4 useful speech constructs for beginners in English

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The guest article from Polina Chervova, who founded the training center "English with Polina Chervova" and developed her own teaching methodology, provides 4 useful speech patterns that will help you express your thoughts in English. Must read for those who are just starting to learn English and are not too confident in the grammatical chaos of rules, exceptions and complex constructions.

When you start learning English, at first your eyes run up from the countless number of rules, exceptions and constructions that you need to know, understand, and even use correctly. Only after a while do you realize that this language is not as creepy as it seemed at the very beginning, and you begin to distinguish between fixed expressions, phrasal verbs, and so on in the text.

It is for those who are just starting to learn English, who still have a mess in their heads and who want to isolate the so-called must haves or, in our case, must know from all this grammatical chaos, I wrote this article. Today I will tell you about the basic structures and speech patterns, which are important to know and which will help you express your thoughts.

1. There is / there are

The main purpose of this construction is to tell the interlocutor that something is somewhere, is present. We use there is / there are when we talk about what sights there are in our city, when we describe our room or house, when we tell what is in our bag or backpack.

Please note that sentences with this construction are translated from the end, and there is / there are are not translated at all. We use there is with a single number, and there are, respectively, with a plural.

For example:

There is some cheese in my fridge. - I have some cheese in my fridge.

There are two bedrooms in my house. - There are two bedrooms in my house.

There is a lot of snow on the street. - There is a lot of snow outside.

2. To be going to

The construction to be going to translates as "to get together." We use it when we say that we will definitely do something in the future. It is important to remember that this construction works in cases where the decision was made before the conversation, that is, you decided to learn Italian and after making the decision, you talk to a friend and share your plan with him:

I am going to learn Italian.

Now let's look at how to incorporate it into a proposal. The verb to be, as always, changes to am / is / are / was / were / will be depending on the pronoun and tense; going to remains unchanged and is translated as "to get ready", and then there is necessarily a verb that tells you exactly what you are going to do.

They are going to get married this winter. - They're going to get married this winter.

We are going to earn a lot of money next summer. - We're going to make a lot of money next summer.

I am going to leave for London tomorrow. “I'm going to leave for London tomorrow.

3. The way

This turn of speech is, in my opinion, the most interesting, because it can be applied to a variety of situations. The word way itself is translated as "road" and "direction". Very often, beginners in English cannot understand what the road has to do with, for example, describing a person. We will now talk about such situations.

The turnover the way can convey a mode of action. For example, you might say that you like the way she dances or the way she looks. In this case, "how" is our turnover the way:

I like the way you dance. - I like the way you dance.

He likes the way I cook. - He likes the way I cook.

Also the turn of the way can be translated as "way". For example:

Working hard is the only way to get your goal. “Working hard is the only way to achieve your goal.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this is not the only meaning and possibility of using the way. With this turnover, there are both stable expressions and verb constructions, but for the first time the meaning considered above will be quite enough.

4. It takes

This design is also quite common and will definitely be useful to you when traveling abroad. This phrase is used when we say how long an action takes. We can use it to ask how long it will take to get to your destination or how long it will take to get a taxi to the city center.

It takes me an hour to get to work. - It takes me one hour to get to work.

The flight to Moscow takes 3 hours. - The flight to Moscow takes three hours.

My morning exercises take me 15 min. - My morning exercises take me 15 minutes.

Let's summarize and reiterate what situations each of these constructs is suitable for:

• there is / there are used when we tell what items are in the room, house, bag, city and so on;
• to be going to we use when we are going to do something;
• the way is suitable for describing a course of action;
• we use it takes when we tell you how long an action takes.

And finally, I would like to give a little advice for those who are just starting to learn English: do not try to understand all the rules at once. Accumulate knowledge in stages, first learn simple words, rules and times, and then move on to more complex ones. And of course, be patient with yourself and your English.