Tense

Tense1

Tense is a set of forms taken by a verb to indicate the time of the action in relation to the time of of the utterance. A tense is like a soul and a verb is it’s body. Such as souls need body to inhabit, tense needs a verb to be expressed. A verb is an action, an action can be accomplished in many ways, such as it can be a habitual or routine action in past, an action in progress in past, an action before another action both in past, an action happened continuously for a long time in past, an action that happens daily as a routine or habit in present, an action that is in progress  at present, an action that has just been completed though some effects of the action is still alive, an action that started in a certain time in past and is still progressing or an action that is under progress during a long time started in the past,  an action that is supposed to happen as a routine, habit or an ordinary happening In future, an action that will progress in future at a certain point of time, an action that will be still relevant in future though the action will be completed at a certain point of time in the future only, an action that will be under progress from a long time started in future and continuing to a certain point in future with all the chances to continue further in future.

From the passage above I guess you understand that the tense in a sentence deals in the time of the action in respect of the utterance of the verb in a sentence. Therefore we can roughly say that TENSE means TIME.

As per our concept, time can be divided in three broad categories, the time that has passed, the time that is passing and the time that is yet to pass. Time is like the flow of a river, however the flow of river can be bound by dams but the flow of time is boundless. Time waits for none. It goes on goes on goes on without any stoppage. Here we are not philosopher, we are grammarian, therefore we aont discuss about the boundlessness of time, rather our focus will be to discuss TENSE, that is a form of time in learning language. Time is boundless, time has countless aspects, and here in this chapter we will focus to bind time in language.

TENSE

See the table below.

PAST	PRESENT	FUTRE
SIMPLE OR INDEFINITE	SIMPLE OR INDEFINITE	SIMPLE OR INDEFINITE
PROGRRESIVE OR CONTINUOUS	PROGRRESIVE OR CONTINUOUS	PROGRRESIVE OR CONTINUOUS
PERFECT	PERFECT	PERFECT
PERFECTCONTINUOUS	PERFECTCONTINUOUS	PERFECTCONTINUOUS

From the table above, it is clear that there are 4 (four) classifications all in PAST, PRESENT and FUTRE tense. These classifications are

a.      Simple or indefinite

b.      Progressive or continuous

c.       Perfect

d.      Perfect continuous

Simple or indefinite tense express a habitual action, general facts etc in present past or future.

Progressive or continuous tense expresses an action under progress I present, past or future.

Perfect tense expresses immediately completed activity leaving side effect, in present, past or future.

Perfect continuous tenses expresses an action which began some time ago and is still continuing with all the possibilities to continue further, in present, past or future tense.

We3 will be soon back with much more clarification in this topic, stay with us, see TENSE2 that is going to be posted here at the soonest. Here in this chapter we tried to make a clear concept of the tense and action used in language, see you soon. Have a good day, Merry Christmas.

Please Visit our website www.englishgrammartoday.com for regular English grammar updates.

ON LETTER WRITING, PART2

ON LETTER WITING: 2

CLASSIFICATION OF LETTERS

Letters may be classified according to their different purposes, Such as

i.                   Social letters that include Friendly letters and Notes of Invitations.

ii.                 Business letters that include Letters of Application, Letters to government officials, Letters to the Editors of News Papers.

These letters have different characteristics which we should be aware of.

SOCIAL LETTERS

1.   Friendly Letters

Letters to relatives and intimate friends should be written in an easy, simple colloquial style. They will be of the nature of friendly chat. The tone will be informal just as in friendly talk. In friendly letters, we can touch in many subjects and in any order we prefer.

But this does not permit us to be careless, we must preserve some order in expressing our thoughts there by it can be fully logical.  While writing a friendly letter, we must be bound by the rules of spelling, punctuation, grammar and idiomatic expressions.

In friendly letters to relatives and intimate friends, the proper form of address is the name(without surname) of the person to whom the letter is being written, prefixed by qualifying marks like Dear, My dear, Dearest etc. For example: My dear Rahul, Dear papa, Dearest Mummy etc

In case your friendly letter is to an ordinary friend who is much older than you, or of superior rank, it is respectful to use a prefix like Mr. , Mrs. Or Shri.  For example: Dear Mr. Prabhat Ranjan etc.

The forms of subscriptions are varied. The following can be used in letters to relatives and near friends. For example: Yours affectionately, Your loving daughter, Yours very sincerely etc. You can use phrases like with love and best wishes, from your affectionate friend etc. as a subscription.

