F2F Class Notes (Ben)

Grammar

Country names: you only use THE for

1. nouns

• the Czech Republic
• the United States
• the United Arab Emirates
• the Dominican Republic
• the Republic of the Congo
• the Democratic Republic of the Congo

2. plural names

• the Philippines
• the Solomon Islands
• the Netherlands
• the Cook Islands
• the Seychelles
• the Cook Islands
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• the Bahamas
• the Comoros

Exception: the Gambia

Vocabulary

on purpose = deliberately, intentionally, not by accident

a purpose =
1. a general goal in your life
My purpose in life is to become a better person.
The purpose of eyes is to see.
But a philosopher would say eyes don’t have any purpose, they just see.

2. the reason for which something exists
The purpose of an English school is to teach English
Why can’t I use this chair? Its purpose is to be sat on.

–

I was at a party at Peter’s place.
The bus station is at the crossroad.
Tomorrow, I will leave for Beijing = to go to Beijing
I’m going to leave Shanghai. (no preposition)*

I’m going to leave Shanghai for Beijing.

–

After taking a shower, I went to bed. = I went to bed after taking a shower.
Before going to bed, I took a shower = I took a shower before going to bed.

“before” often used used as “and”
I went shopping and I bought some clothes before going back home.

–

I want to swim.TO
I look forward to swimming. TO DOING
I always put off swimming. DOING
Let me swim. DO

I tried to get in Harvard and I succeeded. TRY TO DO (for something hard)
My computer didn’t work so I tried rebooting it. TRY DOING (for something easy)