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Writing Letters
Writing Letters

How to use gerunds and infinitives

Date: Nov 19 2010

Themes: Friend, Hobbies

Grammar: Gerunds vs. Infinitives

Intro

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These days, when it comes to communication, faster is better. We love email and text messaging because they let us send messages quickly. But they can also feel impersonal.

Getting a text message from a loved one isn’t the same as hearing his or her voice on the phone. And an email just isn’t the same as opening your mailbox to find an envelope filled with a hand-written letter from someone you care about. Can a love-email possibly be as romantic as a love letter? Hear Amy and Jeff discuss the lost art of letter-writing.

Dialog

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Amy

Amy

Jeff

Jeff

Amy:  Do you write a lot of letters, Jeff?

Jeff:  I can’t say the last time I wrote a letter. I wrote a fake love letter to a co-worker one time as a joke. That was probably about a year and a half ago.

Amy:  Did you actually send it, like through the snail mail and everything, address it, put postage on it?

Jeff:  No. I was the mail carrier. I just carried it over and left it on his desk. Yeah, I mean, it seems to be kind of a dying form of communication.

Amy:  I know, it does, and I…I wish that I wrote more letters. I have one friend who, we exchange a letter maybe every other month or something. And I do feel like we say things to each other in letter that we don’t say in any other form. Like somehow there’s something about it that feels more intimate, I think.

Jeff:  Yeah, seeing somebody’s handwriting is much more personal, it’s their…kind of their style of doing things. I really like that. I don’t know, it’s almost like a piece of art.

Amy:  Do you have letters from when you were younger and people wrote letters more?

Jeff:  Oh yeah. I keep all those.

 

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Lesson MP3

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Discussion

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The last time Jeff wrote a letter, it was a fake love letter that he wrote as a joke. He didn’t actually send it through the mail. He just walked it over to his co-worker’s desk and left it there.

Amy exchanges letters occasionally with one friend. She and Jeff agree that letter-writing is becoming a lost-art. But there is something they like about writing real letters, rather than emails. Jeff likes seeing people’s handwriting. He and Amy think that letters are more personal than other forms of communication.

Do you write a lot of letters? Do you like to get real letters in the mail?

 

Comments

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tiger_bagira

Greece

done

08:47 PM Nov 20 2010 |

mesho_sho

mesho_sho

Egypt

it is very good thank you

05:01 PM Nov 20 2010 |

soufian_01

soufian_01

United Kingdom

we live in speed age we haven't time to write a letter and send it, just SMS or e-mail i think due to technology we feel lost and that's too bad i feel pity for sure a letter is more comfortable and relaxing !!!

08:54 AM Nov 20 2010 |

dearpesar

dearpesar

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

for sure handwritting letter sends emotinal feelingsKiss

04:40 AM Nov 20 2010 |

sam.xu

sam.xu

China

Long time I have not write letters,expect in college,hehe

12:02 AM Nov 20 2010 |

Vinni Lima

Vinni Lima

Brazil

I don't write letters often anymore, but I used to do that when I were in love or something like this, could be to a friend as well .

I think writing letters is an excellent way to know a people better, more than writing e-mails because when we write letters, it seems  that we put our feelings in it! 

11:59 PM Nov 19 2010 |

sara H

Saudi Arabia

i think witing lettrs help you to feel more about the person who send aletter to you but it maybe lost

11:37 PM Nov 19 2010 |

MUHAMMAD92

MUHAMMAD92

Saudi Arabia

i like to write letters and more ilike to get letters from friends

06:22 PM Nov 19 2010 |

thecrazybuffalo

Viet Nam

oh!!! writing letters !!! This is my dream! I would like to correspond with a friend who is in the other country!!!!!!!! But I haven't done it  :(

03:12 PM Nov 19 2010 |

andee1

andee1

China

yeah i wrote lots of letters when i was in university with my pen friends. i stil reserve them till now.

03:06 PM Nov 19 2010 |

caeserramos

Brazil

Well, talking about writting letters i prefer to use in computer not like a pen, because its more practical, than the people sometimes lose the way how to write very well. Think in about it, write a love letters to others using paper and pens, its older but its good.

03:05 PM Nov 19 2010 |

afufu

China

When I was a freshman in college, I wrote lots of letters to my girlfriend. She was not in the same city. Letters were the bridge connected us. Then we broke up. where were no letters anymore.

Nowdays, everybody has his/her own cellphone. If you want to communicate  someone, just make a call.

E-mails are also a very convenient way to communicate. I send e-mails to my colleagues who are abroad.

02:27 PM Nov 19 2010 |

spacedragon

Brazil

i dont usually write letters or get them  but i think for lovers a letter-writing is more romantic and interesting than an email ,i'd like to send or receive a letter-writing from someone very special ;d

01:44 PM Nov 19 2010 |

Amar pandey

India

 I can remember it very well, then I might have been 5 year old. There was not a single person in my locality who could write even a simple letter. When my Grand Maa had to have letter written, she used to call My maternal uncal. He used to come by travaling 10 Km, only to wirte letter for my grand maa which was sent to my father  residing 750 Km away from my home. Letter used to take almost a month to get to its destination. That time we used to pass by our post office on the way to school, and used to inquire to post man if there was any letter that destined to us. whenever we got a letter, our happiness crossed every limit.

I think I have written too much. Now You can well figure out how close it is to me.

Thanks

09:26 AM Nov 19 2010 |

artful_lady

Ukraine

When I was young, I fall in love with my friend. And this feeling proved to be mutual.

We lived in different towns, so we started to write letters. 

I keep it till now. Sometimes I read It. So nice and cute to see these peaces of paper… It means a lot to me. It was a great time. =)

09:14 AM Nov 19 2010 |

hermitlady

China

oh yeah, writing letters with pen is dying form of communication. I had wrote many many letters by pen when i was a student.

08:17 AM Nov 19 2010 |

hermitlady

China

I like writing letters with pen ,not keyboard.

08:14 AM Nov 19 2010 |

koxa

koxa

Ukraine

During my working day I send and receive a lot of e-mails so it's become for me so usually that I really forgot what it is a snail mail. In present times people as well as surrounding environment are developing rapidly, technologies have reached the highest peak so it's better to communicate with people by e-mail and when it comes to close relationships it's better to send a hand-writting letter.  

05:58 AM Nov 19 2010 |

happysmilesunny

China

Actually, I often like to write e-mails, because it's just like requirements in this society. For my opinion, I 'd more likely to get the real letter from the foreigners, that's looks, good,

07:06 AM Nov 18 2010 |

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