Desert Island

On Thursday we talked about what items would be useful if we were stranded on a desert island. There was lots and lots of discussion and even some disagreements. I thought everyone did a great job. I especially thank Ahn Seung-jin, Sang-jun, and Eu-ji for their help in explaining the situation.

One set of words that caused a bit of confusion was choice/choose/chose. Please remember that choice is a noun. Choose is the verb and chose is the past tense of the verb. So, we would say:

I chose a piano because there are many parts of the piano that can be used.
Our first choice was a bottle of soju because an island might be lonely.
I really do not know which item to choose.

Another error that we talked about was the use of the word stuff. We would mostly use this word as an uncountable noun. So, not many stuffs, but a lot of stuff, or many things.

A word that is often confused is die. We might say, “If you don’t drink water you will die.”
Also remember that if we are talking about the past we would not say, “My dog was dead,” but we would say, “My dog died.” My dog was dead = it was dead for a little while but now it is alive and OK.

One thing that I noticed some students having problems with was agreeing and disagreeing. I am sure that we will have many chances to practice these things in this course. Here are some examples of what I heard and a better way to say each idea.

I don’t agree umbrella. >>> I don’t agree with the choice of umbrella.
I think so matches. >>> I think matches would be a good idea.

In addition to the possible items there were many other words that came up in class. They are:

compass I need to use the compass to find north.

salt water The water from the ocean is salt water, we need to think about fresh water.

turbulence I get very scared when I experience turbulence.

charcoal Charcoal can be very useful when making a fire.

label One group suggested peeling the label off a soju bottle and making a note.

spear Mike suggested that we could make a spear with a knife and a long stick.

magnifying glass The detective always carried his magnifying glass.

matches Some people prefer matches to a lighter.

So, very good job. Have a great weekend and remember this class if you ever have such a situation.

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