Liebe Gäste und Interessenten,
hiermit erhalten Sie die aktuelle Ausgabe unseres
Newsletter Telekolleg MultiMedial.
*Quick Lerncheck
*Programmvorschau
*Begleitbücher zu den Sendungen
 
Allgemeine Informationen     
Quick-Lerncheck Englisch   
 
Dear Telekolleg Students,
The weather we’re having is really wonderful. However, before you go out and enjoy the sun, I would like to talk about some structures which have not played a role in the homework but which are very important for understanding English texts. In English we call them PARTICIPLE CONSTRUCTIONS, but the German expression: VERKÜRZTE NEBENSÄTZE is, in my opinion, much clearer – because these constructions help us to shorten ‘relative clauses’ (Nebensätze) or other parts of sentences. We can see a few good examples in some of the last Arbeitsbogen: “These and many other plans DRAWN up by car manufacturers … are part of a larger project CALLED the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) (lines 7 – 10). In lines 6 - 7 we can find another example of a ‘participle construction’: “They will also be able to direct the driver to a specific destination, FORESEEING traffic jams on the way…” In the first example, the author of the text ‘Why go anywhere?’ has left out ‘which has been’ and ‘which is called’: “These and many other plans (which have been) DRAWN up by car manufacturers … are part of a larger project (which is) CALLED the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). In our second example he could have written (hätte schreiben können): “They will also be able to direct the driver to a specific destination and foresee traffic jams on the way…” However, his formulation sounds more elegant in English. Don’t worry – at the end of this letter everything will be clear! Let’s take one of the most common ‘shortened relative clauses’:

The man DRINKING his soup in the restaurant is very angry.
“Waiter,” he shouts. “There’s a fly SWIMMING in my soup!!”
“That’s great!” says the waiter. “That means that spring is coming!”

Instead of ‘the man drinking his soup…’, we could say the man w h o is drinking his soup…We have shortened the relative clause. In the next line there is also a ‘verkürzter Nebensatz’. Instead of saying: ‘There’s a fly w h i c h is swimming in my soup !!’
The angry man said: ‘There’s a fly s w i m m i n g in my soup.’

In the next sentence you can see another example of the shortened relative clause which we talked about at the beginning of this letter:

A clock is a thing USED to wake up people who haven’t got young children.

Here there is another ‘verkürzter Nebensatz’: We could write the sentence like this:

A clock is a thing w h i c h i s u s e d to wake up people who haven’t got young children.

When we say ‘a thing used’, we save two whole words (very important if we are rushing to get the train in the morning!)

In the next sentence there is another example of the second ‘participle construction’ which we
looked at in the first paragraph:

Brunhilde lay in the bath s i n g i n g ‘God Save the Queen’

Here we save the word ‘and’ ( Brunhilde lay in the bath a n d s a n g ‘God Save the Queen’).. These three constructions are the most important participle constructions, but there is a fourth participle construction which you will perhaps see in texts:

Having wonderful teachers in Telekolleg, we are well prepared for our exams.
This is a short way of saying: As (Because) we have wonderful teachers …
Being very considerate (rucksichtsvoll), Mary took the cigarette out of her mouth before she kissed her boyfriend.
This is also a short way of saying: As she was very considerate…

Dear Telekolleg students, don’t worry – if you don’t wish to use these constructions yourself, this is not important. However, you can see them in many texts, so it is important to r e c o g n i z e them and know what they mean To help you, here are a few jokes. All of them have got participle constructions. See if you can recognize them and replace them with relative clauses, or a phrase with ‘and’. You’ll find the answers at the end of this letter.

1. A woman telephoned the Post Office.
“You must come quickly,” she said.
“What’s the problem, Madam.”
“ There’s a postman hanging from a branch on a tree in my garden and making my dog angry.”

2. Tom’s sister has got her brother a birthday present.
“This is a watch made for people working under water,” she explains.
“Oh, thank you, but why did you buy me that?” Tom asks.
“Well,” says his sister,” I thought you could wear the watch while you’re doing the washing up!”

3. A policeman sees a car driven by a dog. He stops the car and says to the young man sitting
next to the dog: “ Are you mad?! You mustn’t let your dog drive your car!”
The young man replies: “But it isn’t my car and it isn’t my dog – I’m only a
Hitchhiker (Anhalter)”

4. What’s black, white and noisy?
Answer: A zebra playing the drums (Trommel)

5. “The aeroplanes used by this company are so old that they’ve got outside toilets.”

6. “Dad,” says Christine, “I had a strange dream. I dreamed that you had lost a $ 5 bank note
and I found it .”
“Well,” says her father, “being so honest you can keep the $ 5”

7. At the athletics competition:
“Who do you think will win the race ?”
“That man wearing the red tie is sure to win.”
“Red tie?! That’s his tongue!”

8. George walks up to a crowd of people standing in a queue in a bank.
“Hey!” he shouts. “Has anyone lost a roll of twenty pound bank notes held
together with a rubber band?”
“Yes, I have!” one man in the queue shouts out.
“No, it’s mine,” a woman shouts out.
“ I’m sorry, but that money must be mine,” says a third person.
“Well,” says George, “I’ve just found the rubber band.”

Well, that’s all for today, dear Telekolleg students. See you next time!
Best wishes,

Bernard Brown

P.S. The ‘long forms’ of the participle constructions in the jokes are
1) a postman who is hanging … and who is making …