Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Lesson 13: Anyone, Anything, Anywhere

“Anyone, Anything, Anywhere”

It’s important to know how to talk about “Anyone, Anything, and Anywhere” in daily conversation. In this case, the possibilities and choices are not set on one specific thing. They are wide open. You can use these in many situations like giving advice, giving permission or talking about your preferences. For example in the case of giving permission, “Anyone can come to my party.” If you are talking about giving advice you might say, “You can buy anything as long as it is warm enough for the snow.” If you want to talk about your preference for something you can say, “Just put it anywhere close to the window.” These three words are also useful in the question form. Since the words are general in meaning, they are useful to use in question form when you want ask a general question to get more specific information. For example, “Did anyone come to the party?” General questions can be considered more polite in some cases since they give the person answering the opportunity to answer either generally or specifically based on the situation or their preference. Let’s look at some examples below so you can get used to asking or answering in this pattern.

Key words:
Did anyone bring anything to eat?
Did Sean go anywhere with Greg last night?
Does anyone have a pen I could borrow?
Anyone can come to the dance if they have a dance card
Anything can happen when there are teenagers there
Anywhere you go, I’ll find you
There is no reason to go anywhere else
We can talk to anyone except for strangers
They were able to buy anything with the credit card

Here are some situational examples:
Example: Two friends
(Casual):
w Did anyone bring anything to eat?
u No, and I’m starving!

Example: Two co-workers
(Everyday)
w Did Sean go anywhere with Greg last night?
u Yes, they went to the game.

Example: Boss to manager
(Formal):
w I purchase all of the supplies at Office Depot.
u There is no reason to go anywhere else.

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