Language Focus: Using Negatives (not, no, never, hardly ever)

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En provenance du cours de University of Pennsylvania

English for Media Literacy

570 notes

University of Pennsylvania

English for Media Literacy

570 notes

Welcome to English for Media Literacy, a course created by the University of Pennsylvania, and funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs. To enroll in this course for free, click on “Enroll now” and then select "Full Course. No certificate." This course is designed for non-native English speakers who are interested in learning more about U.S. media literacy. In this course, you will explore different types of mass media, such as newspapers, magazines, television, and social media. This course will also give you the opportunity to develop a broader understanding of the role media plays in our lives, while building your vocabulary and giving you the language skills needed to analyze what you read and watch. The first unit in this course will provide an introduction to media literacy and give you an opportunity to evaluate your own media literacy level. In unit 2, you will learn how to identify facts versus opinions in the media. The next unit in the course will focus on the differences between social media and traditional media, while unit 4 will look at how gender and identity are covered in the media. In the final unit of the course, you will demonstrate your increased media literacy by through a culminating final project on social media. Development of this course was funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Office of English Language Programs. Unless otherwise noted, all course materials are available for re-use, repurposing and free distribution under a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution license.

À partir de la leçon

Diversity and the Media

In this unit, we will learn about the importance of including people from various races, cultures, and genders in mainstream media.

What is Diversity?4:00

Why is it Important for the Media to be Diverse?3:34

Unlockable Achievement 90:09

Language Focus: Using Negatives (not, no, never, hardly ever)5:27

Rencontrer les enseignants

Lauren Fiori
Advising Specialist
English Lan
Ian Nichols
Language Specialist
English Language Programs

Hello.

In this video, we're going to discuss using negatives.

Words such as not, don't, and no.

Using negatives correctly will help you to talk about what's true and

what isn't true.

There are many ways to use negatives in English.

We'll discuss using negatives with verbs, and negatives that tell how often.

The most common way to use negatives is with verbs.

A verb is a word that tells an action or a state of being.

For example, wear, see, and

walk are all verbs because they're all actions or things you can do.

Be is a verb too.

It isn't an action but it tells us about the state of something

like in this sentence, Ying is hungry, or Kali is a doctor.

Before we can use a negative with the verb,

we need to make sure that there's also a helping verb in the sentence.

A helping verb, also known as an auxiliary verb,

is a word that works together with a verb to describe the action in a sentence.

Helping verbs include do, have, can, and some others.

We use helping verbs to say things like,

we have seen that movie, or Marta can walk to work.

Those sentences have helping verbs, so

we can add a negative to change the meaning of the verb.

Put the word not in between the helping verb and the verb.

That gives us, we have not seen that movie, and Marta cannot walk to work.

Notice that when we add not after can, we get one word, cannot.

Helping verbs and the word not are often combined to form contractions, or

words made by combining other words and leaving out some letters.

The sentences we just made can use contractions like these.

We haven't seen that movie, and Marta can't walk to work.

Those sentences already had helping verbs, so it was easy to add a negative.

But lots of sentences don't have helping verbs such as,

Ying made dinner for his parents, and Kali bought a book.

Remember, we can't add a negative to a sentence unless it has a helping verb.

So if we want to add a negative to sentences like this,

we must first follow two steps.

First, add the helping verb "do" in front of the verb.

Second, add "not" between the helping verb and the verb.

Following these steps leads to, Ying did not make dinner for

his parent, and Kali did not buy a book.

Notice that we changed the helping verb, do to did.

That's because we're talking about something that happened in the past, so

we use the past tense form of the helping verb.

These rules will help us use negatives with most verbs.

However, there is an important exception.

If the sentence's verb is be and there's no helping verb like in these sentences,

Ying's parents are hungry, or Kali is a doctor.

If be is the verb in a sentence and there's no helping verb,

then we add not after the verb, like this,

Ying's parents are not hungry, and Kali is not a doctor.

Like we've already practiced, we can make contractions with the verb, be and not.

Ying's parents aren't hungry, and Kali isn't a doctor.

Now, let's talk about negatives that tell how often something happens.

We'll talk about never, which means zero times,

and hardly ever, which means very and frequently or rarely.

We can use these negatives with or without helping verbs, so

we can take both of these sentences.

Kang has worn glasses, and Kang wears glasses.

And add negatives that tell how often.

These negatives, never or hardly ever, go right in front of the verb.

So now, we get, Kang has never worn glasses,

or Kang has hardly ever worn glasses.

And Kang never wears glasses, or Kang hardly ever wears glasses.

To summarize, we've talked about using negatives with verbs and

using negatives that tell how often.

Next, we'll play a game to practice using negatives correctly.

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