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A tip for lower levels this week. The most important contraction you will learn involves the word ‘is’. For example, instead of saying ‘My name is…’, in English we contract the words ‘name is’ to form ‘name’s’ – e.g. ‘My name’s Andy’; ‘her name’s Montse’, and so on. We do not say ‘My name’s is’, as the word ‘is’ has already been used in the contraction. If you say ‘The pen’s is blue’, what you are actually saying is ‘The pen is is blue.’ You don’t need to use the word ‘is’ twice.
If you are confused about whether we are speaking about a singular object or plural objects, the simple answer is that we must use the verb ‘are’ with plurals, e.g. ‘The pens are blue.’ So if you hear ‘The chair’s red’ you know that it’s a contraction (‘chair is’ = ‘chair’s’) rather than a plural, as the word ‘are’ does not appear after the noun ‘chair’.
Try to practise this contraction often as it is very useful in increasing the speed of your spoken English. It is also important to note that English speakers use the contraction of ‘is’ all the time, as it is less formal and more conversational than using the full form. Introducing yourself by saying ‘My name is…’ may be acceptable when meeting the Queen but would seem impersonal and even robotic when used in a typical social situation. Remember that the contraction ‘is’ can be used with both pronouns and nouns, e.g. ‘he is = he’s’; ‘she is = she’s’; black is = black’s’; ‘white is = white’s’; and so on.
Mastering this contraction will go a long way towards improving your fluency in English. This is why we at Callan try to instil the habit of using contractions in speech all the time. The word ‘is’ is a perfect place to start.
It’s easy when you know how!
If you want to know more about contractions of the verb “to be”, we practise them from Stage 1 of the Método Callan!
También ha trabajado en el campo de la traducción. Tiene tanto el ELE (Certificadoen Enseñanza de Español como Lengua Extranjera) como el CELTA (Certificado en Enseñanza del Idioma Inglés para Adultos). Jordi comenzó a trabajar como profesor de español e inglés para Callan en 2018.
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Free English resources
- Telling The Time
- Verbs followed by another verb
- Phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs
- The contraction of the word “is”
- Conditional Sentences
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