Kwai-Ming Wu MemorialSchool of the Precious Blood (A.M.)

2006-2007 English - Study Notes

Unit 8 A Letter to a Pen-friend

Name: ______( ) /

Class: P.4 ( )

Vocabulary


a pen friend /
an estate /
sport /
grandmother

a family / anartist / a lettuce / Mathematics
flying a kite / making models / cycling / playing the piano

jigsaw /
study /
surf the Net /
Garfield

Dictation List

Benny is ten years old and he is a primary four pupil. He lives in

Choi Hung Estate. He lives near his school. It takes him only five minutes to walk to school. It is a whole-day school, so he needs to go to school in the morning and in the afternoon.

His school has only twelve classes and about four hundred pupils. His favourite subjects are Mathematics and Computer Studies and his hobbies are reading comics and surfing the Net. He also likes to write stories and play the piano. He wants to be an artist when he grows up.

  1. Structures

1、People’s hobbies:

My
Your
His
Her
Our Their / hobby / is / collecting stamps.
cycling.
surfing the Net.
hobbies / are / playing the piano
and
making models.

2、 Favourite matters:

My
Your
His
Her
Our Their / favourite subject / is / Chinese
English
Mathematics
favourite subjects / are / Art and General Studies.
Maths and Computer Studies
G.S. , Music and P.E.
  1. Format of a letter
  1. Possessive adjectives:

1、Pronouns:

Singular / Plural
1st person / I(me) / We(us)
2nd person / You / You
3rd person / He(him), She(her), It(it) / They(them)

2、Possessive adjectives:

Pronouns / Possessive adjectives
1st person / I / my
We / our
2nd person / You / your
3rd person / He / his
She / her
It / its
They / their

If you want to know more, read “Big Grammar” chapter 4 (p.30-31)

  1. Subject-verb agreement:

1、What is a complete sentence?

A complete sentence must have:

1. a subject ( a noun, the action doer )

2. a verb ( an action word )

3. a complete meaning

Examples:

Complete sentences:

1. Joey painted a waterfall.

(subject) (verb) (This part makes the meaning complete.)

2. We should eat more vegetables.

(subject) (verb) (This part makes the meaning complete.)

Wrong sentences:

1. painted waterfall.

(verb)

No subject and the meaning is not complete.

2. We more vegetables.

(subject)

No verb and the meaning is not complete.

2、Singular, plural and uncountable nouns(subjects) and their verbs:

Singular subjects must go with singular verbs.

Plural subjects must go with plural verbs.

Uncountable subjects will take singular verbs.

See the chart below:

subject / present / past
Singular / I / am / was
he, she, it (or a singular subject, e.g. a child, the teacher… ) / is / was
Plural / They, we, you (or a plural subject, e.g. people, children …) / are / were
Uncountable / water, milk, meat / is / was

Examples:

Wrong : The cats is eating.

(plural subject) (singular verb)

Right : The cats are eating

(plural subject) (plural verb)

3、Third(3rd) person singular present tense

Singular
3rd person / He(him), She(her), It(it) or only 1 person: e.g. Joey

When the subject of a sentence is “3rd person singular”, put a letter “s” at the end of the verb. For examples:

1. He likes animals.

2. Joey walks to school every day.

3. The cat has a tail. (have  has)

4. She does not like eating fruits. (do  does)

If you want to know more, read “Big Grammar” chapter 5 (p.42-44)

  1. Countable and uncountable nouns

* If you find “a”/“an” in front of the word or “s” at the end of a word, this word must be a countable noun. For examples, when you see “a car” or “cars”, the word “car” must be countable.

Countable nouns / Uncountable nouns
oranges, carrots, onions, pineapples, pears, bananas, sweets, noodles, tomatoes, mushrooms, grapes, strawberries, apples, eggs, snacks, potato chips, vegetables, cakes, dollars / bread, lettuce, milk, cheese, rice, beef, oil, garlic, meat, salt, ice-cream, sugar, pork, food, water, chicken(meat), butter, soup, tea, coffee, money
Sometimes countable and sometimes uncountable
egg, ice-cream, lettuce, coke, chocolate, chicken,
Words used with countable nouns / Words used with uncountable nouns
many, a few, few(close to zero), fewer / much, a little, little(close to nothing), less
Words used with both countable and uncountable nouns
some, a lot of(=lots of) , plenty of, enough, any, more

When we want to count the uncountable nouns, we can put a phrase in front of the word. See the examples below:

a bar of chocolate, 2 bars of chocolate,

a bottle of milk / juice, three bottles of milk / juice

a carton of milk / juice, 5 cartons of milk / juice

a bowl of rice, a few bowls of rice

* “Milk” and “rice” are uncountable but “carton”, “bottle” and “bowl” are countable. You cannot say 1 milk, 2 milks but you can say “1 bottle of milk”, “two bottles of milk”.

If you want to know more, please read “Big Grammar: Book 4” Unit 1 and Unit 8

1