Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! And I send this to all of our readers, no matter whether you celebrate Christmas in your culture or not - may you all have a wonderful and prosperous 2009.

Christmas is almost on us again. For many thousands of people this Christmas is not going to be quite as shiny and happy as those in the past. A lot of people will be facing an uncertain future or are worried about what 2009 will bring. Well, maybe this gift from us, an e-book version of one of the most celebrated stories of hardship, poverty, redemption and generosity will help make this Christmas a little brighter and remind us all that at the heart of this celebration is the idea of sharing with others, bringing goodwill and happiness into our lives and those of others and re-affirming the bonds of caring and feeling between us .

This is a completely free e-book that you can run on your desktop with all of the audio files installed on your computer or you can choose to view and listen to it on our website.

The English4Today e-book version contains full text as well as a complete reading of the book so that you can either just listen, just read or do both!

We’ve provided the e-book in three different formats so that everyone can access it and enjoy it:

• FULL Version : a software desktop edition, Windows only, with ALL sound files - 117MB - this is a big download but you will have all of the sound files on your desktop and it is an ideal format for schools, libraries and ‘on the road’ reading.
• LITE Version: a software desktop edition, Windows only. Exactly the same as the FULL version but you will need an Internet connection to listen to the sound files. The advantage? Well, it is only a 4.5MB download compared to the 117MB of the full version.
• ONLINE Version: a web-based version with the same contents but no downloadable components. Listen and read online.

And here are a couple of screenshots of a Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens an audio e-book from English4Today:

Christmas Carol Screenshot

Christmas Carol Screenshot 2

Simple past : Negative form

To form the negative of a sentence in the Simple Past you need to use the past form of the auxiliary verb ‘do’ - that is ‘Forming the Negative of the simple past

To form the negative of a sentence in the Simple Past you need to use the past form of the auxiliary verb ‘do’ - that is ‘did‘ + ‘not‘ + the infinitive of the verb you want to use. For example - I did not play.

We often contract did and not into one word - didn’t – for example:

• I didn’t play
• They didn’t play
• She didn’t play

Notice that did and didn’t are invariable – they do not change no matter which pronoun you use.

The Same rule applies for irregular verbs:

Let’s look at leave,come and teach:

• I didn’t leave
• We didn’t come
• He didn’t teach

Here’s an example with the very common irregular verb ‘to go’

• She went to school yesterday.

Becomes in the negative:

• She did not go to school yesterday.

Remember that ‘went’ is the past form of ‘go‘. I went I didn’t go

Regular verbs:

Very simple!

• She talked to Martin last week.
• She did not talk to Martin last week.

You try…
Make the sentences with the negative Simple Past

• They studied English in 2006.
• Tim played golf when he was at university.

(answers below)

See also

• English4Today Grammar: Simple Past section

Answers:

1. They did not study ..
2. Tim did not play…

Video Lesson 1 of 3

Forming the Simple Past, sometimes called the Preterite tense, is really pretty easy… at least for regular verbs.
You take the subject, follow it with the verb ending in –ed and there you have it.

Example:

Subject + verb + -ed
I + play + ed
I played

And, to make it easier, the Simple Past form is invariable – that means it doesn’t change no matter what subject you use. Let’s look at the verb ‘to play’, in the Simple Past it would look like this:

I played
You played
He, she, it played
We played
You played
They played

A couple of things to watch out for:

• Verbs ending in a consonant + y, like cry and try: drop the y and add ied.
• Verbs ending in e like receive only need to have the ‘d’ added – received.

For the irregular verbs in English it is a bit more difficult and you will need to learn most of the most often used ones. There is a full list of irregular verbs with their past form on English4Today.
Now, before moving to the next video where we talk about when to use the Simple Past why don’t you try a couple of verbs your self. Just complete the sentence with the verb in the Simple Past:
STUDY —–> ?

They studied English in 2006 – notice that this is a verb that ends in a consonsant + y so we have dropped the y and added ed.

One more, PLAY—–> ?

Tim played golf when he was at university.

In Video Part 2 we will look at making the Interrogative and Negative of the Simple Past and then in Video Part 3 we will look at WHEN we use the Simple Past.

Useful Links:

• English4Today Grammar Section on Simple Past
• Irregular Verbs in English
• Crossword Puzzle: Irregular Verb Past Forms
• Wordsearch (Easy): Irregular Past Forms
• For a bit of pronunciation fun with the past forms

By Anthony Hughes MLitt., Cert TESOL
CEO English4Today

From the English4Today series on online learning

More and more websites and Internet services are offering to find you the ideal English language teacher. Many of them are very good and offer excellent technical and teaching services. But how can you tell the good ones from the bad?

