The Climate and the Pandemic are two topics difficult to ignore these days, and Bill Gates has quite a bit to say about both.
In El País newspaper, you can read an interview done with him recently where Bill Gates reflects on recent experiences in connection to COVID-19, and makes some predictions about the future.
This is great material to work with, both in terms of the content as well as in terms of your learning Spanish.
Let’s begin with some of the predictions that Bill Gates is making. This was what the reporter said:
Hace justo un año que el virus de Wuhan empezó su rápida expansión por el mundo. El coste en vidas humanas y la destrucción económica son inmensos, pero ya tenemos varias vacunas para combatirlo. ¿Se atreve a decir qué pasará?
And these are some of the things that Bill Gates said as part of his reply. Notice that the verbs must be conjugated in the simple future tense. When the subject of the sentence was not clear enough, you get some help: 3p. pl., for example, means third person plural. Once you are done, check!
He produces some reflections as well. This time we are looking back, so we need the past tense. Pay attention to the question: which of the past tenses you need to conjugate the verbs provided in the infinitive form? After you complete this activity, check this out!
But there are other tenses in the past, as you know. The moment the time frame changes you may be still looking back, but you may also have to change the past tense you are using. These are some additional things Bill Gates is saying. Notice how the question is phrased. When you finish with this task, check!
And finally, let’s consider some of the conditions and consequences Bill Gates mentions. The first phrase has already the verbs conjugated. Consider the other two and check when you are done!
Notice that we are dealing with conditions that imply high probability, therefore the present tense and the future tense are involved. The condition would need the present tense and the consequence can be expressed with the future tense. (Be aware that there are other ways to express a possible or real conditions -one that it is believed to be possible or that it will be fulfilled).
Carry on practicing and make use of this shared document, where you can produce additional reflections, predictions and express conditions and consequences linked to these two themes.
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