In concluding letters to friends and relatives whom you address as Mr. or Mrs. Etc, You should use the subscriptions like Your sincerely or very sincerely and it should be preceded by With kind regards or very kind regard.

Please note that sincerely should not be used in letters beginning with formal Dear sir, after which the proper word of subscription is faithfully or truly.

Example1: Write a letter to your grandfather on his birthday.

67/B Yogesh Ghosh lane Kolkata26 22 Dec. 2018 My Dearest Grandpa, Happy birth day, with a wish from the core of my heart for many happy returns of this day.  May god keep you healthy and happy for ever. You have alwys been a kind and generous friend to me and on this great occasion I take the opportunity to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your every action of generosity, love, care and affection to me. I was so glad to listen from papa that you are still hale and hearty, and can take your four mile walk every early morning and still spare time for gym. I am sending you a book which I hope you will like. You have always been a book worm and I am glad that your eyesight remains as good as ever-so mummy says. I am doing my studies with proper attention and hope to get selected in the next campus interview. Reply me soon. With love and best wishes Your loving grandson Sagar.

Exercises:

a.      Write a letter to your cousin inviting him to visit your home during the upcoming vacation.

b.      You are in a boarding school; write a letter to your papa informing him about your well being.

c.       Write a letter to your sister on any topic you wish.

See you on our next lesson on the same topic. Please visit our website www.englishgrammartoday.com for regular English grammar updates. Stay healthy, stay blessed.

LETTER WRITING, Part 1

ON LETTER WRITING:1

There was a time when there was no WHATS APP, No FACEBOOK, no FACEBOOK MESSENGER, no email, no INSTAGRAM, the world was not like a village in the grip of internet where every person knew the status of others. This is the twenty first century, where you can reach to anybody in an instant.

I (The creator of this post) was sent to a hostel, only fifty kilometers away from my home, in 1996, only 22 years ago, we are from India, I was the only kid of my family, and my grandfather had a heart attack only after 15 days I was shifted in a hostel, because he was bereaved without seeing me and the only telephone system in the village was not under function. We had a telephone given by the government authority, installed in the ablest family of the village. My grandfather made his address in that family hoping to get a call from me or my hostel and his expectation led him to hospital. I came back home.  My grand pa also came back. He taught me how they used to write letter everyday when there was no telephone in the village. He gave me a bag of postcards, in a post card there is an ADDRESS portion which my grand Pa filled with his name and address, he told me as soon as I reach my hostel back, I should write at least one post card every day, and submit them to the DAKIYA (Postman) who came every afternoon to our hostel.

I did as per his instructions, and an astonishing thing started with me; that was the DAKIYA also started giving me letter from my grand pa. That was a communication, at the end of 20^th century. And we are in the beginning of the 21`st century, today we have emails, Facebook, mobiles, text massages, what’s app, and everything. When people travel by an airplane for the first time, they express their experience by a status on any platform of social media, and we all know it. Today I live 1300 kilometer away from my home, and I video call to them every day but my grand pa is no more,  that is the saddest thing in my life.

LETTERS

   

There was a time when a letter used to be news in our village. Today when I see people video calling people living in a place miles away, I think if my grandfather was alive, how happy he would have been seeing me on a video call, and how happy I would be to call him!!! But the Almighty God gave us a time together when letter was the only communication.

Letters are of two types, 1. Formal &  2. Informal.  Informal letters deal in the letters between two friends, two relatives, parent and child, birthday cards etc. These types of letters are still alive on our examination answer sheets.  Formal letters also exist on the examination answer sheets and they are still alive everywhere from writing a letter to the editor of a news paper to the application for the renewal of your driving license or voter card. In this chapter today we are going to broadly discuss about all these things.

Letter Writing

Every educated man and woman should know how to write a letter that is clear on the topic the letter is. Every one often needs to communicate with those bodies existing before our existence that run through written communication. This written communication is letter. The art of letter writing is not merely an ornamental -accomplishment, it is rather a need of man’s life every day.

The forms of letters..

Letters are classified into two categories; 1. Informal or friendly letters & 2. Formal or business letters. Each of them has its own particular form. In these forms a few points are common; these points are being listed below.

a.      The heading that consists i. the writer’s address and ii. Date of writing the letter.

b.      The courteous greeting or salutation.

c.       The body of the letter.

d.      The subscription or courteous leave making.

e.      The signature.

f.        The subscription on the envelope.

THE HEADING

The heading informs the readers where the letter was written from and when, where portion gives the writer’s full postal address. However if the letter is written on a letter head on which the sender’s address details are already furnish, then there is no need to give the address again.

