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1a
Life in colour
Grammar
present simple and
present continuous
4
Underline the present simple and circle the present
continuous forms in the article. Which verb form do
we use for these things?
1 things which are always or generally true
2 things which are in progress at the time of speaking
3 things which are regular actions
X
PRESENT SIMPLE and PRESENT CONTINUOUS
Present simple
The ‘in’ colour changes every season.
Present continuous
This autumn women are wearing shades of purple and lilac.
For further information and practice, see page 156.
A
B
Huli villager, Papua New Guinea
Photograph by Tim Laman
Quechua high-school student, Peru
Photograph by Michael S Lewis
hue
(n)
/hju!/
a shade of a colour
packaging
(n)
/"p#k$d%$&/
a container for a product
We live our lives in colour from our earliest days – in
Western cultures ‘pink for a girl’ or ‘blue for a boy’.
Colour plays a big part in everything we do. We use it
both as a badge of identity and a way of expressing our
individuality through decoration. And we use di!erent
colours to send out very di!erent messages.
IDENTITY
People need a sense of group identity.
Look at the schoolboy in the photo. From his colourful
traditional dress, other people in Peru know he comes
from the Quechua community. We wear uniforms at
school and work, and we dress in our favourite sports
team colours to say the same thing – we belong to this
group.
DECORATION
The Huli villager in the photo is
getting ready for a local festival. He’s applying the
traditional colours of red, black and white in his own
personal pattern. Face-painting is an important part of
the celebrations, and these days people are starting to
experiment with brightly coloured synthetic paints as
well as traditional hues. In fashion-conscious Europe,
the ‘in’ colour changes every season. This autumn, for
example, women are wearing shades of purple and lilac.
MESSAGES
Marketing experts understand the
power of colour very well. Packaging and labels in eye-
catching colours stand out on the supermarket shelf.
And companies always select the colour of their brand
very carefully – a calm blue for a bank you can trust,
dark green says quality and sophistication, or brown
and green means eco-friendliness.
Reading
1
Read the article
Life in colour
. Find how
colour is important to the people in the
photos.
2
Read the article again and !nd the
following information.
1 three ways we use colour
2 one example of each way we use colour
3
Work in pairs. Compare your answers from
Exercise 2. Then think of examples for the
three uses of colour from your own culture.
Life in
colour
10
reading
how we use colour t
grammar
present simple and present continuous, stative verbs t
vocabulary
time expressions t
speaking
routines and leisure activities