sábado, 26 de janeiro de 2008

Abso - freaking - lutely!

What are your plans for the weekend?

a. I'm meeting some friends for a few beers.

b. I'm watching TV.

The use of present continuous for future is a tricky. Both of the answers above are present continuous but b. sounds a bit odd. That's because we generally use present continuous when it's arranged with someone or formally scheduled; you wouldn't normally put "watch TV" in your dairy as a reminder, but perhaps "flight 14.00" would be, even if it's not physically written down, it's scheduled, so "I'm leaving at 2 o'clock" would be okay. How about then: "I'm watching TV with some friends, the rugby final is on", nah, still sounds odd, we'd probably say, "I'm meeting some friends to watch the rugby final on TV". So it would depend on the verb, perhaps I could say "verbs of scheduled things: meet, go, have (lunch etc.), leave...

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
ABSOLUTELY! : Definitely, completely, unquestionably. In English we take it as meaning yes, unless otherwise stated.
Is this something we should do?
Absolutely!
(meaning definitely YES )
OR Absolutely NOT!

In Portuguese it can be taken as NO unless otherwise stated!
Is this something we should do?
Absolutely! (meaning definitely NOT)

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