"Can"

Hello everybody,

Last week we corrected the First Term Revision and we started Unit 4. On Monday / Tuesday, we talked about things we can do and things we can't do; we talked about our abilities.

• I can swim
• I can drive a car
• I can't take good photos
• I can't play the guitar

We also learnt that can and can't also mean possibility (I can go to your party on Saturday; I can't go to Madrid at the weekend) and permission (Can you open the window, please? Can you come here a minute?)

Click here for an online exercise with the verb can.




Remember that can is a special verb like be: we NEVER use the auxiliary verb do/does; don't/doesn't:

(+) You can programme a video
(-) You can't programme a video - we add not to the verb.
(?) Can you programme a video? - we change the subject-verb order.

On Wednesday / Thursday, we talked about shopping: things we like buying and things we hate buying. We talked in pairs and then we listened to four different people talking about their personal preferences.

With these conversations, we learnt that the verbs like, love and hate are always followed by a verb in     -ing:

• I love going to clothes shops.
• I like going to the supermarket.
• I don't like going to big shopping centres.
• I hate traveling by boat.

Basic Level E had one hour with Lauren, the language assistant. I hope you liked the lesson! :)

For homework, you have to do the exercises in Grammar Bank 4B, page 129.

See you tomorrow / on Tuesday!