea. Examples of nouns are teachers, school,
book, color, life, and truth.
A noun that names a particular person, place, or thing is a proper noun. Proper nouns
begin with capital letters. All other nouns are common nouns.

Common nouns Proper nouns

Man Sebastian Bach

Country German
statue Statue of Liberty

A common noun can be countable or uncountable.

Countable Uncountable
 Countable nouns name people, places,  Uncountable nouns name things that
and things that you can count (one you cannot count. For example, you
pencil, two pencils). cannot count sunshine or oxygen.

 Countable nouns can be singular or  Uncountable nouns are never plural,

plural, and you can use an indefinite and you cannot use a or an with never
article (a, an) with them plural, and you cannot use a or an
with them.
Ex: Book, Person, Idea Ex: Sunshine, Oxygen, Information

b. Verb
A verb expresses an action or names a state of existence.
Action State of existence

jump be
 laugh seem
love appear

Verbs are the most changeable words in English. We change their form to express
meanings such as these:
• Is the time of the action the past, the present, or the future?
• Does the action happen every day? Is it happening right now?
• Did it happen just one time or several times?
• Did one person or more than one person perform this action?

• Does the verb express an action performed by the subject (John hit the ball) or
received by the subject (The ball was hit)?
Main verbs

A sentence always has at least one main verb (MV). Main verbs carry the basic
meaning, and their form can change.

I am cold I work He is cold He works They were cold They worked

Helping verbs

With the main verbs (MV), we often use one or more helping verb (HV) to make the
different tense, to make questions, and to express meaning such as possibility,
advisability,permission, and requirement.

Helping verb Main Verb

I was working
They Should have been working
We must work

The helping verbs are (1) the forms of be, have, and do and (2) the modals.
BE, HAVE and DO MODALS
be, am, is, are, was, were, can, could, shall, should, must, ought
to
been, being, have, has, had, do, does, will, would, may, might, had better
did
 Be, have, and do can change their Modals never change their form
form
I am working I must work
He is working He must work
They are working They must work
*Note: helping verbs are also called auxiliary verbs

Regular and irregular verbs

Verbs have five basic forms: the base form, the –s form, the past tense form, the past
participle and the present participle. These forms are called the ‘principal parts’ of
verbs. The principal parts of verbs are either regular or irregular.
Base -s Form Past Past Present
form Tense Participle Participle
Regular verbs Love Loves Loved Loved Loving
Walk Walks Walked Walked Walking

Irregular
verbs Eat Eats Ate Eaten Eating
Go Goes Went Gone Going

• The base form is the form that you find in a dictionary

• The –s form is the base form + -s or –es
• The present participle is the base form + -ing
• The other two forms can be regular or irregular. Regular verbs add –d or –ed to
make the past tense and past participle. Irregular verbs make these forms in
many different ways, so you have to memorize them.

c. Adjective
Adjectives modify (give more information about) nouns and pronouns. They answer
the questions Which one? How many? What kind?
• They live in the yellow house. (Which house?)
• There are twelve eggs in a dozen. (How many?)
• He drives a racing car. (What kind of car?)
Noun and pronouns can be adjectives
•a shoe store math teacher
•my book some money

Words ending in –ing and –ed can be adjectives. These adjectives are called
participles or participial adjectives.
a frightening experiences a sleeping baby
a used car a broken heart

Proper adjectives are usually capitalized > a Shakespearean play my Spanish class
Compound adjectives are adjectives made from two or more words connected by a
hyphen that function together as one word.
•a two-word verb a part-time job
•a well-known actor a three-story building
d. Adverb
Adverbs modify (give more information about) verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs.
They answer the questions How? When? Where? How often?
Question Answer
Children learn new language easily How do children learn? Easily
He speaks English very well How does he speak? Well
How well? Very
When was the comet
They saw the recently discovered comet discovered? Recently
They went upstairs Where did they go? Upstairs
She is always late How often is she late? often
Adverbs in –ly
Add –ly to adjectives to form many adverbs. Notice that –y change to –i.
Quick—quickly Nice – nicely
Careful – carefully Easy – easily

Other adverbs

Many adverbs do not end in –ly.

Almost Inside Now Too Always Late
Outside Twice Downstairs Near Sometimes Today
Upstairs Far Never Then Very Well
Fast Often There yesterday Here Once

Vocabulary Practice
a. Classify the words below into the right part of speech
1 Go ……………… 6 Beauty ……………… 11 Satisfy ……………
2 Party ……………… 7 Patience ……………… 12 City ………………
3 Calm ……………… 8 Soften ……………… 13 Foggy ………………
 4 Fun ……………… 9 Strong ……………… 14 Lovely ………………
5 Happy …………… 10 Finally ……………… 15 student ………………

b. Look at these common noun and adjective suffixes. They are used to form different
part of speech.

Nouns -ation -ness -ence -ment

-ion -ity -sion
Adjectives -ous -tific -ly -ial
-y -less
Complete the charts below. There are some spelling changes.
Noun Verb Noun Adjective
Communication communicate science …
… Discuss Friend …
… govern … happy
Invitation … … different
… Develop … danger
… Explain Use …
Education … Help
… Decide … special
… Enjoy … Care
… organize Noise …
Improvement … industry …
… Employ Ambition …

c. Complete the sentences with one of the words from exercise b.

1. My English ____________ a lot after I lived in London for a month.
2. I have two ____________ in life. I want to be rich, and I want to be famous.
3. ‘I am going to work hard from now on.’ ‘That’s a very good ______________.’
4. There are many ____________ between my two children. They aren’t similar
at all.
5. Thank you for your advice. It was very __________.
6. I like Italian people. They’re very kind and _________________.
7. The United Nations is an international __________________.
8. I asked the teacher for help, but unfortunately, I didn’t understand his
_____________.
9. Motor racing is very ______________ sport.
10. Fish soup is a __________________ of this area. You must try it.
11. I’m having a party on Saturday, and I’d like to _____________ you.
12. This is the _______________ part of my town. There are lots of factories and
businesses.