VIP Class Notes (David) [W]

Homework

  1. Find a English news article about a topic you’re interested in. Try to pronounce all the words outloud and look up any words you don’t know.

Writing exercise

When I was a little girl,my dad bought a keyboard for my sister and me. At the same time, my best friend,also had one ,but her parents provided a chance to learn playing the keyboard for her. Because of financial stress and no long-term plan for myself, I never pay more attention to keyboard. As I grew up, I gradually learned the simple music knowledge,then, I began trying to play the keyboard. In this process , my mood also became sad or delighted with the change of melody. Gradually,I like the piano and love the feeling of fingertips beating, and playing the piano is more graceful. Beside this, learing playing the piano requires getting down,which can appease the fickleness and dissatisfaction at work of the day.And I can find the new starting point of happiness and live better.

When I was a little girl, my dad bought a keyboard for my sister and me. At the same time, my best friend also had one, but her parents provided a chance for her to learn how to play the keyboard. Because of financial stress and having no long-term plan for myself, I never paid more attention to the keyboard. As I grew up, I gradually learned simple music knowledge. Then, I began trying to play the keyboard. In this process, my mood also became sad or delighted with the change of melody. Gradually, I came/learned/began to like the piano and loved the feeling of fingertips beating, and playing the piano became more graceful. Besides this, learning to play the piano requires me to calm down (I have to calm down when I am learning to play the piano) which can  ameliorate/disperse/alleviate the fickleness and dissatisfaction of work. I can find a new path to happiness and to a better living.

Grammar

I don’t care of this – I don’t care about [noun]. OR if you don’t like someone/something, you could say “I don’t care for her.” OR I don’t care to do something (I don’t care to wash the dishes.)

On the day -> During the day. If you ever say “On the day” you would say something like “On the day of my wedding, I wore a white dress.”

Never

ex: present simple tense: I never drive.

ex: past simple tense: I never drove a car.

ex: present perfect tense: I have never driven a car.

ex: past perfect tense: I had never driven a car.

“the” – use when talking about specific nouns

active voice vs. passive voice – always try to speak/write in active voice.

Active voice – the subject does something. ex: I play the piano. I have to calm down.

Passive voice – something is being done to the subject. ex: The piano was played by me.

Vocabulary

Beside – only used to describe location when something is next to something else.

ex: He stood beside her. They stood beside one another.

Besides – Can be used as a conjunction or connecting phrase between sentences.

example: Besides, teachers can be wrong sometimes. Besides (other than) Mary, all the other children were boys. Besides (in addition to) those issues, there were a lot of other problems as well.

Except – other than something, taking away something

ex: Except for Mary, all the other children were boys.

Alleviate – to make something (usually bad) go away

ex: I took medicine to alleviate my pain. Listening to his song helped alleviate my sorrow.

Better living (noun) – to live better, to live a better lifestyle

ex: I read Martha Stewart’s book on better living. It helped me a lot.