Count your question marks
Both listeners’ lines. Count the question marks on each and write the two numbers at the top. Then list every word that got a stress note.
Almost everybody has fewer question marks in round two and more stress notes, because the second telling is faster.
Six pairs. Match each correct sentence to the version it is usually produced as.
Two minutes of a real transcript
Transcribed exactly, errors and all
So I got to the gate and the plane already left. I didn’t know that they rebooked everybody in the afternoon.
I had gone to the transfer desk and I had waited and I had asked the woman and she had told me about the machine. By that point I was standing there for an hour.
Last year I had missed a connection in Paris as well, so it was not the first time. They gave no informaTION and there was no availaBIliTY on anything.
Four questions about the transcript. Notice that it goes wrong in both directions.
1. Paragraph one leaves the tense out twice. What is lost?
2. Paragraph two uses it four times in a row. What is wrong?
3. Last year I had missed a connection in Paris. Why is that wrong?
4. The same speaker under-uses it in paragraph one and over-uses it in paragraph two. What does that show?
Five families
An honest finding, and it is different from the present perfect. Portuguese has a pluperfect. The concept is not foreign to you at all.
What transfers is a habit: in spoken Portuguese the simple past very often does the pluperfect’s job, because the full form sounds bookish. So the tense is under-used for years — and then, in the week after it is taught, over-used everywhere.
Both directions are the same missing thing: the test. Earlier than what? If there is no answer, take it out. If there is one and the tense is not there, put it in.
The five families, and what fixes each
| Family | Looks like | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Missing | Ask earlier than what? — than arriving. Mark it | |
| No anchor | Nothing to be earlier than. Use the past simple | |
| Wrong clause | The realising is later. Swap them | |
| Stacked | One had opens it; the rest move forward | |
| Duration missed | had been waiting — a stretch already run | |
| Stress | The suffix decides. One stress per word |
The transcript from the input, repaired. One to four words per gap.
So I got to the gate and the plane . I did not know that they everybody that afternoon. I to the transfer desk, waited, and asked the woman, and she me about the machine. By that point I there for an hour. Last year I a connection in Paris as well, so it was not the first time.
Eight sentences, at least one from each family. Fix each and name the family.
1. By the time we got to the hotel, they gave our room away.
2. In 2019 I had travelled to Peru.
3. I had noticed that my bag was gone.
4. We had arrived and we had checked in and we had gone straight out.
5. When she called, I was sleeping for three hours.
6. They had never seen snow before that winter.
7. He said he already booked it.
8. There was no availaBIliTY and no informaTION.
Both directions, at speed
Ten sentences from five-minute turns. Eight have one error; two are correct.
1. When we got to the platform, the train already went.
2. I had been queueing for ninety minutes when they called my name.
3. Last summer I had gone to Croatia with my brother.
4. She told me the agency had closed in June.
5. I had opened the door and I had seen the mess and I had shouted.
6. I had understood that somebody made a mistake.
7. By the time the bus came, we waited two hours.
8. They gave us no compenSAtion at all.
9. The desk closed at ten and we arrived at ten past, so they had told us to come back.
10. He said he never flew before.
Four sentences have been removed. Put each back where its layer belongs.
The ferry terminal at Igoumenitsa was almost empty when we got there at eleven at night. [1] One booth was open and a man in it was doing a crossword.
The last sailing had gone at nine. [2] We had bought the tickets in March and neither of us had looked at them since.
[3] She had been driving since two in the afternoon, and I had promised to take over at the border and had then fallen asleep.
We slept in the car. [4] I have checked departure times the night before, every single trip, ever since.
One to four words per gap. Ask earlier than what? every time.
The queue at the consulate round the corner and it since about six. By the time the doors opened I there for three hours. A man near the front said the office its hours the previous month and nobody the website. Somebody at the back loudly that he from Braga at four in the morning.
Be the editor
Task card · Pairs · Editing then speaking
Your partner’s line from Lesson 5, with its question marks, and their stress list. You are their editor.
Take three question marks and two stress notes, and fix all five out loud.
- For each question mark, ask earlier than what? and rebuild the sentence with the answer in it.
- At least one of your three must go the other way — a had that should not be there.
- For each stress note, name the rule before you say the word.
- Then have your partner say all five back at speed.
Then, ninety seconds each. Retell only the part of the story where the line broke. Your partner draws that section of the timeline again.
Retelling one section rather than the whole story is what makes the improvement measurable in a single lesson.
Both directions
Four sentences. Two leave it out, two put it in too often. Fix each and say which.
1. When I checked, the shop closed an hour before.
2. In March I had flown to Berlin for a wedding.
3. By the time she rang, I was asleep for two hours.
4. I had got up and I had made coffee and I had gone out.
One question, one suffix
Three questions.
1. Why is this tense under-used and then over-used, rather than simply confused?
2. Yesterday I had lost my keys. What is wrong?
3. Where does the stress fall in availability?
Before next lesson. Write your travel story out in full. Beside every had clause, write what it is earlier than. Beside every word over three syllables, mark the stressed one.
Bring it on paper. Next lesson you cut it to 240 words, and every had has to survive the question.