Time expressions with reported speech

Wildlife of India

Imagen: PERIPTUS. (2008). Nelumbo nucifera in Australia. Wikimedia commons.

Instructions: Read the text. Look at the words in bold.

Last week, the Biology teacher told us India lies within the Indomalaya ecozone and contains three biodiversity hotspots. One of 17 megadiverse countries, it hosts 8.6 of all mammalian 13.7% of all avian, 7.9% of all reptilian, 6% of all amphibian, 12.2% of all pisicine, and 6.0% of all flowering plant species. About 21.2% of the country’s landmass is covered by forests, of which 12.2% comprises moderately or very dense forests. Endemism is high among plants, 33%, and among ecoregions such as the shola forests. Habitat ranges from the tropical rainforest of the Andaman Islands, Western Ghats, and North-East India to the coniferous forest of the Himalaya. Between these extremes lie the moist deciduous sal forest of Eastern India; the dry deciduous teak forest of central and southern India; and the babul-dominated thorn forest of the central Deccan and western Gangetic plain. The medicinal neem, widely used in rural Indian herbal remedies, is a key Indian tree. The luxuriant pipal fig tree, shown on the seals of Mohenjo-daro, shaded Gautama Buddha as he sought enlightenment.

India. (NA). Wikipedia. Retreived on January 18, 2019 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India

Getting started: Indian species

Instructions: Read the text. Then do the activity suggested.

Many Indian species descend from taxa originating in Gondwana, from which the Indian plate separated more than 105 million years Before Present. Peninsular India's subsequent movement towards and collision with the Laurasian landmass set off a mass exchange of species. Epochal volcanism and climatic changes 20 million years ago forced a mass extinction. Mammals then entered India from Asia through two zoogeographical passes flanking the rising Himalaya. Thus, while 45.8% of reptiles and 55.8% of amphibians are endemic, only 12.6% of mammals and 4.5% of birds are. Among them are the Nilgiri leaf monkey and Beddome's toad of the Western Ghats. India contains 172 IUCN-designated threatened animal species, or 2.9% of endangered forms. These include the Asiatic lion, the Bengal tiger, the snow leopard and the Indian white-rumped vulture, which, by ingesting the carrion of diclofenac-laced cattle, nearly became extinct.

India. Retrieved and adapted May, 2017 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India

A mass exchange of species

Instructions: Match the direct sentences with their indirect sentences.

They reminded people the Indian plate separated from Gondwana more than 105 million years Before present.They told us Epochal volcanism and climatic changes 20 million years ago forced a mass extinction. They finally said Mammals entered India from Asia through two zoogeographical passes flanking the rising Himalaya. Scientists said many Indian species descended from taxa originating in Gondwana.They said peninsular India’s subsequent movement towards and collision with the Laurasian landmass set off a mass exchange of species.

1. Many Indian species descend from taxa originating in Gondwana. _______________

2. The Indian plate separated from Gondwana more than 105 million years Before present. _______________

3. Peninsular India’s subsequent movement towards and collision with the Laurasian landmass set off a mass exchange of species. _______________

4. Epochal volcanism and climatic changes 20 million years ago forced a mass extinction. _______________

5. Mammals then entered India from Asia through two zoogeographical passes flanking the rising Himalaya. _______________

Let’s study time expressions with reported speech.

Instructions: Please read about time expressions with reported speech.

When we change direct speech into reported speech we sometimes have to change time expressions too. It depends on when we heard the direct speech and when we say the reported speech.

For example:

It's Monday. The teacher says "I'm leaving today".

If we tell someone on Monday, we say "The teacher said he was leaving today".
If we tell someone on Tuesday, we say "The teacher said he was leaving yesterday".
If we tell someone on Wednesday, we say "The teacher said he was leaving on Monday".
If we tell someone a month later, we say "The teacher said he was leaving that day".

Look at some possible conversions:

now	then / at that time
today	yesterday / that day / Tuesday / the 21^st of July
yesterday	the day before yesterday / the day before / Sunday / the 10^th of November
last night	the night before, Saturday night
last week	the week before / the previous week
tomorrow	today / the next day / the following day / Wednesday

Quiz

Religion in India

Instructions: Drag and drop the time expressions in the appropriate gaps of the next paragraph.

since ancient timesin ancient times in the pasta long time agofor a long time

They said India had been an important part of three major world religions -Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam _______________. Buddhism had begun in India and had spread to other places in Asia _______________.

They also said Islam had come into India from West Asia. The origins of Hinduism were less clear, but were certainly related to the arrival from West Asia _______________. They also said we didn’t know very much about the earliest Indian religion, of the Harappa people, but certainly it had been polytheistic _______________. Based on the art of that time, some people thought the later Hindu gods had been already worshipped _______________.

Quiz

Ideology and India

Instructions: Drag and drop the following time expressions into the appropriate blanks.

on Monday Last weekfor years

_______________, Law Minister Salman Khurshid has insisted that his statements to The Indian Express on the “rudderless” nature of the Congress party have been “misinterpreted”. On the contrary, it appears that they were more than clear enough, and that they accurately reflect the views of a large and growing section of those within the ruling party _______________. Mr Khurshid, speaking of the Congress _______________, said that “we need a new ideology to be given by our next-generation leader Rahul Gandhi to move forward”, and that, so far, the Congress had seen only “cameos of his thought and ideas”. He is quite right that Mr Gandhi, a general secretary of the party and widely viewed as its next leader, has been too reticent about his opinions and suggestions on specific policy proposals. However, the larger drift of his argument appears to be both mistaken and misdirected, not “misinterpreted”.

Evaluation

Bengal Tiger

Instructions: Fill in the gaps with the appropriate time expressions from the box.

20^th century 100 yearsOver many centuriesone nightat one time

In a recent report, they said tigers are the largest members of the cat family and are renowned for their power and strength.

They said there were eight tiger subspecies , but three became extinct during the . Over the last , hunting and forest destruction have reduced tiger populations from hundreds of thousands of animals to perhaps fewer than 2,500. Tigers are hunted as trophies, and also for body parts that are used in traditional Chinese medicine. All five remaining tiger subspecies are endangered, and many protection programs are in place.

Bengal tigers live in India and are sometimes called Indian tigers. They are the most common tiger and number about half of all wild tigers.

they have become an important part of Indian tradition and lore.

They said tigers live alone and aggressively scent-mark large territories to keep their rivals away. They are powerful nocturnal hunters that travel many miles to find buffalo, deer, wild pigs, and other large mammals. Tigers use their distinctive coats as camouflage (no two have exactly the same stripes). They lie in wait and creep close enough to attack their victims with a quick spring and a fatal pounce. A hungry tiger can eat as much as 60 pounds (27 kilograms) in , though they usually eat less.

It was also said that despite their fearsome reputation, most tigers avoid humans; however, a few do become dangerous maneaters. These animals are often sick and unable to hunt normally, or live in an area where their traditional prey has vanished.

Females give birth to litters of two to six cubs, which they raise with little or no help from the male. Cubs cannot hunt until they are 18 months old and remain with their mothers for two to three years, when they disperse to find their own territory.