I think the woman is a centenarian or about over 100 years old. In my opinion, she is famous for her long lifespan.
(Tôi nghĩ rằng người phụ nữ là một trăm tuổi hoặc khoảng hơn 100 tuổi. Theo tôi, bà ấy nổi tiếng vì tuổi thọ cao.)
I think the woman is a centenarian or about over 100 years old. In my opinion, she is famous for her long lifespan.
(Tôi nghĩ rằng người phụ nữ là một trăm tuổi hoặc khoảng hơn 100 tuổi. Theo tôi, bà ấy nổi tiếng vì tuổi thọ cao.)
Complete the text with the past simple, past continuous or past perfect form of the verbs below.
be | be | become | die | get | leave |
live | meet | not stop | retire | say | work |
Japan is the country with the most centenarians: over 50,000. It is also where Jiroemon Kimura, the man with the longest lifespan ever, 1____________born in 1897. Kimura 2____________school at fourteen and 3____________ a job in a post office. While he 4 ____________there, he 5____________his future wife Yae. He 6____________a postal worker for 45 years when he 7____________in 1962. But he 8____________working! He 9____________a farmer! In an interview just before he 10____________at the age of 116, he said he wasn’t sure why he 11____________so long. ‘Maybe it's thanks to the sun,’ he 12____________. ‘I'm always looking up to the sky.’
Read the text and check your ideas.
Jeanne Calment, the person with the longest lifespan ever, was born in 1875, in Arles, France. Her parents ran a shop in the town and she worked there when she was a teenager. While she was serving in the shop in 1888, she met Vincent Van Gogh, who has come in to buy pencils. She thought he was ‘dirty, ugly and badly dressed’!
In 1896, at the age of 21, she married Fernand Calment and then gave birth to a daughter, Yvonne. Fernand was very wealthy, so Jeanne never needed to work. She lived in Arles for the rest of her life, dying on 5 August 1997 at the age of 122.
So how did Jeanne manage to live so long? The French have their own theories, noting that she ate more than two pounds of chocolate a week and rode a bicycle until she was 100!
Complete this sentence in three different ways using the three tenses in the Learn this! box. Use the verb learn. How does the meaning change?
When Tom left school, he_________/ _________ / _________ to drive.
Complete the Learn this! box with the tenses below. Then underline an example of each of the rules (a-d) in the text in exercise 2.
past continuous past perfect past simple
LEARN THIS! Past tenses. a. We use the 1_____________ for a sequence of events that happened one after another. In 1989, my parents met, fell in love and got married. b. We use the 2_____________to describe a scene in the past. The events were in progress at the same time. It was raining and people were rushing home from work. c. We use the 3_____________for a single event that interrupted a longer event in the past. We use the 4_____________for the longer event. My parents got engaged while they were living in Wales. d. We use the 5_____________for an event that happened before another event in the past. He had started a business before he left school. |
Complete the sentences with the correct past simple, past continuous or past perfect form of the verbs in brackets.
1. We ____________ (move) house a lot while I____________ (grow up).
2. After Joe ____________ (learn) to drive, he___________ (buy) a car.
3. George ____________ (leave) school, ____________ (go) to university and____________ (study) engineering.
4. My parents ____________ (get) engaged in 1990.
5. They ____________ (fall) in love two years before, while they ____________ (work) in London.
SPEAKING Tell the class about a real or inventive person from a previous generation (e.g. A parent / grandparent). Use the headings below and make use of past tenses.
Born when / where? Education? Job? Married? Family? Moved? Other interesting facts?