Reading activity

...According to my guide, there are lots of things to do in Saigon, I

am going to spend only two days there, so I will choose only a few
places to visit. Let's see, the Reunification Palace is a must, well then
I will visit it first. After that I will visit the old Post Office. I am going
to do a tour to the Mekong Delta, so I will look for a booking tour
office recommended in the guide....this seems to be nice, it is beside
the post office and the guide says a local music band is playing a
concert on Mondays just opposite the office. ..that's cool! The perfect
place to have lunch is in the restaurant in the corner with traditional
Vietnamese food and cheap prices...um if I finished with the tour
booking on time, I would eat there. Well let's go on reading...Cholon
is a jewellery box of interesting Chinese style temples, if you spend
more than one day in the city, go there...., in the afternoon, and if
I'm not tired I will have a walk around'.
'Wow...look at all the activities that can be done in this city: bowling,
cooking courses, massages...if I had decided to spend more days
here, I would have done some of them, surely...well it isn't worth
regretting now. I think the planning is already closed...'
Identify the different future tenses appearing in the text
above. Colour them in red.

Read the passage again and identify the different functions of

the future tenses appearing on it. Write them below.
IMPORTANT: Remember the three tenses used above to indicate
future are used for different functions.

Write at least five predictions about how a big city will be in the
22nd century using the will future.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Read the passage again and identify the conditional sentences

and their type. Write them below.

Reading activity
On the way to Pham Ngu Lao in Central Saigon, where Paco's hotel is,
he realizes that this city is really chaotic. Motorbikes, bikes,
rickshaws....bustling everywhere...he wonders: 'Will I have chosen
my destination properly?'
He has been on a taxi for about twenty minutes now and he is
trapped in a traffic jam. He asks the taxi driver:
Paco: Is this usual?
Taxi driver: Yes, it is, sir. But this is because of the president, he is
coming to the city at 11.00. How long are you going to stay
here?
Paco: For two or three days.
Taxi driver: I hope you enjoy your time here, I know a good
restaurant, I will take you there.
Paco: No, thanks. I will have a rest first....
One hour later the president has already passed and the traffic jam is
dissolved. Paco arrives at the Blue Dragon Hotel and feels exhausted.
He pays for the taxi and goes straight to the reception desk. After
greeting the receptionist, doing the check in and receiving his room
key, he tells the receptionist:
Paco: I feel very tired and need a rest; but first, have you got some
touristic brochures of the city? I'm planning to go to the Reunification
Palace this evening.
Receptionist: Here you are, sir. Shall we give you a wake up call at 4
o'clock?
Paco thinks: At this time I will have been sleeping for three
hours....That's OK.
Receptionist: One last thing, sir, Will you give me your passport,
please?

Paco: Of course, here you have.

Receptionist: Thanks, sir. Bye.
Paco: Bye.
So, Paco is now lying on his bed and reading a brochure about the
city but falls asleep in a minute.
Match the future tenses used in the text with their forms
Future tense

Form

Future perfect
Present Continuous for future
Going to future
Will future
Future perfect continuous
You have studied five tenses to indicate future (six with the
future continuous)....
Could you transform this will future sentence, Paco will visit
Saigon, into the other future tenses forms studied?

As you can see for every future tense there is usually a time
adverbial or expression accompanying it which differentiates
its use.
Can you join the following future tenses with the time
adverbial clause which best fits in every case?
Next Friday at eleven o'clock

Paco will have visited Saigon.

For three days at that time

Paco is visiting Saigon.

When the Monsoon has already finished

Paco is going to visit Saigon.

Next summer

Paco will have been visiting Saigon.

In those days

Paco will be visiting Saigon.

The quiet American.

