Our concern ... is to be aware of Time and to show how we use time signals to tell "when" things happen.

13 - When: simple Time control (PSE)

Welcome, all time-travelers, please fasten your seat belt. We have come to a point in time that we should try to look, listen and speak with time signals.

Time signals are (audio-visual) signs to tell us 'when' things happen.

We know about "Now" or the Present. We knew about things that happened in the Past. And some of us will know about things that are going to happen in the Future.
Can you see 'time signals'?

Why do we have to give time signals?

When we drive on a big road with many lanes, by law, we need to give a signal when we change lane or when we turn into another road. Other drivers can read the signal and adjust their cars so that we do not crash into each other.

We give time signals when we speak English for similar reasons. We give time signals to tell people "when" or the time of the things we talk about. Time signals help to make clear when things happen.

We have learned (by playing 'add a spice') to say about things happen in simple Present time. We don't give any time signal, when we speak about things in simple Present time. (Drivers don't give signals when they stay in their present lane, do they?)

When we speak about what happened in 'the simple Past' we add อึด or อิด (in writing 'ed' or just 'd') to the end of the main 'verbs' word. For examples:

    I walked (วอวลคิ่ด) to school yesterday.
    She loved (ลัฟวึด) me last week.
    He spied (สปายอึด) on her this morning.
   
But we know there are many 'verbs' words in English that change more with time signals. These 'verbs' words are called "irregular verbs" in English grammar books. We will find them and learn to give 'correct' time signals with them. For examples:

    She went to the city last month.
    A red bottle 'fell' down and 'broke' into pieces last night.
    We spoke to them yesterday. We thought they understood.
    He read (เรด) it twice before he wrote the essay.
   
Can we find more examples? Please do (find more).

Sometimes, we talk about what we know 'have happened' but 'we don't know when' or 'we don't want to say when'. We give time signals like this:

    The children 'have gone' to school.
    He 'has left' already.
    We 'have won' the game.

The time signals for simple "Future" are "will", "shall", "is going to" and "is about to".
Can we pick a few pairs of words, one from the 'nouns' box and another from the 'verbs' box then with each pair of words construct a simple sentence with a simple Future time signal?

We will try these

  worker, protest (Workers will protest.)
  river, flow
  bus, leave
  train, arrive

Can we construct simple Present sentences and simple Past sentences from the pairs of words above?

We will talk about more complex time signals later.
Yes, there are more "time signals" to use in more complex situations. There are even "tricky" time signals for "tricky" times.

Our concern in this session is to be aware of Time and to show how we use time signals to tell "when" things happen.


[Dear Teachers,

The details of exceptions (or irregular verbs) are good to know. But, it seems best to remember those exceptions we use more often rather than to remember all exceptions in our PSE sessions.

When we were young, somehow we learned that sometimes we talked about things that happened before (the time we talk about those things) and sometimes we talked about things that have not happened yet (at the time we talk about those things). How did we learn to tell "when"?

We heard:

  ไปไหนมา ('Where' did you 'go' before you 'came' here?)
  ไปล้าดจ่ายของ (I 'went' to 'market' and 'bought things'.)

In Thai we say about what happened in the past without any time signals. We understand 'when' by context (or being in the situation). 

what can we tell about 'what happens and when' from:

  วันนี้ รอปู่มารับ รถปู่เสีย กลับบ้านไม่ได้
  ถอดเทปนายกฯตอบคำถามนักข่าว (*Naewna.com: news 19/11/2011)

Talking about Time enough times may make us more aware of Time in our talks. Good English is about time control. Even Plain and Simple English is full of time-signals.

We have learned to omit time signals in Thai. Now, we must learn to add time signals in English (and Pali, Sanskrit, French, Spanish, Deutch, Russian,...).

To use English correctly, we must master Time signals. ]