CALL IDIOMAS
TEACHER: MATHEUS SILVEIRA CAVALCANTE
Once this is the first English written class, we will start with two basic topics:
1 – Personal pronouns;
2 – Verb to be;
Starting with personal pronouns. We all know that pronouns are used to substitute a
noun already said in a phrase and EVERY pronoun must have a clear antecedent, in other
words, the word which the pronoun will stand for.
For example:
João likes football and he is a very good player.
João and he are the same person, João is the “clear antecedent” and he is the
personal pronoun.
We can divide the personal pronouns in two kinds:
Singular
I – 1 person (the speaker, the person who
speaks)
st
Plural
st
We** - 1 person
You*** - 2nd person
You – 2nd person (the listener, the person
who the speaker is talking to)
They**** - 3rd person
He/She/It* – 3rd person (the persons who the
speaker is talking about)
* you can use he, she or it depending on the gender of the noun, he is used ONLY for male
persons, she is used ONLY for female persons and it is used ONLY for animals and objects; P.S.:
in the present simple the 3rd person on the singular is the only one that changes the verb, on
every other person the verb stays the same, but on the 3rd you have to add a “S” to the end of
the verb, e.g., the verb “to like” on a phrase on the 1st person is “I like pizza” on the 3rd person
it is “he likes pizza”.
** you can only use the personal pronoun “we” when there are more than one person and one
of those is the speaker, e.g., “I, you and him are going to the beach and we are having some
fun”.
*** you can only use the personal pronoun “you” when there are more than one person and
none of them is the speaker, but one of them is the listener, e.g., “you and him are going to
the park and you are having a great time”; P.S.: the personal pronoun “you” is the same on
singular and plural, to understand its meaning it is EXTREMELY important to know the noun(s)
which the pronoun is substituting.
**** you can only use the personal pronoun “they” when there are more than one person and
none of them is the speaker nor the listener, e.g., “she and him are going to the concert, but
they don’t like the band”.
Finishing the personal pronoun, we will start the “verb to be” part. Verb to be is one
of the most important verbs in English, first, because you can use it to describe a state or
location of a person or object (e.g. “I AM fine”, “you ARE sick”, “he IS at home”, “we ARE on
the beach), second, because it has the function of an auxiliary verb, and for the last, because of
the ‘special characteristic’ that this verb has.
The verb to be has a special characteristic which you don’t find in any other verb, it
changes for every personal pronoun:
Personal pronoun
I – 1st person, singular
You – 2nd person, singular
He/She/It – 3rd person, singular
We – 1st person, plural
You – 2nd person, plural
They – 3rd person, plural
Verb to be
+ AM (I’M) - AM NOT*
+ ARE (YOU’RE) - AREN’T
+ IS (HE/SHE/IT’S**) - ISN’T
+ ARE (WE’RE) - AREN’T
+ ARE (YOU’RE) - AREN’T
+ ARE (THEY’RE) - AREN’T
* the verb to be on the first person and on the negative form CAN NOT be contracted with the
negative interjection “not”, even though, you can find the form “ain’t” on the informal English
used on music or informal dialogues.
** be careful when using the contracted form of IS (‘s), because it can either mean possession
and “has” on the present perfect and present perfect continuous time.
As I said before, the verb to be is used as an auxiliary verb, which means, you can use
it to transform a phrase on the positive form to negative and/or to interrogative form:
For example:
+ You are the newcomer.
- You aren’t (are not) the newcomer.
? Are you the newcomer?*
* When you use the verb to be as an auxiliary meaning question, you HAVE TO put it before
the noun/pronoun; P.S.: when you make questions with WH-questions (what, who, when,
why, where…) the verb to be comes after the WH-question, e.g. “what IS your name?” NOT “IS
what your name?”
P.S.²: when using the interrogative on the negative form you can write (say) in two ways:
Contracted: “aren’t you the newcomer?”.
Or the “not-contracted” form: “ARE you NOT the newcomer?”, NEVER “are not you the
newcomer?”, the negative interjection comes always after the noun/pronoun.