English Year 7: Routines and plans: talking and writing about your days
English, Year 7 (Portugal): The present simple with frequency adverbs for habits, and be going to for plans: two tools to talk about your week.
Two questions, two tools
To talk about your week you answer two questions. What do you do regularly? Use the present simple with a frequency adverb: “I usually get up at seven.” What are you going to do? Use be going to + verb: “I'm going to visit my grandma.” Always, usually, often, sometimes and never say how often; tomorrow and next weekend say when.
Why these two tools come first
Routines and plans are what people ask each other first: “What do you do after school?” “What are you going to do this weekend?” They are also the everyday themes of this year: school and leisure activities, habits, daily life and plans. With just these two tools you can describe most of a normal week, in a chat, in a message to a pen friend or in a short talk.
A case: from notes to a paragraph
Notes: wake up 7:30 · walk to school · football on Tuesday · Saturday: grandma. Step 1, routine: “I usually wake up at 7:30. I always walk to school.” The adverb goes before the verb. Step 2, a habit with a day: “On Tuesdays I play football.” Step 3, a plan: “This Saturday I'm going to visit my grandma.” Three steps, three sentences: you have a short paragraph about your week.
“I go always to school”: the word-order trap
In Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian or German you can put “always” after the verb, so a word-for-word translation gives “I go always to school”, which sounds wrong in English. There the frequency adverb goes before the main verb: “I always go to school.” After the verb be it goes after: “She is always late.” Check the third person too: “He usually plays”, “She never walks”, not “He usually play”.
Where you see it
You use these tools when a classmate asks about your weekend, when you fill in a profile for a school exchange, and when you write to a pen friend: “I usually play video games on Fridays. Next month I'm going to visit my cousins.” You also hear them when a teacher asks “What do you usually do in the holidays?” Whenever someone talks about their life, routines and plans come mixed together.
Test what you learned
Which sentence talks about a plan for the future?
- a) I always play football on Tuesdays.
- b) I'm going to visit my grandma on Saturday.
- c) I visited my grandma last Saturday.
- d) My grandma lives in Porto.
Correct answer: b) I'm going to visit my grandma on Saturday. — Right: be going to + verb talks about a plan, and “on Saturday” says when.
Your notes say: “Tuesday: football. Saturday: visit grandma.” Which sentence completes the text “On Tuesdays I play football. This Saturday …”?
- a) I visit going my grandma.
- b) I going to visit my grandma.
- c) I'm going to visit my grandma.
- d) I'm go to visit my grandma.
Correct answer: c) I'm going to visit my grandma. — Correct: “This Saturday” is a future time, so a plan; then I'm going to + the base verb visit.
Which sentence puts the frequency adverb in the right place?
- a) I always go to school by bus.
- b) I go always to school by bus.
- c) I go to school always by bus.
- d) Always I go to school by bus.
Correct answer: a) I always go to school by bus. — Right: the frequency adverb goes before the main verb (always go).
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