Have you ever tried to explain Ramadan to someone but you just don't have the words?
Well today I'm going to give you the vocabulary some expressions and
the grammar you'll need to explain Ramadan to everyone!
Let's start with some important times of the day
In the morning when the sun goes up we call that:
"Sunrise", or "Dawn"
When the sun goes down, we can call it "Sunset"
Not so commonly "Sundown", or "Dusk"
So maybe in your explanation you need to explain at what times things happen
The next important words that you might need is this:
When you do this. When you talk to God or say something special to God
That is when you:
Pray
"Pray" is a verb, and it's a regular verb
So in the past, it's just "Prayed"
What's the noun of "Pray"?
The noun is: "Prayer"
The pronunciation, be very careful "Prayer"
Repeat it with me if you want to: "Prayer"
You can use the verb "to say"
"To say" a prayer
Remembering of course that it is a countable noun
and you say one of them- one of them? many of them? I don't know
"Say a prayer"
That's the expression
When you want to say that you don't eat any food for a length of time:
This is when you:
"Fast". Again it's a regular verb
So "Fast", "Fasted", "Fasted"
So maybe you want to talk about how long you fast for
Or from when in the day until when in the day
One word which I guess is important to Ramadan is this one:
When you can follow rules then you have...
"Discipline"
That is a noun, it can be a verb but we'll use it as a noun in this case
"To have discipline", that's the expression
Now be careful, "Discipline" is an uncountable noun
So we don't say "Have A discipline"
No
You HAVE discipline - You can follow the rules
Or you DON'T HAVE discipline - you can't follow the rules and you're a bad child
Now when you really really want food you can say:
That you are "hungry" now that's the ordinary adjective
But if you want to say you're very very hungry, you can say that you are...
"Starving"
This is the extreme version of "hungry"
Pronunciation:
Now be careful:
"To starve" literally means you're dying of hunger
Which is awful and it's terrible
But English people are a little bit ridiculous and we like to exaggerate everything
For example if it's raining, we will say "I'm dying!"
and if you're more than a little bit hungry we will say "I'm starving"
Yeah we're ridiculous, I know
So in english culture, it's perfectly acceptable to say "I am starving"
It doesn't mean it literally, but that's what we say
The next expression is this:
"To take something for granted"
Now this has a few meanings
But in this context, it means that you are not grateful for something
Or you undervalue it, you don't appreciate the true value of something
Or you assume that it's always going to be there
Basically it just means that you're not showing your appreciation for something
For example:
Maybe she does all the cleaning in the house, and all day he just plays xbox
He never says thank you, NOTHING!
He's very ungrateful
In this case she can say
"He takes me for granted"
Now some grammar you might need to be careful with is "During" and "While"
Let me explain the difference
What is the difference between "During" and "While"?
Well they both mean "in the middle of an event"
Or at the same time an event is happening
But this is how we use them:
"During" has to have a noun afterwards
So for example: In this situation we could say during...
"During dinner". 'Dinner' is a noun, we can say "during dinner"
Can I say "while dinner"? Nope!
I would have to use a situation with a subject, for example:
"While I was eating dinner"
So we want to add some more information to this
In the middle of dinner, something happened!
What happened?
"In the middle of dinner, Aly arrived"
Okay so we could say: "During dinner, Aly arrived"
It flows better to say "Aly arrived during dinner"
But in writing, yeah you could say "During dinner, Aly arrived"
With "While": "While I was eating dinner, Aly arrived"
or "Aly arrived while I was eating dinner"
So now you have the vocabulary the expressions
and the grammar that you need to explain how Ramadan works to all your non-muslim friends
So here's your challenge:
In the comments, explain to me:
How does Ramadan work?
I'll try and correct your writing in the comments, and I'll see you in the next class