2.1 Paco is not a forgetful man
Listening activity
The man who told his experience at the beginning of the topic said he
was a forgetful boy. Paco remembers almost everything he said, so, he
is not a forgetful man. He has an excellent memory. In fact, he needs
to have a good memory to be able to memorize all the names, significant dates and historical
data he has to remember for his exams at the University. The programme on TV in which that man told his story was about natural hazards which have caused terrible natural disasters.
He remembers, for example, other natural hazards that occurred on December 26, 2004 when a tsunami struck Thailand killing about 230,000 people; or the massive earthquake that hit San Francisco in the early 20th century, concretely in 1906, and in which between 225,000 and 300,000 people were left homeless out of a population of 410,000.
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| By Lester C. Guernsey. Public domain |
He is convinced that, if not for all, global warming is responsible for some of the natural hazards occurred in the last fifty years, although it cannot be proved. In any case, it is a job for scientists.
After remembering all these things, Paco breathed relieved and put on his clothes. He is ready to visit the city.
| forgetful - excellent - significant - historical - natural - terrible - massive - early - homeless - global - responsible - ready |
All the adjectives in the box are formed by adding a suffix to the verb or the noun becoming derivatives. Try to separate the suffix from the stem of the word.
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As you know, a suffix is a morpheme that is placed after the stem of a word to form a new word (derivative), quite frequently, of a different grammatical category (a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb). Click on the picture on the right to get some of the most frequently-used suffixes in English to form adjectives.
Further knowledge
Now, it's time to practice. Click here to do an easy activity to form adjectives. More exercises to improve your knowledge on forming adjectives by means of suffixes can be done not only by clicking here, but also here.
Fill in the blanks with a suitable adjective from the word between brackets. Remember that -ed and -ing are also suffixes to form present and past participial adjectives!
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| By Vasily V. Titov. Public domain |
1. Paco thinks that global warming is responsible for and (natural; environment) disasters.
2. A huge earthquake caused the (dread) tsunami in Thailand in 2004.
3. It was a (pity) sight to see all those people floating after the tsunami.
4. The earthquake in San Francisco was (catastrophe).
5. It is (logic) that people in (coast) Thailand are (frighten) of tsunamis.
Important
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Attributive vs Predicative adjectives
Most of the adjectives seen up to now may function attributively or predicatively. Do you know the difference between them? If you don't, don't worry, it's very easy!
Attributive adjectives are those adjectives that, in English, are placed in front of a noun (e.g. Paco is not a forgetful man).
Predicative adjectives, on the other hand, are those adjectives that are placed after the verb, normally a copula verb such as to be (e.g. He was very forgetful when he was a child). That is, it is part of the predicate of the sentence.
Why don't you relax a little bit and listen to the song in the video on the left to see the difference between subject and predicate? If you want to get the lyrics of the song, click here. Pay attention also to the verb tenses, since the tense studied in the topic, the Simple Past, is used in it!
REMEMBER: Adjectives in English never take the plural!!!!
Writing activity
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| By Olivander. C. Commons |
After studying the Past Simple tense and adjectives, it's time for you to write!
Imagine you are told to tell a experience related to natural hazard you experienced when you were a child. Write
a short paragraph telling your experience and how it ended up
(use no less than 80 words).
Remember to use dictionaries if you have any doubts about vocabulary. If you have any difficulties, click below.
Do you think we've completed the information about adjectives? No, we haven't. Let's go on to next section to study something interesting about the order of adjectives in attributive position!