Quelques révisions grammaticales…

 

Le prétérite simple  sert à décrire une action appartenant au passé et est brève.

Le prétérite progressif sert à décrire une action du passé qui a une certaine durée.

J’étais en train de me noyer lorsque Spiderman est venu me sauver = I was drowning when Spiderman came to save me.

 

Prétérite ou Present perfect?

Le prétérite raconte un événement passé et révolu. Il y a une date qui ancre l’événement dans le passé.

Le present perfect raconte un événement non daté qui a encore des conséquences sur le présent.

Il y a une semaine, un tremblement de terre a touché NYC = A week ago an earthquake hit NYC.

 

Was / were

Was s’emploie au singulier

Were s’emploie au pluriel

I was – You were – He/she/it was – We were – They were.

 

A lot of / lots of = beaucoup de

Much / many = beaucoup

Much + indénombrable

Many + dénombrable

Much anxiety = beaucoup d’anxiété.

Many actions = beaucoup d’actions.

 

It is = c’est ….

It was = c’était…

 

They are = ils sont

There are = il y a (there is = il y a)

There is a man in the street.

There are people in the street.

 

Pour + verbe à l’infinitif = To + verb

Pour me sauver, Spiderman a grimpé 18 étages = To save me, Spiderman climbed 18 floors.

 

Exprime la possibilité ou la capacité

Can (présent) / Could (passé ou hypothétique)

I can swim = je sais nager / je peux nager

I could swim = je savais nager / je pouvais nager

 

Il y a une semaine = one week ago

Il y a un mois = one month ago

Il y a une heure = one hour ago

Il y a un siècle = a century ago

 

Article défini « the »

Devant un nom singulier que je veux définir

Pas d’article au pluriel et devant les concepts

Les gens dans la rue étaient effrayés = The people in the street were scared.

Des gens dans la rue couraient dans tous les sens. Ø People in the street were running everywhere.

Ils éprouvaient de la peur = they felt Ø fear

 

Who / which / that

Who se réfère à une personne

That et Which se referent à un objet.

The man who saved me was Spiderman.

The thing that / which I saw in the sky was a plane…

 

-S à la 3ème personne du singulier au présent simple.

 

« tout le monde » = everybody, all the people,  all persons

1- Where does this article come from?

This is an article taken from Time Magazine and published on February 21st 2013.

2- What is the journalist trying to convince us of?

The journalist is trying to convince us that Superman deserves more respect and we should start regarding him as a true superhero.

3- How old is the character of Superman?

Superman has turned 76 in 2014.

4- Who / what is his greatest enemy?

His greatest enemy isn’t Lex Luthor, Bizarro, or Brainiac as everybody thinks but something much more common: a lack of respect.

5- What image do we have of Superman?

We have an image of a poor guy who is rejected because he is boring, out of touch, or just stupid. He has even sometimes been mistaken for a plane or a bird!

6- The journalist aims at showing how a great (the greatest?) superhero superman is? What does he say about this fact? (develop and give details)

On the contrary, Superman is the ultimate superhero. He has everything a superhero needs to be successful: he has a brightly-colored costume, super-powers (even awesome ones) and he longs to do the right thing, even at the cost of his life, and above all, he never gives up; And he has always been a flexible character throughout the years: “Superman is the alpha and omega of superheroes; the template for the modern superhero, and illustrative of the extremes to which the concept can be idealized”.

7- When was Superman originally created? By whom? Why?

Superman was created by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel in 1933 in response to

“Depression-era fears of runaway scientific advance and soulless industrialism”.