The position of heading is the top right corner of the first page of the letter. The address above and the date just below the address. However in modern letters, there is a growing tendency of writing the heading at the top left corner, and there is nothing wrong in it. Many School Boards, like CBSE in India prescribes to write the heading on the top left corner of the first page of the letter.

For example..

122B Rasbihari Avenue Gorabajar, Kolkata 07 12.12.2018

SALUTATION OR GREETING

Salutation or greeting depends upon the relation between the sender and receiver of the letter. To a family member or a friend a suitable salutation is ‘Dear father’, ‘My dear mummy’, ‘Dear Peter’ etc. To a business people like the editor of a news paper, officer in an office etc a suitable salutation is “Dear Sir’ or Dear madam’. However there is a growing tendency of using only ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’ without ‘Dear’ before it.

The position of the salutation is at the left hand at a lower level than the Heading.

122B Rasbihari Avenue Gorabajar, Kolkata 07 12.12.2018 My dear mummy,

BODY OF THE LETTER

The communication or body of the letter is of course the letter itself, and style in which it is written will depend upon the kind of the letter being written. The style of the letter written to an intimate friend will be very different from that of business letter or an official communication.

There are few things that apply all letters are listed below.

a.      Divide your letter (If it is not very short) into paragraphs, to mark changes of subject matter, etc.

b.      Use simple and direct language and short sentences. Don’t be eloquent and don’t drag in long words, phrases or clauses. Be clear on what you want to communicate, and communicate it as directly as possible.

c.       Be complete. It is not good to add postscripts at the end of a letter. Before you start writing the letter, take a minute to deeply think why you are writing and what you are writing and then write in a logical order.

d.      Write neatly, must not forget that your correspondent has to read what you write, and you should not give him unnecessary trouble with bad penmanship.

e.       Mind your punctuation, and put in commas and semicolons and full stops in their proper places. Incorrect punctuation may mess up the meaning of the letter.

The subscription or the courteous leave taking

A letter must not end abruptly, there should be a polite leave taking, such as yours sincerely, yours faithfully etc. In traditional method, leave taking phrase is written below the last word of the letter, towards the right side of the letter. But there is a growing tendency to place the leave taking on the left side. Must note that the first word o a leave taking phrase must begin with a capital letter.

THE SIGNATURE OR NAME OF THE WRITER

This must come below the subscription or leave taking phrase. Thus:

Yours sincerely

A K Singh

In letters to strangers, the signature should be clearly written, so that the reader may know whom to address in reply.

A woman should prefix to the name Miss or Mrs. In side a bracket. Ms can be used by a woman who doesn’t wish to be called as Miss or Mrs.

Such as in

Yours faithfully

(Mrs.) Jyoty Mukherjee

THE ADDRESS ON THE ENVELOPE

The address on the envelope should be written clearly, like this.

Postage Stamp                                                                                                            To                                                                                                            The Editor                                                                                                            Hindustan Times                                                                                                            22B Ratu road                                                                                                            Ranchi 56

In brief, to write a letter, first write your address and under it the date in the top right hand cornerof the first page. You may alternatively write them on the left.

Then write the salutation lower down at the left side of the page, beginning with a capitaland putting a comma after it.

Next begin your letter with a capital letter on the next lower line, to the write of the salutation.

At the end of the letter write the subscription, or words of leave taking at right/left side of the page, with your signature below it.

Please visit our next post ON Letter writing that we are going to post very soon. Please visit our website www.englishgrammartoday.com for regular English grammar updates. Have a good day.

Active and Passive voice details.

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOICE

ACTIVE voice: Ishan writes poetry.

Passive voice: Poetry is written by Ishan.

It can be seen that these two sentences express the same meaning. But in the sentence denoting active voice shows that the subject (Ishan here) does something.  The verb writes is said to be in active form. In the sentence in the passive form, the subject (poetry here) shows that it is not the doer of any action, but the action is done to it.

In brief, we can say that when in a sentence the subject does an action, it is in passive voice. In contrary, when an action in a sentence is received by the subject of the sentence, or the action is done to the subject of that sentence, it is in passive voice.

What is voice?

Voice is that form of the verb that shows whether the action in a sentence is done by the subject of the sentence or the action is done to the subject of the sentence.

What is active voice?

When in a sentence, the action is done by the subject of the sentence we call it to be in ACTIVE voice.

What is passive voice?

When in a sentence the action is done to the subject of it we call it to be in PASSIVE voice.

