Four Blanks in a Host-Family Email
Ken is writing an email to his new host family in Nara. His teacher has marked four blanks but has not given the answers. The draft reads: 'I have (1) ___ to Nara three times, but I have never (2) ___ Todaiji at night. I am looking forward to (3) ___ you next month. (4) ___ this will be my first homestay, I am a little nervous.' For each blank, Ken has three choices. (1) been / gone / visited; (2) seen / saw / see; (3) meet / meeting / met; (4) Although / Because / So. Ken's friend says, 'Choose gone for (1), because you went there; choose saw for (2), because it is past; choose meet for (3), because to is followed by the base form; choose Although for (4), because nervous is negative.' Ken is not sure. The teacher says the email is written in Nara, and Ken is still in Nara when he sends it. She also says the sentence in (4) needs a logical link, not a positive or negative label. Ken must choose one answer per blank and explain why his friend's rules are unreliable.
1. Choose the best word for each blank and justify each choice with a grammar or meaning reason.
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- (1) been. 'Have been to Nara' means Ken has visited Nara and is talking about experience. 'Have gone to Nara' would suggest he went there and is not here now, but the teacher says Ken is still in Nara when he sends the email. 'Visited to Nara' is wrong because visit does not take to before its object.
- (2) seen. 'Have never seen' uses the present perfect for experience up to now. 'Saw' is past simple and can appear with never in some contexts, but here the present perfect fits the 'up to now' meaning. 'See' is the base form and cannot follow have.
- (3) meeting. The phrase is 'look forward to,' where to is a preposition, not an infinitive marker. A preposition can be followed by a noun or an -ing form, so 'looking forward to meeting you' is correct.
- (4) Because. The first homestay is the reason for the nervousness. 'Although this will be my first homestay, I am nervous' would suggest the nervousness is surprising, but it is not. 'So this will be my first homestay, I am nervous' is not grammatical in this order.
- The friend's answers are based on labels ('past,' 'negative') rather than sentence structure and meaning.
2. Identify the friend's most useful half-truth and explain how a test can reveal the error.
Read the worked answer
- The most useful half-truth is 'to is followed by the base form.' This is true for the infinitive with to: 'I want to meet you.' But it is false when to is a preposition, as in 'look forward to.'
- A quick test is to replace the following words with a pronoun or noun: 'I am looking forward to it' is correct, and 'I am looking forward to your letter' is correct. That shows to is a preposition here. You would not say 'I am looking forward to it meet.'
- The same logic explains why 'look forward to meeting' is correct: after a preposition, use a noun or -ing form, not a base verb.
- The other friend's rules are weaker. 'Past' does not decide between past simple and present perfect; the meaning ('experience up to now') does. 'Negative' does not choose a conjunction; the logical relationship between the two clauses does. A good exam answer names the structure and tests it, rather than matching a label.