A bus driver, a three-hour delay

  • B2 · Upper-intermediate
  • Grammar lesson
  • 60 min
  • compound nouns

Compound nouns: noun + noun (a bus driver, a ticket office) and number + noun before a noun (a three-hour delay, a two-day strike), with the singular first noun and the stress on the first word. The student reads a travel report about a train strike, chooses and builds compounds, fixes the usual mistakes, and tells the story of a trip that went wrong.

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a bus drivera three-hour delaya sports car

What's in the lesson

  1. 1Warm-up
  2. 2In this lesson
  3. 3Reading: the train strikeReading comprehension
  4. 4What does it mean?Grammar exercise
  5. 5Find number + nounGrammar exercise
  6. 6Compound nounsGrammar rule
  7. 7Which one is it?Grammar exercise
  8. 8Say it shorterGrammar exercise
  9. 9Find the mistakeGrammar exercise
  10. 10Questions for your teacherGrammar exercise
  11. 11Say it naturallySpeaking practice
  12. 12Travel troubleSpeaking practice
  13. 13About youGrammar exercise
  14. 14Wrap-up

Homework

  1. 1Homework: which is right?Grammar exercise
  2. 2Homework: find the mistakeGrammar exercise
  3. 3Homework: build the sentencesGrammar exercise
  4. 4Homework: a travel updateDiscussion

Two slides from the lesson

Warm-up

A few questions about you before we start.

  1. Have you ever been stuck somewhere because of a strike or bad weather? What happened?
  2. Do you prefer trains, buses or driving for a long trip? Why?
  3. What do you usually do when your train or bus is very late?

Grammar rule

Compound nouns

noun + noun

CompoundThe main thing (second)What the first noun says
a phone chargera chargerwhat for: for a phone
a farm workera workerwhere: on a farm
a horse race · a racehorsea race · a horsethe order changes the meaning
  • The first noun is usually singular, even when the meaning is plural: a flower shop (it sells flowers). A few keep an s: a sports car, a clothes store, a savings account.
  • A container and what is in it: a coffee cup (a cup for coffee) · a cup of coffee (a cup with coffee in it).
  • The plural goes on the second noun: two apple trees (not apples trees).
  • Stress the first noun: a PHONE charger, a POST office.
  • Spelling: some are one word (a bedroom, a toothbrush), most are two (a phone charger), and a few have a hyphen (a T-shirt). New ones are usually two words; check a dictionary.

number + noun before a noun

Before a noun: hyphen, no sAfter a verb: no hyphen, plural
a twenty-mile runThe run was twenty miles long.
a forty-page reportThe report is forty pages long.
a hundred-year-old houseThe house is a hundred years old.

Before a noun, the number + noun works like an adjective, and adjectives have no plural. The number and the main noun are both stressed: a FORty-page rePORT.

Watch out

a forty-pages report → a forty-page report · My car is ten-year-old → ten years old · apples trees → apple trees · a charger phone → a phone charger

Teach it live with video and a whiteboard, or print it: the PDF has every slide, the homework and the answers.

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