c
 


    
 
  




 



 

All these words are used to describe people who work in the media. The first three: presenter,
broadcaster and announcer are all related to TV and radio: media which is delivered partly ± or
wholly ± through sound and speech (this type of media is increasingly available on internet too).

A @


is a person who introduces or hosts television or radio programmes. A presenter's

opening words on a programme are usually something like 


 

 



 
@






@


  



@  
 The topic of the programme is not all about the presenter. The
presenter is the person who introduces the programme, introduces or links sections of the
programme together and says goodbye at the end. Some well-known presenters include Johnny
Carson (an American TV chat show host), Trevor MacDonald (a British TV news presenter), and
Karim Kouchouk (the presenter of BBCe for BBC Learning English Arabic Service).

An 
's job is similar to that of a presenter. He or she provides spoken information about
news, weather, programme content, links between programmes, advertising etc. However, an
announcer may have a smaller role in a programme than a presenter does: on TV programmes,
an announcer may only feature as a voice whereas a presenter will be seen on the screen.
Another main difference between an announcer and a presenter is that the announcer usually
reads word-for-word from a script, whereas a presenter may have some flexibility regarding the
things they say.

The word    
can refer to an organisation such as the BBC (UK) or NBC (USA) which
produces television and radio programmes. It can also be used to describe someone who is well-
experienced in the TV and radio industry. He or she usually has multiple talents ± scriptwriting,
directing, presenting etc. and his or her programmes may be considered to be very important and
well-respected. Famous British broadcasters include Sir David Attenborough, Sir Robert
Winston and Sir David Frost, and Larry King in the USA.

Turning to the second part of your question, Suharno: you wanted to find out about the
difference between a reporter and a journalist. In fact, these jobs are very similar, and in some
respects the terms are interchangeable. A   
's work is most often seen in print ±
especially newspapers ± but they can work for TV and radio too. A journalist gathers, writes and
reports news stories, and may also edit and present news articles.

A
@ 
is a type of journalist who gathers information about newsworthy issues. This may
involve researching through several sources ± interviews, police and public records, photographs
etc. When the information is gathered, the reporter will create a report for publication or
broadcast in the media. Reporters often specialise in a particular area, for example: crime,
politics, health or education.

Finally, Suharno, I'd like to mention one more media profession. A 
 is a writer (usually
a journalist) who writes regularly (often weekly) for a newspaper or magazine. She or he chooses
a topic that is in the news and writes not only about the events that have become newsworthy but
also often offers some analysis and/or personal opinion. This job is usually reserved for senior
journalists at a particular newspaper or magazine. Well Suharno, I do hope this has been a useful
answer to your question!

Catherine
About Catherine Chapman
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Well, this is a good question! There are so many words in English that have similar meanings,
which I know can be confusing for learners. In the examples you give,    and  
 $ do
have very similar meanings, but   has a slightly different meaning. I think it¶s useful here to
talk about vocabulary collocation, which means words that are often used together. And when
you¶re studying English vocabulary, it¶s worth spending some time just studying collocation.
You can do this by looking at a good quality monolingual (English-English) dictionary, which
explains collocation. You can also study collocation by reading texts (fiction or non-fiction) in
English and looking carefully at the combinations of adjectives and nouns, and verbs and their
objects. And it¶s also possible to purchase specialist vocabulary books and collocation
dictionaries.

But to get back to the words you asked about Hoa, I think    and  
 $ have [a] very
similar meaning, which is probably: µhow you expect something to be, not unusual or special¶.
So if we had a    or  
 $ $  , it would mean that nothing particularly special
happened. A    or an  
 $

 
   doesn¶t sound very exciting, but I
suppose it¶s better than having an awful one!

There is a slight nuance in meaning, however, when we talk about   @
@
and  
 $
@
@
. If we mention   @
@
, it probably means µpeople who think and behave in the
same way as most other people¶. But the phrase  
 $@
@
may carry a nuance in meaning
about wealth and social status, meaning µpeople who are not particularly rich¶. So we might say:








  
 $@
@
$
owhich contains an indirect reference to wealth. I don¶t think we¶d say:








   @
@
$

o because this seems to be commenting on behaviour rather than income. Similarly, if we make
a comment like

,

 

$ 
 $

o it would be a slightly rude or negative comment. And the opposite of  

 $ is, of course,

-  
 $, and if we described a watch as
-  
 $ it would mean µvery special or
unusual¶.

Now let¶s get back to the other word you mention,  . This is slightly different because it
implies habit or regular behaviour. For example, m$ would be the one I always take, at
the same time, every day. #$ 
@ @
would be the one I always buy. You can arrange
to meet someone 
 , meaning the usual bar, café or place where you meet. In this case
it would be impossible to use    or  
 $. Finally, regular customers in pubs often ask
for their  , meaning the drink they usually order!

