Pratique du Shadowing: English Modal Verbs - May, Might, Could, Can - Talking About Possibilities - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec la vidéo
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Hi, I'm Mikey, and welcome to Oxford Online English.
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In this lesson, you can learn how to use the English modal verbs may, might, can, and could.
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You'll learn how to use these modal verbs to talk about possibilities in English.
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Modal verbs are powerful because you can use them to express many different ideas and complex nuances of meaning.
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However, they are also difficult to use well.
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Each modal verb can be used in many different ways.
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You can use might, could, or may to say that something is possible in the present or in the future.
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For example, they could be brothers.
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They look so alike.
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I think it's possible that they're brothers. Where are my keys?
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They might still be in the car.
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I think it's possible that your keys are still in the car.
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It's raining here, but it may be sunny there.
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I think it's possible that it's sunny there.
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These sentences are all about the present.
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There's no difference between could, might, and may here.
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You can use any of these modal verbs in any of these sentences.
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It doesn't matter.
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Could and might are more common than may, but you can choose which modal verb you use.
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Be careful with may be and maybe .
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Maybe two words is a modal verb plus the verb be.
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Maybe one word is an adverb.
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They aren't the same.
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You can also talk about possibilities in the future.
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It could cost more than you expect.
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I think it's possible that it will cost more than you expect.
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You might miss the train unless you leave now.
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I think it's possible that you'll miss the train if you don't leave now.
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I may be around five minutes late.
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I think it's possible that I'll be a little late.
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It doesn't matter if you're talking about the present or the future.
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You can use these modal verbs in the same way.
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People will understand if you're talking about the present or the future from the context.
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For example, she might be there already.
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She might be there tomorrow.
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Here, the first sentence is about the present, and the second is about the future.
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You can understand this from the meaning, not from the modal verb.
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You can also make negatives by adding NOT after the modal verb.
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Use negatives to say you think it's possible that something is not true, or that something will not happen in the present or the future.
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In this case, you can only use may or might.
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You can't use could to talk about negative possibilities.
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For example, they might not be ready.
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I think it's possible that they aren't ready.
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This could be in the present or in the future.
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You can't tell just from this sentence.
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He may not be able to help you.
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I think it's possible that he won't be able to help you.
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There's no difference between using may or might here, but remember that there's no way to use could in these sentences.
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What about can?
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We haven't mentioned can until now because can behaves differently.
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Let's see how.
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Look at an example that you just saw.
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She might be there tomorrow.
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This is a specific possibility.
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You're talking about one person, one place, and one time.
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Let's add some more details to make it easier to see this.
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Sarah might be at the party tomorrow.
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You can use might, may, or could to express specific possibilities.
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You use can to express general possibilities.
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You've seen what a specific possibility is.
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What does general possibility mean?
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Can you explain it?
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A general possibility is something which is true for many people in many places at many times.
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For example, it can take two hours to get to the airport if the traffic's bad.
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This possibility doesn't apply to one person at one time.
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It applies to anyone who tries to get to the airport when the traffic's bad.
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Let's look at some more examples.
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It can be very wet and cold in spring here.
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This is possible every year, not just in one year.
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He can be very difficult to deal with when he's in a bad mood.
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This is possible every time he's in a bad mood, not just one time.
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Moving countries can be a stressful experience.
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It's possible that moving countries is stressful whoever you are, wherever you move to, and whenever you do it.
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If you're talking about general possibilities, you can only use can.
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You can't use could, might, or may.
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General possibilities refer to both the present and the future together.
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For example, if you say, it can be very wet and cold in spring here, you mean that this is possible this year,
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in the present, and next year, in the future, and the year after that and so on.
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Also, general possibilities are only positive.
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There is no such thing as a negative general possibility.
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Let's practice.
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Look at four sentences.
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For each one, decide if it expresses a general possibility or a specific possibility.
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Which modal verbs could you use in each case?
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Pause the video and think about your answers.
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If it's difficult, review this part and the previous part of the video.
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Ready?
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Let's look at the answers.
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In the first sentence, the word tomorrow makes it specific.
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Tomorrow is one day.
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That means you can use could, might, or may in this sentence.
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In the second sentence, in July in the south is a general idea.
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You're talking about one place, but you're also talking about every year, so you should use can.
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In the third sentence, you're talking about a general tendency which she has.
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She can get angry any time when people don't listen to her, not just one time.
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So you need to use can.
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The fourth sentence is talking about one reaction to one thing.
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The words when she finds out refer to one piece of news, which she will find out at a specific time in the future.
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So you need to use could, might, or may.