IDENTIFY YOUR NEEDS

Well, it is important to first of all decide what you need and want:

1. Do you need English training for your job or to prepare for a job interview or entry into a foreign institution?
2. Do you need to pass an English language assessment examination such as CAELT, TOEFL or IELTS?
3. Do you need English to satisfy immigration requirements?
4. Do you need training for a highly specific purpose? For example, you may be giving an important presentation in English or preparing a technical report in English or being sent by your organization to negotiate in English.
5. Do you just want to practice your conversation skills with someone who is a native speaker?
6. Do you want to study English for your own pleasure?

If you answered ‘yes’ to 1,2,3 or 4 above then I’d advise you to select online lessons with a professional and qualified English language teacher rather than just someone you meet on the Internet who can speak English.

Professional teachers may cost a little more but you will be learning a lot faster, with better direction and understanding of your needs and from someone who really knows how the English language works. Just because you know how to drive a car it doesn’t mean that you know how the engine works or can explain how to drive to someone else! And so it is with a lot of people who are native English speakers - ask them why we use the Simple Past instead of the Present Perfect and they’ll be hard pressed to answer … let alone give an explanation that you will understand.

If you answered ‘yes‘ to 5 or 6 then a native English speaker who isn’t a teacher will probably do and you can find people willing to do this on many of the sites that provide a meeting space for people interested in language learning. The advantage here is that you can usually get this sort of practice free of charge or in exchange for helping someone practice your language.

You also want to be sure that the teacher and the organization that you choose can teach you what you want - not all teachers can teach you presentation or negotiating skills in English or teach academic writing skills if you need to prepare for university.

ASK ABOUT YOUR TEACHER’S QUALIFICATIONS

Don’t hesitate to ask questions about how the teacher works, what their experience and qualifications are and what materials they will use. Some questions you may want to ask are:

• What qualifications does my tutor have?
• Do they have experience teaching the skills I want to learn?
• What materials are used for the online lessons?
• How is my progress assessed?

ASK ABOUT THE ‘TOOLS’ YOU NEED AND THE LESSON FORMAT

It is equally important, with online learning, that you are sure that you and the teacher can communicate properly using the tools that you both have. Again, ask questions and avoid problems and disappointment later on:

• How long is each lesson?
• How do I talk / communicate with my teacher?
• What Internet and document tools do I need? (e.g. Skype or MSN, Flash or video plugins, Powerpoint, Acrobat Reader etc.)
• What time zone is my teacher in?
• Do they (and you) have a high-speed, reliable Internet connection?
• Can I try a 10 minute technical test with my teacher before deciding to pay for my lessons?

ASK ABOUT THE COST AND PAYMENT METHODS

The cost may be very important to you as well but when judging the hourly rate of a lesson make sure you factor in how quickly you will get to your goals with the teacher you select and how their experience may, in fact, end up saving you money by getting you where you want to be a lot faster than a less qualified teacher.

Hourly rates for online teaching vary between around $15 an hour up to around $70 for highly specialized training. Remember, it’s not always the cheaper rate that offers the best value! Some questions to ask about cost and payment include:

• What is the rate per lesson and how long is a lesson? (online lessons usually go from 30 - 60 minutes)
• What are the payment methods accepted (e.g. online with an organization such as PayPal, bank transfer, Western Union etc.)
• What are you refund policies?
• What are the lesson cancellation policies?
• Can I get an invoice to claim back money from my employer for training?

If you’ve got a good idea of who and what you are looking for before you start you, and your teacher, are likely to avoid disappointment and to build a useful teacher-student relationship that will help you quickly improve your English language level.

© Anthony Hughes 2008, All rights reserved

If you would like to contribute an article on a subject to do with learning English please send your article along with a brief biography to the English4Today editor. Your article will be fully credited.

Question from Cathy in Canada:

Can we say I arrive to work at 9 o’clock or do we need to use “at”? Also can we say I was late to class or do we need to use “in”? Thank you.

Answer:

Hi Cathy, thanks for your question. The worst thing about prepositions is that there are no nice simple rules to let you know how to use them with certain words. Your question, Cathy, demonstrates this. In most cases you just have to learn the prepositions that go with certain words. Let’s look at your two verbs : to arrive and to be late.