Well thank you for your question and I hope this has helped!

About Samantha Hague

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'I went to the bank with the intention of opening a bank account'

Hello Babak. Thank you for your question about 

 . Both words are nouns
that come from the verb intend, which means to have something in mind as a plan or purpose.

In terms of meaning, there is little difference between these two nouns. They both mean a plan,
or purpose, to do something. However, there is a difference in the way we use the words. Intent
is used in more formal situations, such as in legal contexts, whereas intention is used in a wide
range of situations; it is a more everyday word. Also, in grammatical terms, intent is an
uncountable noun and intention is a countable noun.

So, for example, in a newspaper report about a court case you might read:  



  

 

Whereas, in a conversation with a friend, someone might say: 

   


    

    




There is one other important difference. Intent is also an adjective, but intention is only a noun. If
you are intent on doing something, you are determined to do something.

For example, 

  

  

 
 






So, my intention was to answer your question, and I hope, Babak, that I've managed to do that.

End of Section

About Gareth Rees



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Thomas, thanks for your question about the use of the word µchance¶.

You¶re right in pointing out that µchance¶ most commonly means possibility and opportunity.
Perhaps you are thinking about the occasion when µchance¶ means risk or gamble because
you¶ve heard or read the phrase µtake a chance¶. I¶d say most often when µchance¶ means risk it
occurs as a noun in this phrase and I¶ll give you a few examples of how to use it:

/
 
  



 

( 
  


$

(
$

$@  
"





 
$/

$ 
  




 @ $

In certain situations, native speakers will say µI¶ll chance it¶ or tell someone else to µchance it¶.
When people speak in this way, they are using chance as a verb to mean take a risk. Again, here
are some examples for you:
)(



$/

 
  $
)


(/ 


(This person means they¶re going to take a risk and not bother taking an umbrella.)

) 
 /@
 $

(/ 


@
 
  0
)

 


(µChance it¶ means take the risk of driving the car and hopefully there¶ll be enough petrol.)

Another usage is this:

/ 
 




  


"/ 
 $ 

-




 
$$ 
)  



. 






As you can probably work out, to µtake chances¶ in these sentences means to behave riskily in a
situation that involves danger. Well Thomas, I really hope you¶ll µtake a chance¶ and use the
phrases I¶ve talked about in your own speaking and writing from now on!

About Trudi Faulkner-Petrova



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Hello and thanks for the question. ^ and 
 
are both used to talk about ability.
Sometimes they're interchangeable, but sometimes they're not.

So, let's start by looking at your examples. You've asked about  and  
. Well, we use
 in the present tense when we say that we don't have the ability to do something - for
example, ( 
We could also say (  

, and the meaning would be pretty
much the same. But which one do we choose? Well, for informal English, and for spoken
English in particular, people tend to use  or  
seems a bit more formal and not
really appropriate for everyday situations.

Now the past of  is , and the past of 
 
is   
or 

 
For
example, we can say

(
(or (
) 
( 3$

or we can say

(  

(or (  

) 
( 3$


Again, in spoken English, we'd probably use or to talk about past ability or lack of
ability.

Now the examples I've just given are concerned with general ability. The sentence

(

( 4$


refers to a general ability, not an ability in a specific past incident. It's important to understand
this difference because when we talk about ability in specific past incidents, the way we use
and   
changes. I'll tell you a story as an example. When I was 10 years old, my
mother and father took me on a sailing holiday, and on the last day, when the sea was very
rough, I fell out of the boat! It was OK though, I was able to swim back to the boat.

(  

 
 

It's describing an ability in a specific past event, and we would NOT normally say

(
 
 

But what about the negative form? Well, on the same trip, my younger sister fell into the water
too. But she wasn't a strong swimmer, and my father had to jump into the sea and rescue her,
because 

 
 So to talk about lack of ability in a specific past
event, is OK. We could also say

!
  


 
 

or

!
  


 
 

OK? Now I'm going to deal with future, present perfect and past perfect tenses, by telling you
that  is not normally used to describe ability in these tenses. For these tenses, you have to use

 
or 
 
Here are some examples and don't forget that when you use  
,
it gives a more formal tone than  
. Here's an example in the future:

 @

$


$


$


And now one in present perfect:

‰ @


@ 




@






The next one is present perfect, question form:

, $ 

$ 
0

And let's listen to a past perfect ± this one's negative:

,
 

 



 
  



 

Now, although we've just said that we don't usually use  or  to talk about future ability, it
is possible to use  to suggest a possible future action, like this:

(? 
$ 



(?  $
$

Now to summarise all this, if you go to the Ask about English website, you'll be able to see a
table of tenses with 
and  . Well Annapurna , I hope I've been able to help, and I also
hope that you'll be able to use these forms with more confidence in future!