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Now you've seen how to use might, may, could, and can to talk about possibility in the present or the future.
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But what about the past?
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Let's start with some examples.
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Look at three sentences and try to work out how to talk about possibilities in the past.
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Where is he?
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I guess he might have missed the train.
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I don't know where the tickets are.
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I may have left them in the hotel.
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What was that noise?
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I suppose it could have been the wind.
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To talk about possibilities in the past, use could, might, or may, plus have, plus a past participle.
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Again, it doesn't matter if you use could, may, or might here.
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There's no difference in meaning.
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You can't use can in these sentences.
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There's no way to use can to express possibility in the past.
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What do these sentences mean?
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Can you explain what they're saying in other words?
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The first sentence means that you think it's possible that he missed the train.
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You're waiting for him.
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You don't know where he is, or why he's late.
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In the second sentence, you're saying that it's possible that the tickets are in the hotel.
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You don't know where the tickets are.
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In the third sentence, you heard a noise and you aren't sure what it was.
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You're saying that it's possible that it was the wind.
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You can also talk about negative possibilities in the past, like this.
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He might not have heard you.
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It's possible that he didn't hear you.
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Their plane may not have arrived yet.
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It's possible that their plane hasn't arrived yet.
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As before, you can only use may or might to talk about negative possibilities.
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You can't use could in these sentences.
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There's another way in which could behaves differently.
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Let's look.
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All the examples you saw in the last section, positive and negative, you're talking about situations where you don't know what happened in the past.
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For example, if you say, their plane may not have arrived yet, you don't know if their plane has arrived or not, you aren't sure.
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What about this sentence?
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You could have hurt yourself.
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Be more careful next time.
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This example is different.
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Can you see how?
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If you don't know, here's a clue.
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In this sentence, do you know what happened or not?
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Did the person you're talking to hurt themselves or not?
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In this sentence, you know what happened.
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The person didn't hurt themselves.
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You're saying that getting hurt was a possibility, but luckily it didn't happen.
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So there are two kinds of possibility in the past.
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One, you don't know what happened and you're making a guess.
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Two, you know what happened and you're talking about a possibility which didn't occur.
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In the first case, you can use any of the three verbs may, might, or could.
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In the second case, you can only use could.
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You often need this when you're talking about something bad which didn't happen.
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Let's see some more examples of this second case.
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They were very unlucky.
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They could easily have won.
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They didn't win, but it was close, so winning was a possibility.
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She could have lost all of her money when the company went under.
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She didn't lose all of her money, but it was a possibility.
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Of course, being in an accident was scary, but it could have been much worse.
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The accident wasn't serious, but worse results were a possibility.
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In all of these sentences, you know what happened in the past, and you're talking about a past possibility which didn't actually happen.
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Now you've seen how to use the modal verbs might, may, can, and could to talk about possibilities in English.
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Let's put everything you've learnt together.
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Might, could, or may can be used to talk about specific possibilities in the present or the future.
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Take a jumper.
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It might be cold outside.
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It could be a good game tomorrow.
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You can use can to talk about general possibilities.
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Using a credit card can be an expensive way to buy things.
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You can use could, may, or might, plus have, plus a past participle to talk about possibilities in the past.
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They may have got lost.
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I'll call them and find out where they are.
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You can use may or might to talk about negative possibilities, meaning there's a possibility That something won't happen or didn't happen.
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It might work, but it might not.
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He may not have seen the message yet.
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Finally, you can use could to talk about two kinds of possibilities in the past.
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Situations where you know what happened, and situations where you don't know what happened.
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You could have missed the plane.
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Don't be late next time.
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I'm not sure why he isn't here.
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I guess he could have missed the plane.
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Do you need practice with this topic?
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Visit OxfordOnlineEnglish.com for the full lesson, including a quiz to help you check your understanding of English modal verbs.
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Thanks for watching!
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See you next time!
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À propos de cette leçon
Vous vous entraînez en anglais avec "English Modal Verbs - May, Might, Could, Can - Talking About Possibilities" en utilisant la technique du Shadowing.
Qu'est-ce que la technique du Shadowing ?
Le Shadowing est une technique d'apprentissage des langues fondée sur la science, développée à l'origine pour la formation des interprètes professionnels. Le principe est simple mais puissant : vous écoutez de l'anglais natif et le répétez immédiatement à voix haute — comme une ombre suivant le locuteur avec un décalage de 1 à 2 secondes. Les recherches montrent une amélioration significative de la précision de la prononciation, de l'intonation, du rythme, des liaisons, de la compréhension orale et de la fluidité.