MAC3 | Lesson 24 | Grammar

​Read this extract of a piece of news and answer the following questions.

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1. How many people were present in the demonstration according to the organisers?

2. And according to ​the government?

3. Is it possible to know this information precisely?​

​Hundreds of thousands protest in Madrid against cuts to public health

​​OVIEDO, Spain

Hundreds of thousands of protesters choked central Madrid on Sunday in support of the region’s public healthcare services.

Organizers say 670,000 people took to the streets, while the government estimates that around 200,000 protestors showed up.

​Under the motto “Madrid rises up to defend public health,” residents of the region of Madrid expressed their outrage over the conservative government’s cuts and plans for public healthcare in the region.

For nearly a week, doctors working at Madrid’s 24-hour clinics have been on strike to denounce “the chaos” of a plan to add more clinics without hiring enough new staff. They say doctors are unable to properly serve patients under current conditions.

​Complete text: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/hundreds-of-thousands-protest-in-madrid-against-cuts-to-public-health/2737044

Multiple Choice

How many people were present in the demonstration according to the organisers?

• 670,000

• Around 200,000

Multiple Choice

How many people were present in the demonstration according to the government?

• 670,000

• Around 200,000

Multiple Choice

Is it possible to know how many people were present in the demonstration exactly?

• Yes

• No

​In this piece of news and in the questions that followed, we saw two examples of words we use to make approximations when talking about numbers: hundreds of thousands and around.

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Hundreds of thousands is a phrase that expresses an approximation in itself. Other words that do so are dozens of, thousands of, etc.​

​The word around is used to make other words less precise. Other words that do so are over, about, up to, under, or so, etc.

Match

Match the following. Look at these examples and notice the position of the approximation word.

India is a country with over fifteen different recognized languages.

It left a million or so people dependent on food aid.

Hundreds of thousands protest in Madrid against cuts to public health.

• The expression or so

• Words such as over, about, around, etc.

• Expressions such as hundreds, thousands, millions, etc.

Goes after the number.

Go before the number.

Is an approximation in itself and do not make other words imprecise.

• Goes after the number.

• Go before the number.

• Is an approximation in itself and do not make other words imprecise.

​Now, look at the following examples from the text 'The Why of Where' (MAC3 Student's book page 142).

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'It is a newish term but not necessarily a new concept' (lines 3-4)

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'The world is kind of confusing' (line 8)

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'It's just a mixture of unrelated physical phenomena and more or less random human activity' (lines 8-10)​

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​

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Multiple Choice

'It is a newish term but not necessarily a new concept' (lines 3-4)

'The world is kind of confusing' (line 8)

'It's just a mixture of unrelated physical phenomena and more or less random human activity' (lines 8-10)​

What kind of word do these approximation words make less precise?

• Adjectives

• Adverbs

• Nouns

• Verbs

​Words/expressions such as kind of, sort of, more or less and the suffix -ish are used to make adjectives less precise.

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The suffix -ish is normally used with colours, size (biggish)​ and also with time of the day (The meeting started at 8-ish).

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Kind of and Sort of are informal expressions. -ish is used in spoken English.​

​We also use vague words such as stuff (instead of an uncountable noun or plural nouns), and so on and that sort/kind of thing instead of giving a list and something to mean 'or something similar'.

​Now... let's practise!

​Get your MAC3 book, open it to page 143 and do exercise 9.

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Complete the text with expressions of approximation.

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Then, go to the next page, listen to it and compare it with what you did. Remember that sometimes more than one expression is possible in each space​.

​Around (Over, Roughly) five years ago, I took a trip to Madagascar to photograph the landscape. A guy I met at a party (he was a journalist or something) had told me that it had the most wonderful scenery. Normally, I spend six months or so (six-odd) researching a place before I go there, but in this case, I only spent about (around) a week reading about it. Not long after, feeling kind of (sort of) unprepared, I threw my stuff (things) into a bag and left for Madagascar. During the trip, I must have taken as many as (over, around, about, roughly) 2,000 pictures, some of them a bit amateurish, but a lot of high-quality ones too. The landscape is incredibly varied. It's more or less (sort of, kind of) like a different country in each region - desert, marshes, rainforest, sandy beaches. Incredible! And all of this is home to over (as many as, around, about, roughly) 200,000 different species of plants and animals.

​Great job!

​Now you have more options when you want to make approximations and use vague language!