IELTS Preparation Series 1, Episode 21: Watching birds
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Hello, I'm Margot Politis. Welcome to Study English, IELTS preparation.
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Today we're going to look at the continuous tense, and then we're going to practice some
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sentence stress.
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Our clip today is of a birdwatcher named Margaret. A birdwatcher is someone who loves watching
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and listening to birds.
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Let's start by listening to Margaret talk about watching birds.
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Some people think it's a bit of a strange pleasure, but you know, it's always interesting.
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It's interesting to see what they're doing. You know, we saw them sheltering under the
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banks as we came round and so on, and they have to live in it, so why shouldn't we?
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What I'm doing is looking to see what's outside this hide because I'm doing a sheet for the
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'Bird Atlas' of a radius of 500 metres from here to see all the species that are in it.
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I use my binoculars and I'm using a telescope, and I use my ears because I was recording
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birds by call as I walked down the track here - wrens and little grass birds and stuff.
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In fact, if you do a lot of bird watching in the bush, you do a lot by call.
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A day like today's not much good, but normally you do a lot by call, and the idea is to make
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sure you get all the species that are here in the area that you're surveying.
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Margaret is talking about the time she spends watching birds.
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When describing actions that happen for a continuous period of time, we need to use
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a continuous tense. In English, there are several continuous tenses.
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Continuous tenses are formed by using the verb 'to be' plus the present participle,
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the 'ing' form of the verb.
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Today we're going to look at the present and past continuous tenses.
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Let's begin with the present continuous tense.
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The present continuous tense describes things that are in progress.
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Listen to Margaret again and see if you can hear some examples of the present continuous
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tense.
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What I'm doing is looking to see what's outside this hide because I'm doing a sheet for the
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'Bird Atlas' of a radius of 500 metres from here to see all the species that are in it.
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I use my binoculars and I'm using a telescope.
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Margaret uses the phrases 'I'm doing' and 'I'm using' to describe things that are happening
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now.
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We can use the present continuous tense in 3 ways.
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Firstly, we use it to describe actions that are happening now.
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For example, Margaret says, "I'm using a telescope".
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We also use this tense to refer to actions that are happening soon. This is the future
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aspect.
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Thirdly, the continuous tense can describe actions that are happening simultaneously,
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or at the same time.
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In this case, the continuous tense follows the words 'when', 'while' or 'as'.
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Listen to the following sentences and see if you can identify which of these three rules
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is being used.
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"I'm going bird watching today. What are you doing?"
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This is an example of 'rule 2'. Here, we use the present continuous tense to talk about
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things that are happening soon.
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"The birds are singing while they are flying."
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This is an example of rule 3, because we are describing two things that are happening at
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the same time - 'singing' and 'flying'.
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It's a good idea to practice recognising these.
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But now, let's take a look at the past continuous tense.
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And I use my ears because I was recording birds by call as I walked down the track here