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Note the changes from active to passive voice in the following sentences.

i.                   Active: Rohon likes Rohini.

Passive: Rohini is liked by Rohon.

ii.                 Active: The old man is buying a walking stick.

Passive: A walking stick is being bought by the old man.

iii.              Active: Amber sold the amber.

Passive: The amber was sold by Ambar.

iv.               Active: The kingfisher was looking for a big fish.

Passive: A big fish was being searched by the king fisher.

v.                 Active: He will buy a car in a few months.

Passive: A car will be bought by him in a few days.

vi.               Active: Who broke this?

Passive: By whom was this broken?

vii.            Active: Why did Alice take such an absurd decision?

Passive: Why such an absurd decision was taken by Alice?

It is noteworthy that when the verb is changed from active to passive or passive to active, the subject becomes object and the object becomes subject while in each change.  Such as in the first sentence Rohon is the subject of the verb likes, and it converts into the object of the passive form of the verb is like, though both these sentences are maintaining the same meaning.

A thing that is highly noteworthy is that only those sentences having a transitive verb can be converted into passive form, because only transitive verbs have object that intransitive verbs don’t have. In theis context, you can watch the video given along with for further clarification.

Now proceeding further, I am going to give you a detailed account about the status of verb in various tenses or along with modal auxiliaries.

1.      simple present 

a.     Active:  Raju likes biking.

     Passive: Biking is liked by Raju.

b.     Actie: Raju dislikes me.

Passive: I am disliked by Raju.

c.      Active: Raju likes his Mona an Mohini.

Passive: Mona and Mohini are liked by Raju.

2.     Present continuous

a.     Active: The DJ is playing the sad songs.

Passive: Sad songs are being played by the DJ.

b.     Active: My Mummy is calling me.

Passive: I am being called by mu mummy.

c.      Active: Sneha is admiring Sarita.

Passive: Sarita is being admired by Sneha.

3.     Present perfect.

a.     Active: Rita has bought a plot of land.

Passive: A plot of land has been bought by Rita.

b.     Active: Neha has call all the villagers.

Passive: All the villagers have been called by Neha.

4.     Past Indefinite

a.     Active: The doctor declared him (as) fit.

Passive: He was declared (as) fit by the doctor.

5.     Past Continuous

a.     Active:  Radha was telling the truth.

Passive: The truth was being told by Radha.

Active: The principal was admiring the head boy and the head girl.

Passive: The head boy and the head girl were being praised by the principal.

6.     Past perfect

a.     Active: Nancy had take a good decision.

Passive: A good decision had been taken by Nancy.

7.     Simple future:

a.     Active:  He will meet the physician today.

Passive: The physician will be mate by him today.

8.     Can/may etc+base form of a transitive verb

a.     Active: I can buy a house.

Passive: A house can be bought by me.

b.     Active: He may spoil the whole thing.

Passive: The whole thing may be spoiled by him.

USE OF PASSIVE FORM OF VERB OR PASSIVE VOICE

It is a useful skill to know where to use the passive forms of verbs and where not. The content below is going to give you a good lesson on this topic. 

a.     The passive voice is used when the doer of the action is not important; such as in the sentence, “English is accepted as a global language.” By whom it is accepted is foolish to think about. Some more examples like this are:

i.                    Stars cannot be counted.

ii.                 Water cannot be mixed with oil.

iii.              The evil doers are condemned.

iv.               New technologies are being discovered.

v.                 Netaji Subhas is unforgotten.

b.     Sometimes the doer is vividly clear, such as in the sentence, “He was arrested”, because we know that the action of arresting somebody can be done by a policeman only and I am sure that you have never seen a teacher or a doctor or a tailor is arresting somebody. Some more examples in his context are:

i.                   A new medicine was invented.

ii.                 He was declareed as guilty.

iii.              The letter was delivered.

One more thing that I will like to let you know that when a verb take  two objects like in the sentence, “ My father gave me a pen.’, Here in this sentence the first object is ME and the second object is A Pen. You can change the voice of this sentence in two different ways.

a.     I was given a pen by my father and b. A pen was given to me by my father.

Try the same formula in the following sentences:

i.                   The admission department refused him admission in the eleventh standard.

ii.                 Mr. Sharma teaches us physics.

iii.              The postman gave Reena the letter.

iv.               He handed me a cheque of one million pound.

WE hope that this blog will be highly helpful to you. Please visit our website www.englishgrammartoday.com and our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTd9F8JCCux_VYta-xZJjkA?view_as=subscriber for regular English grammar updates.

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

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