Grammar ~19 min of the core left

Say where you are from

After this lesson you can

I can say which country I am from and what my nationality is, and ask someone else the same.

Start the lesson Core 17–19 min · steps: 6 · optional: +2

Declared core time. Two of the core blocks carry no figure at all, so the real lesson is longer than this sum.

Grammar

3 min

1. be in the third person: is.

he is from Spain one man
she is from Italy one woman
it is a big city a thing, an animal or a place
we are from Poland me and other people
they are students other people or things

Short forms: he's, she's, it's, we're, they're. Questions use the same change of word order: Is he from Spain?, Are they students? This completes the verb be in the present tense — all six forms.

2. a and an before a singular noun. a goes before a consonant sound, an before a vowel sound: a city, a student, an island, an engineer.

Three examples:

  • She is from Japan. She is a student.
  • Is he from France? — No, he is from Germany.
  • It is an old city.

Country names take no article — from Brazil, from Japan. There are few exceptions; learn the two main ones as whole phrases: the USA, the UK. Why they have the — lesson 14.

This is… is the formula for introducing someone; learn it as a whole: This is Ben. The words this / that / these / those as a system — lesson 14.

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Common learner errors

written for your language
1

Nationalities and languages take a capital letter

✗ I am brazilian

✓ I am Brazilian

Many languages write them with a small letter (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Polish), and many scripts have no capital letters at all (Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese), so this error is very persistent.

2

A question about where someone is from needs be and the preposition at the end

✗ Where you from?

✗ From where are you?

✓ Where are you from?

The first comes from languages with no "to be" in the present; the second from languages that put the preposition first (Spanish ¿De dónde eres?, Portuguese De onde você é?).

Pronunciation

3 min

The sound /h/ is just breathing out. The tongue does nothing; the air goes out freely: hello, here, Holland, Hungary.

Stress in country names has to be learnt by heart.

On the first syllable On the second syllable
Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland Japan, Brazil, Peru
written for your language

In some languages h is a rough sound at the back of the mouth (Spanish j, German ch, Arabic, Polish), while English /h/ is pure breath; the difference is heard at once. In others h is silent (French, Italian, Portuguese), and learners drop it: hello → "ello". And stress: Polish says Ja-PO-ni-a, English says Japan.

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Text

3 min

Hello. I'm Marta. I'm from Poland. This is Ben. He is from the UK. He is a student. And this is Yuki. She is from Japan. Tokyo is a big city. It is very big.

Reading aloud

Exercises

8–10 min

1. Gap fill.

  1. He from Spain
  2. I from Brazil
  3. she a student?
  4. It a big city
Show the answers
is, am, Is, is.

2. Gap fill.

  1. city
  2. island
  3. student
  4. old house
Show the answers
a, an, a, an.

3. Matching.

  1. Brazil
  2. Spain
  3. Italy
  4. Japan
  5. Germany
Show the answers
Brazil → Brazilian, Spain → Spanish, Italy → Italian, Japan → Japanese, Germany → German.

4. Word order.

  1. [ from / where / you / are / ? ]
  2. [ is / she / Italy / from ]
Show the answers
Where are you from? She is from Italy.
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Summary

Covered

  • is
  • the article a/an
  • names of countries and nationalities
  • the question Where are you from?

Next — lesson 3: age and phone number.

End of the core

The lesson counts as done once the exercises are done. Everything after this is optional.

Lesson 3

optional

Vocabulary for your deck

12 words
  • country /ˈkʌntri/ a land with its own government: Brazil, Japan
  • city /ˈsɪti/ a big town
  • from /frɒm/, weak /frəm/ shows the place where someone started: I'm from…
  • Brazil — Brazilian /brəˈzɪl/ — /brəˈzɪliən/ a country in South America — from Brazil
  • Spain — Spanish /speɪn/ — /ˈspænɪʃ/ a country in Europe — from Spain; its language
  • Italy — Italian /ˈɪtəli/ — /ɪˈtæliən/ a country in Europe — from Italy; its language
  • Germany — German /ˈdʒɜːməni/ — /ˈdʒɜːmən/ a country in Europe — from Germany; its language
  • Japan — Japanese /dʒəˈpæn/ — /ˌdʒæpəˈniːz/ a country in Asia — from Japan; its language
  • China — Chinese /ˈtʃaɪnə/ — /ˌtʃaɪˈniːz/ a country in Asia — from China; its language
  • student /ˈstjuːdnt/ a person who studies at a university or college
  • here /hɪə/ in this place
  • big /bɪɡ/ large, not small

Writing

Four sentences: who you are, where you are from, your nationality, where you are now.

Example

Hello. I'm Anna. I'm from Brazil. I'm Brazilian.

Checklist

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Practise this lesson in the other sections

Dictationbased on this lesson Write down what you hear. The check shows every word that differs, and how. Write the dictation Reading aloudbased on this lesson Read the lesson text aloud — speech recognition highlights the words it did not catch. Read the text aloud Reading and listeningA1–C1 Texts at every level with comprehension questions; the transcript opens after you answer. Try it

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