Tense shifting

Try to use tenses consistently when you communicate. If you begin with the future, continue using the future from one clause or sentence to the next.

 

In five years' time, I will retire at the age of 65.

I am going to try to socialize a lot, or I will become very lonely.

Sometimes, however, you may need to shift from one tense to another. For example, you might use the past tense to report what someone said yesterday. Then you could switch to present to say how the person feels now:

Yesterday, Grandpa said that he felt lonely when he was young. He also said that now he is more sociable.

Scanning

When you read articles containing statistics, start by quickly scanning through for important numbers. For example, you are about to read an article about the world's aging population:

1. Look for ages.

2. Look for years.

3. Look for percentages.

Use scanning strategies to find the important information in the following sentence. Try not to read every word.

- In 2005, people who were 65 years or older made up 20 percent of the Japanese population.

 - Yesterday, Grandpa said that he felt lonely when he was young. He also said that now he is more sociable.