If I were you... (week 4).

I have found this text on the Internet, which gives some advice about how to understand texts when you read them. http://esl.fis.edu/learners/advice/read.htm 
I reckon that it is a very interesting text due to the fact that in many points I feel identified with it. 

I am going to mention the expressions that appear related to advice: 

• Know your reading purpose (according to the importance of the excerpt that you are reading, you read it differently). 
• Choose the appropriate reading speed.
• Get background information (it will be easier to understand the text if you find previous information about it. This is an important aspect when translating some texts).
• Use all the information in the book. 
• Increase your vocabulary (when you are learning a new language, the most important thing is to acquire an enriched vocabulary).
• Use your dictionary sensibly.
• Learn the important words that organise text (you have to understand the transition words that appear in some texts or books in order to know the full meaning).
• Choose the right place to read (it is very important to stay concentrated when you read something). 
• Choose the right time to read. 

Now, I am going to quote an excerpt of a book called "Three Men in a Boat" (by Jerome K. Jerome), where several modal verbs appear. 

"[...] I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch. I read all I came to read and then I began to study diseases, generally, turning the leaves idly.

I came to typhoid fever, read the symptoms and discovered I must have had it for months without knowing it. Cholera I had with severe complications and diphtheria I must have been born with. I was relieved to find that Bright’s disease I had only in a modified form and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. The only disease I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.

I sat and pondered. I thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view. I was hospital in myself. All students need do would be to walk round me and after that take their diploma.

I tried to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. I think now that it must have been there all the time, and must have been beating, but cannot account for it [...]."

The analysis of these modal verbs is:

• Must have + past participle → It expresses a conclusion about a past situation, and is based on previous details. 
• Might + verb → It expresses uncertain opinion, something based on very little information. 
• Could + verb → It expresses possibility. 
• Must + verb → It is used to say what you think is necessary.
• Need + verb → It is used to say what is necessary.
• Can + verb → It expresses prohibition. 

Finally, in the last 4 weeks I have done some activities to improve my English. One day, I was going to the University and a girl from Leeds asked me for help. She was lost and I was the only person who can help her, because the others could not speak English. She wanted to know where the bus station was, so I indicated her where she had to go. 

Also, every afternoon I watch a chapter of a series called "Gossip Girl" in English and with subtitles also in English and I have to watch a film in the original score because we must do a school job, and I would like to watch Billy Elliot. 

Lorena Conesa Martínez.