Mercury & the Woodman

A poor Woodman was cutting down a tree near the edge of a deep pool in the forest. It was late in the day and the Woodman was tired. He had been working since sunrise and his strokes were not so sure as they had been early that morning. Thus it happened that the axe slipped and flew out of his hands into the pool.

The Woodman was in despair. The axe was all he possessed with which to make a living, and he had not money enough to buy a new one. As he stood wringing his hands and weeping, the god Mercury suddenly appeared and asked what the trouble was. The Woodman told what had happened, and straightway the kind Mercury dived into the pool. When he came up again he held a wonderful golden axe.

"Is this your axe?" Mercury asked the Woodman.

"No," answered the honest Woodman, "that is not my axe."

Mercury laid the golden axe on the bank and sprang back into the pool. This time he brought up an axe of silver, but the Woodman declared again that his axe was just an ordinary one with a wooden handle.

Mercury dived down for the third time, and when he came up again he had the very axe that had been lost.

The poor Woodman was very glad that his axe had been found and could not thank the kind god enough. Mercury was greatly pleased with the Woodman's honesty.

"I admire your honesty," he said, "and as a reward you may have all three axes, the gold and the silver as well as your own."

The happy Woodman returned to his home with his treasures, and soon the story of his good fortune was known to everybody in the village. Now there were several Woodmen in the village who believed that they could easily win the same good fortune. They hurried out into the woods, one here, one there, and hiding their axes in the bushes, pretended they had lost them. Then they wept and wailed and called on Mercury to help them.

And indeed, Mercury did appear, first to this one, then to that. To each one he showed an axe of gold, and each one eagerly claimed it to be the one he had lost. But Mercury did not give them the golden axe. Oh no! Instead he gave them each a hard whack over the head with it and sent them home. And when they returned next day to look for their own axes, they were nowhere to be found.

Honesty is the best policy.

The Astrologer

A man who lived a long time ago believed that he could read the future in the stars. He called himself an Astrologer, and spent his time at night gazing at the sky.

One evening he was walking along the open road outside the village. His eyes were fixed on the stars. He thought he saw there that the end of the world was at hand, when all at once, down he went into a hole full of mud and water.

There he stood up to his ears, in the muddy water, and madly clawing at the slippery sides of the hole in his effort to climb out.

His cries for help soon brought the villagers running. As they pulled him out of the mud, one of them said:

"You pretend to read the future in the stars, and yet you fail to see what is at your feet! This may teach you to pay more attention to what is right in front of you, and let the future take care of itself."

"What use is it," said another, "to read the stars, when you can't see what's right here on the earth?"

Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves.

The Spendthrift & the Swallow

A young fellow, who was very popular among his boon companions as a good spender, quickly wasted his fortune trying to live up to his reputation. Then one fine day in early spring he found himself with not a penny left, and no property save the clothes he wore.

He was to meet some jolly young men that morning, and he was at his wits' end how to get enough money to keep up appearances. Just then a Swallow flew by, twittering merrily, and the young man, thinking summer had come, hastened off to a clothes dealer, to whom he sold all the clothes he wore down to his very tunic.

A few days later a change in weather brought a severe frost; and the poor swallow and that foolish young man in his light tunic, and with his arms and knees bare, could scarcely keep life in their shivering bodies.

One swallow does not make a summer.

Te dashur studente,

Ne mesimin e meposhtem kam deshire te perseritim bashke disa njohuri te mesuara rreth kohes Simple Present Tense ne gjuhen angleze.
Rishikoni me kujdes mesimin edhe jeni te lutur te zhvilloni ushtrimet e tij per ti diskutuar se bashku ne oren e dites se djele.

fm 

3  Present Simple (1) (I know,I don’t know) 

1 We form the Present Simple like this: 

POSITIVE
Singular	I know.
	You know.
	He/she/it knows.
Plural	We know.
	You know.
	They know.

I know the answer. 

She starts work at 9.30. 

We add -s after he/she/it: 

I start→ he starts                             I live→ she lives 

If a verb ends in –ch ,-o ,-sh , or  -ss , we add –es after he/she/it: 

I watch→he watches	You do→he does
They go→it goes	We wash→she washes

If a verb ends in a consonant (b,c,d etc.) + y (e.g.study) , we use –ies after he/she/it: 

I study→he studies                          I fly→it flies 

2 Now look at these examples of the negative: 

I don’t like that music. 

