Friday, May 11, 2007

Brazilian Mother`s Day. Brazilians really know how to celebrate this one. Everything, everywhere is covered in decor for this special day which is tomorrow. Rach has asked for a lie in as a present. Our problem is trying to please Mum, GrandMum, 2 GreatGrand Mums and a Great Great GrandMum. Somebody is bound to be upset that Nelson didn`t visit them this weekend.

English puzzle. This week I gave a lesson which completely bombed. I put it down to not knowing English myself. My task for you is this: look at the sentences below and tell me the difference (my textbook says there is one!) between the two examples and then tell me how to teach this grammar to a dozen bored Brazilian teenagers who would rather be at the beach. (Current English teachers are banned from replying!).

She tried using a camcorder to record the event
She tried to use a camcorder to record the event

2 comments:

Mariano said...

I think it depends on the verb. For instance, in these two phrases the meaning changes:

They stopped speaking to each other. => They don't speak to each other anymore.

Or

They stopped to speak to each other. => They stopped walking in order to speak to each other.


But in these two, the meaning is the same:

She started to eat dinner.
OR
She started eating dinner.



It's it, isn't it?

Unknown said...

I think you'll find you've accidentally conjugated the past-participial of the preterite verb with the pre-menstrual continuous present form of the undulating holistic tense. Most unfortunate.