Learning English

The case so far…

We can now look at Inspector Stone's case notes. Study them carefully; you may spot things that he, or more likely, his secretary has missed. Complete the activities correctly and, who knows, maybe one day you could work as his assistant. Remember to leave no stone unturned!

Read the text and complete the activity

First, we need to fill in some gaps from his case notes. Have a look at the grammar notes below first (his secretary obviously doesn't look at them - that's why she makes so many mistakes!)

Possessive 's

We put 's after a noun to show that something belongs to someone.

The bride's dress = The dress belongs to the bride.

If the noun is plural, we put the apostrophe after it:

The suspects' clothes = The clothes belong to the suspects.

To do

Complete the activity.

If you want more practice using this vocabulary and the possessive 's, download Inspector Stone's Case Notes for this episode.

A note about subject questions

Inspector Stone used some subject-object questions in episode 1. Did you spot them?

He asked: Who stole the ring?  With questions like this, we're asking who is doing the verb - the question word who is the subject of the verb, so we call it a subject question. We use who because we are asking about a person. We can also use what in subject questions when we're asking about things. For example, Inspector Stone asked: What will happen next?

We'll talk more about subject questions in Session 2.

Watch the video again, or listen to the audio,  and see if you can find more subject questions with who or what.

Next

How did you get on? Don't forget to watch Episode 2 in the next session where Inspector Stone finds out about the box the ring was in... or maybe that should be the boxes the ring was in? Today we've learnt the names for the main men and women at a wedding party. In 6 Minute Vocabulary you can learn more words for people - job titles for men and women. That's next.