Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[stevenukd]

Dear Teachers,

1. Do you want to travel or stay put?
- �stay put� here means �stay still�, right?

2. You�re just 13, and you still have a lot of maturing to go through.
- I think �maturity� is better, right

3. My boyfriend is in the Army, he rarely gets to call me.
- �get to call me� means �want to call me�, right?

Thanks a lot to Teachers,

Stevenukd

[CP]

1. Stay put means to stay where you are, don't budge, don't go anywhre. It can mean to stay still, for example, if you tell a child to sit down and stay put while you do something, but here it means don't go anywhere, as opposed to go traveling.

2. "You�re just 13, and you still have a lot of maturing to go through." You wouldn't use "maturity" instead of "maturing" here. Maturity is what you attain after you have finished maturing. This fellow has not yet reached maturity.

3. It doesn't mean �want to call me," but rather "is allowed to call me." The verb "get" has a lot of uses in English, and it probably takes up a lot of the "Hints of the Day" on the ESL Cafe home page. Here, "to get to" has the meaning "to have the opportunity to" or "to be allowed to."
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You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

[Bob S.]