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Grammar 1

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Grammar 1

cours

Uploaded by

Douksouna youmma
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Faculty of Exact and Applied Sciences | University of N’Djamena-Chad

2023-2024 Academic Year


Grammar, Scientific English for 2nd Year Students

Unit I. Verbs
A verb expresses either:
a) An action, for example
She teaches in their school
They looked in class
b) A state of being, for example
The food is very cold
Her beautiful dress became dirty
Please note that there MUST be a verb in any complete statement
Verb tenses
Verb tenses help us to talk about the time when an action took place. Verb tenses can broadly
be classified into present, past and future.
Present tense
There are several present tense forms: present simple, present continuous, present perfect and
present perfect continuous.
Present simple tense
The Present simple tense is used to express what is done constantly or habitually, for example
The team plays rugby every Saturday
She goes to the market on Wednesday
I wash my clothes on Saturday
He speaks English very well.
The Present simple tense is also used to express a general truth, for example:
The earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours
Light travels faster than sound
Present continuous tense
The present continuous tense can be used to expressed an action that is happening at the time
of speaking
Listen, the bell is ringing
Look, students are doing discussion in class
Note: Words that describe a state and not an action have no continuous form, such words
include understand, know, like, hate, mean, hear, see, prefer, belong, behave, love, consist.

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Lecturer: Dr. Douksouna Youmma, (Ph.D.) Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Mycologist
Present perfect tense
We use the present perfect tense to talk about actions that are completed just before the tie
of talking.
I have written the exam the teacher told us to write
The boy has finished doing his homework
Present perfect continuous tense
We use present perfect continuous tense for an activity that has been going on for some time
but which has just stopped or is continuing up to the present.
Why are you sweating? I have been running.
Why are your shoes so muddy? I have been walking on mud.
Past tense
Past tense is used for an action or condition that started and was completed in the past, for
example:
He lived in Walia
She was a faster runner
He always made excellent furniture
We had a very good famous president
The verbs lived, was, made and had are all in the past form. The following are the different
Past tense forms: Past simple, past continuous, past perfect and past perfect continuous.
Past simple tense
Many verbs form their past simple tense by adding -ed to the verb, for example
delay- delayed; play-played; show-showed
There are many verbs that do not add -ed to form their past tense. These are called irregular
verbs.
Past continuous tense
Past continuous tense is used when referring to an activity that was going on in the past formed
by using was or were with the verb in the ing form.
At 10.00 a.m., Adoum was still doing exam
We were still working since morning
Past perfect tense
Past perfect tense is used to refer to something happened before another.
All the other students had left
The head teacher had gone back to the office

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Lecturer: Dr. Douksouna Youmma, (Ph.D.) Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Mycologist
Past perfect continuous
Past perfect continuous is formed by using had been with the ing form of the verb.
The children are now sitting down. They had been running
In this situation had been running tells us that at the time of speaking, the children were no
longer running, but they had done it a little earlier.
The future
There are several ways of referring to the future.
Using shall or will with the verb to talk about the future, for example:
By this time next week, I shall/will be in Bongor
We shall/will see the Member of Parliament tomorrow
Note that we can also use will or will not or won’t to predict the future, for example:
Waidou has worked very hard. He will pass the exam at the end of the year
The bus left Gaya this morning. It will not (won’t) get to N’Djamena in time
Shall is often used to make offers and suggestions, for example
Shall I give you an orange?
Shall we go for a walk?
Helping (Auxiliary) verbs
The verb in a sentence can consist of more than one word, for example:
I have cut my finger
We have harvested the coffee
She has spoken to us
Where did he keep the keys?
Verbs such as have, has and did in the above sentences are called auxiliary or helping verbs.
The commonest auxiliary verbs are:
a) Forms of the verb be- am, is, are, was, were, being, been- for example:
She is talking. ‘is’ is a form of the verb be
b) Forms of the verb have- has, have, had, having- for example:
He has gone. ‘has’ is a form of the verb have.
Other auxiliary verbs include
- do, does, did
- may, might
- must
- shall, should
- will, would
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Lecturer: Dr. Douksouna Youmma, (Ph.D.) Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Mycologist
Modal verbs
A modal verb a word such us can, will or may, which is used to express a possibility or
permission among other things. Modal verbs are also helping or auxiliary verbs. The words in
the following box are modal verbs:
can, could, may, will, would, shall, should, ought to, must, needn’t

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Lecturer: Dr. Douksouna Youmma, (Ph.D.) Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Mycologist

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