Tag: english conversation

When someone asks you how often you do something, they’re asking you how many times a day or week (or month etc.) you do it.

Firstly, ‘often’ can be said in two different ways. You can say the T or it can be silent. I don’t say the T because I find that saying it with the T takes more work 😂

Let’s have a look at this question and practise a few different ways that we can answer it.

How often do you play tennis?

Let’s say that you play tennis on the days that are ticked on this calendar.

You can say “I play tennis once a week”. But you can also give more information and say, “I play tennis every Wednesday”.

Or maybe your calendar looks like this.

Here, you would say, “I play tennis twice a week”. So every week, you play tennis two times.

But what if your calendar looks like this?

Then you play tennis once every two weeks, and you can also say once a fortnight.

Or maybe your calendar looks more like this.

So you’re playing tennis maybe two or three times a week.

And what if you’re really serious about tennis and your calendar looks like this? 😱

Then you’re pretty much playing tennis every day.

Questions

Answer these questions for more practice:

1. How often do you study English?
2. How often do you exercise?
3. How often do you go shopping?
4. How often do you go out for dinner?
5. How often do you go to the movies?

There are a number of ways that you can ask this question! In this post, I’d like to practise saying a few of these different ways, so that you have a few different options to choose from next time you want to ask this question. And I’d also like you to hear a few different ways that people may ask you this question!

After each question, I will say it twice: once at a slightly slower speed, and then again at a more natural speed. And I’d like you to practise saying each question with me.

1. What are you doing this weekend?

2. What are your plans for the weekend?

3. What have you got planned this weekend?

4. Do you have any plans this weekend?

5. Have you got much on this weekend?

And what about your answer?

Of course you can answer this in sooo many different ways! Here are a few common answers that I’d like you to practise with me.

I don’t have anything planned, I’m just going to watch TV.

Not much. I’m just going to go over to a friend’s place on Saturday.

Nothing much. I have a lot of homework to do, so I’m just going to work on that.

A few grammar points

Two things that you can practise when you’re talking about your weekend:

1. Try to use “… going to…” to show what you have planned:
   – I’m going to go shopping with my friend.
   – I’m going to go to the beach.
   – I’m going to do my homework.
   – I’m going to work on my assignment.
   – I’m going over to a friend’s house. We’re just going to hang out* there for a while.
   (* hang out – an informal phrasal verb that is used more by younger people. It means to ‘spend a lot of time at a particular place or with someone’)
   
   
2. You can also use this “going to” to talk about the weather:
   – “They said that it’s going to be sunny tomorrow, so I’ve decided to go to the beach.”
   – “It’s going to rain all weekend, so I think I’m just going to stay home.”
   
   
3. When you’re talking about a particular day of the week (e.g. Saturday or Sunday), you use the preposition ‘on’.
   – I’m going to go to the museum on Saturday.
   – I’m going to go and visit my sister on Sunday.