F2F Class Notes (Nemo) [W]

Grammar

Past perfect simple-Time up to then

The past perfect refers to time up to a point in the past (time up to then), just as the present perfect refers to something that happened in the time up to the moment of speaking (time up to now):

I’d seen all of Elvis Presley’s movies by the time I was 20!

-We commonly use the past perfect in reported clauses where the reporting verb (underlined) is in the past:

E.g.: “Mr Hammond drove through a red light.”

The policeman said Mr Hammond had driven through a red light.

E.g.: No one told me that the shop had closed.

E.g.: I phoned Katie and she said the kids had had a day off school so she’d taken them ice skating.

-We also use the past perfect when the reporting verb is a verb of perception and is in the past tense:

E.g.: My Dad was really angry because he heard I hadn’t come home until 3 am!

-Talking about changed states
We often use the past perfect to refer to situations which have changed. In speaking, had is often stressed:

A:
Are you going anywhere today?

B:
I had planned to go to the beach but look at the rain! (had is stressed; the meaning is ‘I have now changed my mind’)

Past perfect continuous

-We use the past perfect continuous to talk about actions or events which started before a particular time in the past and were still in progress up to that time in the past:

E.g.: It was so difficult to get up last Monday for school. I had been working on my essays the night before and I was very tired. (The past perfect continuous focuses on the activity of working on the essays up to a particular time in the past.)

Past perfect simple = I had worked **************************Past perfect continuous = I had been working

We use the past perfect simple with action verbs to emphasise the completion of an event.

We use the past perfect continuous to show that an event or action in the past was still continuing.

NASA spacesuits with built-in toilet

The NASA engineers designed an out-of-this-world spacesuit, which has a built-in toilet. It can help astronauts deal with the call from nature in emergency situations. Astronauts also can eat with this suit. In addition, this new suit made astronauts travel farther away from earth than the old one, and astronauts can be survived with it for 6 days. It be called Orion. An astronaut said this spacesuit made them safe when they need to eat, urinate and defecate in space. This technology should be used in hospitals in the future.

NASA spacesuits with built-in toilet

The NASA engineers designed an out-of-this-world spacesuit, which has a built-in toilet. It can help astronauts deal with the call of nature in emergency situations. Astronauts also can eat within this suit. In addition, this new suit made astronauts be able to travel farther away from the spaceship than the old one, and astronauts can survive with it for 6 days. It is called Orion. An astronaut said that this spacesuit made them safe when they need to eat, urinate and defecate in space. This technology should/could be used in hospitals in the future.