●Language Focus and grammar

I.words and expressions

1.loathe: to hate very much

2.settled: decided; properly dealt with

3.out of proportion to the occasion: completely unnecessary under the circumstances

4.find one’s place in life: to find a successful career.

5.Apart from: some distance away from

Apart from these reasons, there is yet another factor.

6.In a cloth: “cloth is usually uncountable unless it refers to a piece of his material for special purpose, such as a table cloth or a dish cloth.”

7.Put arms round each other: to embrace other

8.Mournful lovers: sad lovers whose greatest wish is to die together

9.Snap the cigarette case to: to quickly shut the cigarette case with a sharp noise.

II.sentence pattern

1.You were saying…

a)An expression used to encourage someone you just interrupted to continue to speak. Why did he interrupt her in the first place?

2.I’m still just as ignorant…for all your telling me.

a)For all: despite; in spite of

b)For all our efforts, we still couldn’t save his life.

c)For all his power, he is still the most despised person.

3.I wish I had taken poison…

4.In the warmth, as it were, another memory unfolded…

As it were: seemingly; in a way. It is used to say that a statement in true or accurate in a certain way even id it is not literally or completely true, e.g.

a)His retirement from the foreign office was, as it were, the beginning of his career as a writer.

b)I understood the words, but I didn’t, as it were, understand the question.

5.…he had the air of a man who…: to look like a man

6.I’m just as lonely as ever.

III.grammar

1.exclamatory sentence

a)How strange (it is that I didn’t know you for a moment)! (para. 3)

b)What had she done! (para. 60)

2.four structures: as though; what it is…that; what had remained of…;wrote to me as you did

a)…his face lit up as though he ha struck a match in a dark room. (para. 2)

b)I don’t know what it is…that makes your voice such a—haunting memory. (para. 3)

c)Yet, what had remained in her mind of that particular afternoon was… (para. 14)

d)And how I understood so perfectly why you wrote to me as you did… (para. 52)