These are the most common verb patterns. Go through them in detail and try to memorise them to make sure you always use the correct form. Most of them will sound familiar to you, so it isn't such a hard task!
At least 65 people have been killed and as many as 200 remain missing after a large earthquake measuring 6.3 magnitude struck the New Zealand city of Christchurch earlier this morning, destroying buildings in the city’s centre as the streets were filled with office workers and lunchtime shoppers.
Hundreds of people are feared to be trapped in collapsed buildings. The centre of the city has been evacuated as aftershocks continue.
Earthquake topples Christchurch Cathedral's spire, one of many collapsed buildings across New Zealand's second largest city. Photograph: Mark Mitchell/AP
It was never the most obvious subject for a thrilling, gets-you-there drama – a reluctant king's treatment for his wretched speech impediment – but the story worked to spectacular effect with The King's Speech last night, triumphing at the Baftas.
The King's Speech wins seven awards including best actor for Colin Firth .
The King's Speech was nominated in 14 categories and won in seven, including best film and best British film. Not quite a record – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has nine, The Killing Fields eight – but equal to Slumdog Millionaire's seven.
But it is the subject matter – "two men in a room," said the winning writer David Seidler last night – that makes its global success remarkable. The dialogue-heavy film tells the story of stuttering George VI, who became king reluctantly because his brother abdicated.
It is also something of a sour-tasting pleasure for the scrapped UK Film Council which helped get the film made in the first place, giving it a returnable £1m. Tanya Seghatchian, head of the council's film fund, said its success "represents a great validation for the UK film industry as a whole and an amazing legacy for the UK Film Council". The producers used the ceremony to highlight the importance of public subsidy for film.
Probably the least surprising winner of the night was Colin Firth, who was named best leading actor: his second consecutive Bafta. Last year it was for his role as a bereaved gay lecturer in A Single Man.
His co-stars were also victorious. Helena Bonham Carter won best supporting actress from a strong shortlist including Amy Adams, Barbara Hershey, Lesley Manville and Miranda Richardson.
In one of the longer thank you speeches, Bonham Carter, who played the future Queen Mother and has also recently portrayed the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, thanked the royal family. She said: "I seem to be playing queens with ever decreasing head sizes," adding: "I'm so used to losing, this feels very nice." She dedicated her Bafta to supporting wives everywhere.
Geoffrey Rush completed The King's Speech's acting honours as best supporting actor for his portrayal of the Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue. He won against Christian Bale, Andrew Garfield, Mark Ruffalo and the late Pete Postlethwaite.
From humble beginnings and a budget of around £10m, the film has earned eye-spinning amounts at the box office, expected to reach £125m by the time of the Oscars, later this month.
The film's writer, London-born David Seidler, won for best original screenplay. He had wanted to write it 25 years ago, but the Queen Mother asked him "not in my lifetime". He wasn't quite expecting her to live to 101.
To read more, click here: The King's Speech
When writing a formal letter, there are certain things we have to take into account. For example, we cannot use contractions, the register is always extremely formal, we use certain phrases to require information, to start and to close the letter, etc.
Here you have the example we saw in the last class.
Don't forget to go through the photocopy I handed you in the class before writing your own letter.
Click here to see the letter on page 52 already corrected. application letter page 52
India and Pakistan have agreed to resume formal peace talks for the first time since the Mumbai attacks in 2008. Photograph: Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images
India and Pakistan have agreed to resume formal peace talks that were broken off by New Delhi after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Indian sources said, although they sought to play down expectations of major progress.
The two countries have been under pressure from the US to reduce tensions because their rivalry spills over into Afghanistan, complicating peace efforts there.
A senior Indian government official said the decision to return to talks was made at a meeting between the two countries' top diplomats in Bhutan's capital, Thimphu, on the margins of a regional conference.
A Pakistani official wouldn't confirm the decision, but said there had been progress.
The modal verbs can present some difficulties if we don't understand very well the way they're used and the changes some of them experience when used in positive or negative.
In this presentation, which has been completed after the class, you have some clues, some examples of the different modal verbs, and your homework to do after reading through it.
Do you still have problems to know when you have to use present perfect or past simple? Do you remember the differences between FOR and SINCE?
Click here to go through it again!
Some time ago we looked at the differences between these two kind of verbs to see if we could use only simple forms or simple and continuous forms. If you want to go through it again, click here.
According to ABS.CBN News, the 'Former South African president Nelson Mandela is doing well and responding to treatment at his home a week after his release from hospital, the government said Thursday citing doctors."The latest information we have is that former president Nelson Mandela is doing well. The team of doctors taking care of him say he is responding to treatment," Collins Chabane, minister for the presidency, told reporters. The 92-year-old anti-apartheid hero is receiving home-based care after being discharged from hospital last Friday, following treatment for an acute respiratory infection.
Officials said he was in stable condition after his release, but he continues to receive close monitoring and round-the-clock care from a team of specialists.
I'm sure we are all with Mandela, wishing him the best. Here you have the famous poem which helped him to survive his long imprisonment.
INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul. -
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed. -
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
INVICTUS
Más allá de la noche que me cubre
negra como el abismo insondable,
doy gracias a los dioses que pudieran existir
por mi alma invicta.
En las azarosas garras de las circunstancias
nunca me he lamentado ni he pestañeado.
Sometido a los golpes del destino
mi cabeza está ensangrentada, pero erguida.
Más allá de este lugar de cólera y lágrimas
donde yace el Horror de la Sombra,
la amenaza de los años
me encuentra, y me encontrará, sin miedo.
No importa cuán estrecho sea el portal,
cuán cargada de castigos la sentencia,
soy el amo de mi destino:
soy el capitán de mi alma.
Your classmate Mar has prepared some materials she would like to share with you. One of them is tha translation into Spanish of the vocabulary you have seen related to 'food'. Another one is some theory about 'used to /would' and finally she also has prepared something about the prepositions of time.
You are welcome to have a look! vocabulary_food prepositions of time used to
