Session 5: Friday 30/3/2012


Hi everyone, I hope you´ve recovered from another long weekend of studying!


Here's a little summary of what we did in class on Friday.


First we read about Amancio Ortega, a very successful businessman, who went from rags to riches with his worldwide chain of clothes stores, Zara. We studied some vocabulary relating to clothes, including putting them on, taking them off and trying them on. 


Then we looked at the present perfect, a verb form that we often use to talk about experiences in our lives.


For example:


Have you ever been to the USA? 
Yes, I've been to the USA twice. 
No, I haven't been to the USA.


Here are some important points to remember about the present perfect:

• We never use it to talk about a specific time in the past: Yes, I've been to the USA in 2002.
• We make it with have or has (the auxilliary verb) and the past participle of the main verb. 
• The verb GO has two forms in present perfect: when somebody has visited a place (and then returned), we say they've been there. But when somebody has left, and won´t come back, we say they've gone.

We also listened to the song "Still Haven´t Found What I'm Looking for" by U2, which has a lot of present perfect in it. Here's the version with the lyrics, in case you want to hear it again. 

Finally, we talked about teenagers, and all the things they don´t usually do in the house... like doing the washing up, picking up their clothes from the floor, tidying their room, making their bed, and taking the dog for a walk. 


We also studied how to talk about the things we've completed using the present perfect and yet/already/just


Have you done your homework yet?             
No, I haven´t done it yet.                                 (Todavía no)
Yes, I´ve already done it.                                 (Ya lo hice)
I've just finished it.                                            (Lo terminé recién)


If I didn't get time to check your homework from last week in the lesson, click here for the answers.