He doesn’t listen to his teacher. 

NEGATIVE
Full form	Short form
I do not know.	I don’t know.
You do not know.	You don’t know.
He/she/it
does not know.	He doesn’t know.
We do not know.	We don’t know.
You do not know.	You don’t know.
They do not know.	They don’t know.

  

Note that we say: 

He does not know.  (Not He does not knows.) 

3 We use the Present Simple: 

• To talk about things that happen regularly: 

Monday  Tuesday  Wensday 

He plays golf every day. 

• To talk about facts: 

She comes from France. (=She is French.) 

Greengrocers sell vegetables. 

I don’t speak Chinese. 

___________________________________________________________________ 

Practice 

A   Add  -s  or  -es  to the verbs in the sentences if it is necessary. If it is not necessary,put a (                ) in the gap. 

0. He works_______ in a bank. 

1. They live  [Symbol]____  in  France. 

2. I watch _________TV every day. 

3. She go________ to work by car. 

4. The film finish ________  at ten o’clock. 

5. We play _________tennis every weekend. 

6. They go_______ on holiday in August. 

7. He speak__________ Italian and French. 

8. She do____________ her homework every night. 

9. We start __________work at 8:30. 

B  Now finish these sentences using a verb from the box. Use each verb once. Remember to add  -s  or  -es  if necessary. 

Fly	Study	Finish	Eat
Sell	Smoke	Drink	Live

  

0. He eats toast for breakfast. 

1. I ________coffee three times a day. 

2. My father ____________ a new language every year. 

3. She__________ to New York once a month. 

4. He ___________ cigarettes a day. 

5. They ______ in Ireland. 

6. He ____________ work at six o’clock. 

7. I _________ fruit in a shop. 

C   Write these sentences, using the negative form of Present Simple. 

1. (He/not/live/in Mexico)→   He doesn’t live in Mexico. 

2. (She/not/work/in a bank)→  _________________________________ 

3. (I/not/play/golf) → __________________________________________ 

4. (Paul/not/listen/to the radio)  →  ____________________________ 

5. (We/not/speak/French)→____________________________________ 

6. (You/not/listen/to me!)→_____________________________________ 

7. (My car/not/work)→__________________________________________ 

8. (I/not/drink/tea)→____________________________________________ 

9. (Sheila/not/eat/meat)→_______________________________________ 

10. (I/not/understand/you)→_____________________________________ 

D  Put in the verbs from the box, in the Present Simple. Use each verb once. 

Leave	Start	Arrive	Get	Watch	Work	Brush
Eat	Have	Like	Drink	Go	Stop

Interviewer:	How do you start day, Jim?
Jim:	Well, I get up at six o’clock. I get washed and dressed, and I ____ breakfast at seven o’clock. After breakfast, I ______ my teeth. I ___to work at eight o’clock.
Interviewer:	When do you get to work?
Jim:	I usually _______ at my office at about half past eight. First, I ______ a cup of coffee, and then I ______ work at 8.45 am.
Interviewer:	Where do you work?
Jim:	I _____ in a bank. I am a computer operator. I ______ my job. It’s very interesting.
Interviewer:	When do you eat lunch?
Jim:	I ________ work and I have lunch at one o’clock. I _____ a cup of tea at half past three.
Interviewer:	When do you finish work?
Jim:	I ______ the office at six o’clock. I eat dinner when I get home. Then I _____TV for an hour or two.

E  Use the table to write facts about Joan. A tick ([Symbol]) means that something is true. A cross ([Symbol]) means that something is not true. Use the verbs in brackets. 

0	1	2	3	4
from Scotland[Symbol]	in a bank [Symbol]	in a flat [Symbol]	French [Symbol]	new films [Symbol]
from England [Symbol]	in a shop [Symbol]	in a house [Symbol]	Italian [Symbol]	old films [Symbol]

0	(come)	She comes from Scotland.	She doesn’t come from England.
1	(work)	She____________ in a bank.	She___________________ in a shop.
2	(live)	She ______________________	She ____________________________
3	(speak)	__________________________	_________________________________
4	(like)	__________________________	_________________________________