"

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work
I 
work !
I work?
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 work
I

 work $I %&
 work?
I

 work

I  work
I  work ! I work?
ü
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 work
I 

 work '
I %&
 work?
I 

 work

I  


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I 

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work

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c
  

Hello Mohammad! There¶s no need to worry ± I'm here to answer your question! First of all, let
me say that both of your sentences are grammatically correct. So we need to have a look at the
way we construct them and use them to see how they¶re similar and how they¶re different.

Now let¶s look at the first one. When we say ( $ $we use the verb  $ in the
active form. So the subject is (, the object¶s $so it's a simple subject ± verb ± object structure
(and there¶s a preposition between the verb and the object, that¶s ).

Now the second one - ( 

 $)starts with a subject, but then it has the verb 

followed by the past participle of the verb  $. Now, you can see that 

operates as
an adjective in this sentence; also, the phrase ( 

 can be understood as a passive
structure, where the passive subject (() is before the verb and the agent ($) is after the verb (or
we don¶t mention it at all).

So, which form should you choose for which situation? Well I think that the first one - ( $
$)is a general statement which means that the speaker is generally worried, most of the
time, about this person. But the second statement ± ( 

± seems to have an element of
µnow¶ about it ± the speaker seems to be talking about a specific feeling (that¶s worry) that he or
she has at the time of speaking ± and he or she¶s mentioned the cause or the reason for the
feeling - $ ± and that reinforces the idea that the worry is specific to this situation.

So, to show you what I mean, let¶s extend the sentences with a bit of context. If I say,

( $ $5(/$ 


mothers always worry about their children, it¶s not a specific situation, it¶s a general situation, (
 $ $
 
(/$ .

But if I say,

(/

 $$/


$


that¶s a specific situation. Maybe you¶re usually not underweight at all but in this situation I
think you look thin and I 

 about you.

So, let¶s sum up Mohammad. Both of your sentences are correct, and they mean pretty much the
same thing. But if you want to talk about a general, long-lasting worry, say ( $ $
and if you want to talk about a specific worry related to a specific event that¶s happening now (or
happened recently), you can say (

 $

OK then Mohammad, thanks very much for your question and I do hope you're not too worried
about your English!

07.  !

Hi Paulo and thanks for your question. And, as well as answering your question, I¶m going to
answer a similar one at the same time from Renato.

And the use of preposition is a topic that worries many of my students ± I know because I¶m
often asked for advice about which preposition to use where, especially around the time that
assignments are due in!

I do think that prepositions are one of the most difficult areas of English to master, because there
are so many prepositions and so many different combinations of verb and preposition that have
to be memorised individually.

But let¶s begin with your first example Paulo, when we say , @@$
 $And when we use
, @@$
 $ we¶re using a set expression or a greeting like , @@$^
 , , @@$*


or ^  
, and if you wanted to follow this expression with a pronoun, you would
have to use the preposition  with it - , @@$^
 $6, @@$
 $$6 ±
although it might be more common simply to use the greeting without a pronoun in speech.

In your second example Paulo,  is followed by a pronoun, $, and functions as a preposition
showing the intended recipient:


@ 

 .
$.




 
.

,


 
 $

So now to answer Renato¶s question. In the examples you give, Renato, I¶d say that the first
example, with the infinitive verb, is the better choice. You¶ve only given me part of the sentence
± 





$@ 
 ± but the phrase suggests an outcome or the solution to
a problem. Let¶s put this into a complete sentence by adding a verb:

(


 





$@ 
.

In this case, the second verb always appears in the infinitive form because these are all examples
of the infinitive showing purpose:
( 




  $



$


( 

  
 
 







,


 


@


In each of the examples above, there is an outcome or an intention which is reported by the 
clause, similar to the one in your own example, Renato.

Finally, to look at the last example, if I said ! 

0 the verb  would
be followed by a verb, wouldn¶t it? However, in your own example, Renato ± 
/ 
 ± the verb is followed by a noun (), so we have to use the preposition  in this
expression!

Well Paulo, thanks for your question and I hope that both the answers will be useful to you.

ü
  )

OK, yes. I just would like to thank you all from BBC. You are doing a really great job. Your
programme, BBC Learning English, is a powerful tool for every student and it was a really
pleasure to have the opportunity to talk to you in this programme. Thank you very much and
have a good day!

c"