Pyle said solemnly: 'A man becomes trustworthy when you trust him'.
It sounded like a Caodaist maxim. I began to feel the air of
Tanyinwas too ethical for me to breath.
-'Have a drink?', Pyle said.
-'There is nothing I'd like better'.
-'I brought a thermos of lime juice with me'. He leant over and busied
himself with a basket in the back.
-'Any gin?'
-'No, I'm awfully sorry. You know', he said encouragingly, 'lime juice
is very good for you in this climate, it contains-I'm not sure which
vitamins'. He held out a cup to me and drank.
-'Anyway it's wet', I said.
-'Like a sandwich? They're really awfully good. A new sandwich
spread called Vit-Health. My mother sent it from the States'.
-'No, thanks. I'm not hungry'.
-'It tastes rather like Russian salad-only sort of drier'.
-'I don't think I will'.
-'You don't mind if I do?'
-'No, no of course not'.
In the passage above appears a zero conditional sentence.
Identify it and rewrite it correctly since it appears in colloquial
language.

Read the passage again.

There are also three offers in colloquial style. Rewrite them
making use of the modal verb would.

'Don't you mind if I do?' is a zero conditional in the negativeinterrogative form.

Rewrite the conditional above in the other two conditional
types of sentences studied in the topic.

Reading Activity

Hanoi is about 200 kilometres now. Paco has moved to Halong Bay
and he is sitting on a deck looking into the emerald waters of the
bay, waiting for the junk to come for a boat trip around the bay.
There are lots of people everywhere waiting for the ships. Paco has
planned to go on a cruise and sleep in the junk for one night and
spend the next one in Cat Ba island. Although the landscape is
wonderful, he is a little bit sad.
Finally Phuong accompanied him to the theatre and they had fun with
the performance. After that they were having a walk around the lake
and having dinner in the French Quarter....definitely he has fallen in
love with her but now, here he is lost in his thoughts...
'I would have liked Phuong to be here. I could have told her to come
with me, although she must work these days but her colleague might
have changed her turns, well there is nothing to be done now. If I
had spent some more days in Hanoi, we would have had more time
to know each other. But now it's too late to regret. Hopefully I will
call her later to chat with her, at about six she may have finished
work. Oh! this one must be my ship'.
In the text above there are some sentences containing modal
perfect verb forms. Can you identify them and complete the
following chart?

SUBJECT

MODAL PERFECT

PAST PARTICIPLE

COMPLEMENTS

There is a third type conditional sentence in the text...

Identify it and rewrite it in the other three types of conditional
sentences (zero, first and second type) studied in the unit.

Exercise

Paco regrets not having told Phuong to go with him to Halong Bay,
when he says: 'If I had spent some more days in Hanoi, we
would have had more time to know each other'
Could you finish the previous conditional in a different way? If I had
spent some more days in Hanoi...

Reading Activity

Here Paco is, comfortably seated in a modern train towards Hong

Kong Island with three French planning what to do in the next three
days in this crowded town...
While the French are speaking in their native language, Paco is
attentive to the signs in the train. He finds one of them especially
difficult to translate. It says: 'Were you to take the ferry, you
would have to buy the ticket before at the ticket office in the
harbour'. Just at that moment he hears from the train speakers
something that he cannot understand very well, either: '...next
station Kowloon town, should you travel to China, get off the
train here'.
Then Eric interrupts:
Eric: We can lodge in a Hostel around Causeway Bay, where I stayed
last time I was here. We could book two twin rooms provided that
there were any vacancies.
Paco: It's OK for me.
Marie: Oui, this is a very good area from which to explore the city.
We can walk around unless it rains a lot because the weather forecast
predicts heavy rain in the evening.
Brigitte: Don't worry about the rain. As long as it rains we can travel
by tram, there is an excellent tram network in this city.

Eric: I know, you are always so lazy to walk!

Identify the conditional sentences (not inverted) appearing in
the text and analyse them completing the chart below:
Main clause

Conjunction

Subordinate clause

Self-Assessment activity
Read the sentences below and fill in the missing conjunctions.

You won't finish the race

you like it
an invitation.

you control your effort.

you won't get in without
it rains we can travel by tram.

We could book two twin rooms

vacancies.

there were any

In the text above there are two inversions for conditionals.

They have got a special structure.
Order the following inversions paying attention to the cases
appearing in the text:
1. Hongkong-to-get-to-visa-to-a-would-were-you-get-have-youtravel

2. Take-peak-you-tram-to-should-up-the-go-take.