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Hello. I'm Margot Politis. Welcome to Study English, IELTS preparation.
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Today we're going to look at ways to talk about something that's happened in the past,
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and we'll also have a look at ways to form compound and complex sentences.
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First, we're going to listen to a woman talk about a dramatic event in her past. Four years
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ago, she had a stroke - a blood vessel burst in her brain.
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Here's what happened to her:
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A stroke is whereby the blood supply to the brain is cut off. The major signs of having
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had a stroke that most people would equate with is weakness, so paralysis of an arm,
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leg or face. In others it can be a loss of speech or inability to communicate. Others
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may have loss of vision or a combination of all those things.
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I was just so physically fit and also emotionally I was on top of the world. I had a really
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good job at that time, and I was getting married.
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I just felt terribly nauseous and I woke up with pins and needles down one side of my
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leg, and then it worked its way up towards my arm and across.
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I was just immobile. I couldn't move. I couldn't walk. I was paralysed on this side of my body.
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Simone is telling her story. She is giving a recount of what happened to her and how
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she was affected.
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A recount is a story about past events, usually in the order in which they occur.
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Let's take another look at a clip from today's episode. Listen for the past tense verbs in
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Simone's story.
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I was just so physically fit and also emotionally I was on top of the world. I had a really
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good job at this time, and I was getting married.
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She says: I was so physically fit, I was on top of the world. I had a really good job.
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Here, 'was' and 'had' are past tense verbs.
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They're irregular verbs.
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Let's compare the three forms of these irregular verbs.
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From the infinitive form of the verb 'to be', we can form the simple present forms: am,
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is and are; and we can also make the simple past forms - was or were.
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Notice that the verb to be is the only verb in English that has two past tense forms.
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All others just have one.
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Let's do the same for the verb 'to have'.
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What is the simple present for of the verb 'to have'?
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Has, or have.
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And the simple past form?
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Had.
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When you learn new verbs, it's important to learn them with all their different forms,
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so make sure you write verbs down in a notebook, and work out all their different tenses as
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well.
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When you are recounting a story that happened in the past, you'll need to use all these
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simple past tense forms of verbs.
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You'll also need to use a variety of 'transition signals' - words that help to order the events.
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Using transition signals will help the reader or listener follow the order of events in
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the story.
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Listen for the transition signal in this clip.
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I just felt terribly nauseous and I woke up with pins and needles down one side of my
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leg, and then it worked its way up towards my arm and across.
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She uses the word 'then'. 'Then' is very common in informal spoken language, so are other
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more informal transition signals like 'next' or 'after that'.
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Simone said she had a feeling of pins and needles in her leg. Then it worked its way
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to her arm.
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In more formal language, you might find transition signals like 'at first' or 'subsequently,
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or 'after a while'.
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If we wanted to make Simone's story clearer, we could add some transition signals to her
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story.
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If we were writing her story, we might use more formal transition signals.
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Simone had a feeling of pins and needles in her leg. Then it worked its way to her arm.
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We might say:
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At first, Simone had a feeling of pins and needles in her leg. After a while, it worked
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its way to her arm.
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Notice that transition signals like this are often followed by commas.
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Adding transition signals has made Simone's story clearer. You can more easily see the
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order of events. This is very important in more formal language.
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Try to make sure you learn and use a number of different transition signals.
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Now let's have another listen to a clip of Simone talking about her illness.
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Pay attention to the type of sentences that Simone uses. Are the sentences simple, compound
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or complex?
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It worked its way up towards my arm and across. I was just immobile. I couldn't move. I couldn't
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walk. I was paralysed on this side of my body.
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Most of the sentences that Simone uses are 'simple' sentences.
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If we wanted to write an account of Simone's illness, we could join up some of these sentences
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to make 'compound' and 'complex' sentences.
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We form 'compound' and 'complex' sentences by joining simple sentences and phrases together.
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Simone says:
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I was just immobile. I couldn't move. I couldn't walk.
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But we could edit this to say:
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I was just immobile. I couldn't move or walk.
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Or:
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I was just immobile. I could neither move nor walk.
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OK, now let's finish with a quick look at the words used in the clip. Listen to the
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clip one more time, and then we'll talk about a quick way to build your vocabulary.
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Listen again. I was just immobile. I couldn't move. I couldn't
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walk. I was paralysed on this side of my body.
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Simone says she was 'immobile'.
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The prefix im- is used to make the opposites of words beginning with 'm' or 'p'.
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Im- means not, so immobile is the opposite of mobile - it means not mobile.
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So we can have: mobile and immobile
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mature, and immature
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polite and impolite
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patient and impatient
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Knowing the opposites of words is very important.
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Many words just have a different word that means the opposite, like:
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hot, cold happy, sad
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in, out up, down
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but other words take prefixes that mean not, like un-, de-, dis, in-.
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Listen to some of the clip again. Then we'll look at a how a few more opposites are formed.
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The major signs of having had a stroke that most people would equate with is weakness,
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so paralysis of an arm, leg or face. In others it can be a loss of speech or inability to
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communicate.
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I was just so physically fit and also emotionally I was on top of the world.
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He says a sign of a stroke can be an inability to communicate.
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He uses the in- prefix meaning 'not'.
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'Inability' means not having the ability, and here's a few more opposites.
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She says she was physically fit, emotionally on top of the world.
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The opposite of fit is unfit.
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The opposite of emotionally is unemotionally.
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A great tip is to try to find words with opposite meanings. Some words have several meanings,
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so they have several opposites as well. A good thesaurus will really help you with this.
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And that's all from me today. Don't forget to practice forming compound and complex sentences.
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And remember to practice reading and writing in English every day. I'll see you next time
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on Study English. Bye.