‘Arrive‘ can be followed by several prepositions depending on what is following, look at these:

• I arrived for work in the morning. (arrive + for where ‘work’ is a task or job to undertake)
• I arrived at work in the morning. (arrive + at where ‘work’ is a place)
• I arrived in time to see her. (arrive + in time where there is a temporal aspect)

So, in terms of your first question, I would say that you can use ‘for‘ or ‘at‘ depending on what sense you want to give ‘work’ (a place or a task).

Your second question with ‘to be late‘ is a bit different as I don’t think either of your options is correct.

• I was late for class.

is the correct usage … late for something.

Hope that’s helped!

Prepositions with arrive and late

Question from Khadija in Morocco:

What is the difference between ‘hear’ and ‘listen’?

Answer:

Hi, Khadija. Thank’s for your question, I’m sure that the difference between ‘listen‘ and ‘hear‘ is not clear for a lot of English language learners.
Let’s have a look at them:

Listen is used to talk about or describe sounds that are being made around you and which you are making an active effort to focus on. For example:

• Did you listen to the news last night on television?
• She was listening to music on her iPod when I walked in.
• Mike listened to his teacher and then repeated what she had said.
• ‘Just listen to yourself! You talk such rubbish!’, she said angrily.

Note that ‘listen‘ is nearly always followed by ‘to‘ - you listen to some sound.

Just to repeat an important point; listening is active - that is you are making an active effort to listen to the sound.

Hear is used for sounds that come to our ears, but we do not, unlike listen, need to be actively engaged in trying to listen to the sound - it can just come to your ears! For example:

• Mike heard a bang in the night which woke him up.
• She heard someone screaming and called the police.
• I heard a loud explosion and then the building collapsed.

Note that ‘hear’ is not followed by ‘to’. But, to make it a little more complicated let’s look at this conversation:

• ‘Did you hear what I said’, asked John’s father.
• ‘No, I wasn’t listening‘, replied John.
• ‘Well, if you don’t listen you will never hear what I am telling you!’.

Now, that last sentence seems a little confused but also shows cleary how the two verbs are used - in this case, if John does not make an active effort to listen he will not hear his father’s advice (even if he may have heard sounds his father was making!)

Where hear and listen may seem very close is when you hear something like:

• Did you hear about Jane? She got married!
• I heard about the accident but I didn’t see it.

This is when information is passed to you from another source without you necessarily seeking it - in this case note that ‘hear’ is followed by ‘about’ - ‘to hear about’ something, someone or some action or event.

So, you can hear something without wanting to, but you can only listen to something intentionally.

Hear and Listen: Easily Confused

Question from English4Today member Gireesh in the United Arab Emirates:

Which one of the following sentences is correct having the meaning like “cannot accept…” ?
1) We regret to accept your letter…..
2) We regret not to accept your letter……

Hi Gireesh, I’m afraid neither one of your examples is correct. The verb ‘regret‘ is not followed by the infinitive form of the verb (e.g. ‘to accept’) but more usually by the gerund form (-ing) or by a relative pronoun such as ‘that‘. Of course, another problem here is that the verb for ‘regret accepting‘ does not mean the same as ‘cannot accept‘. Let’s look at how we can use regret + accept to give the sense you want - we’ll have to add a little more to your sentences to do this:

• We regret not being able to accept your letter …

Now, we are using an equivalent of can (meaning having the ability to do something) which is ‘to be able to‘. We then need to make that negative not being able to and then follow that with the verb accept. Of course, you may find it easier to use this variation with the relative pronoun ‘that’ :

• We regret that we can’t accept your letter.

Or, try changing the verb ‘regret‘ into an adverb:

• Regrettably, we cannot accept your letter.

So you can see Gireesh, there’s more than one way to approach this but you have to know how to put the pieces together. I’d suggest that you login to the members’ section of English4Today and go through some of the exercise in the grammar section and also take a look at the relative pronoun, verb formation and sentence structure sections of the English4Today Online Grammar.

Accepting with No Regrets

Question from English4Today member Khadija in Morocco

When can we use “how about” and when can we use “what about”?

Hi Khadija. This is another one of those situations, and we’ve discussed quite a few of them here, where you can use the two phrases interchangeably:

Both can be used to make suggestions.

• How about going to see a movie tonight?
• What about going to see a movie tonight?

Or, in the case of a non-suggestive question:

• Is Mike going with you? How about Pete?
• Is Mike going with you? What about Pete?
• Have you finished cleaning your room? How about your homework?
• Have you finished cleaning your room? What about your homework?

So, use either and the earth won’t open up and swallow you!

How About vs. What About: Same Difference?