Entertainment

Fill in the Lyrics: Chasing Cars

Listening 5 min Lesson Intermediate

Vocabulary - 15 contextual words

Grammar - Second conditional

Pronunciation - Scottish

Improve your listening and writing skills by filling in the blanks in the song lyrics. These activities are designed for Beginners and Intermediates to learn new vocabulary related to a specific topic in a quick and fun way.

For this week’s lyrics we bring you Chasing Cars by the Scottish-Northern alternative rock band: Snow Patrol. Chasing Cars was one of the songs that revealed the impact of legal downloads on single sales in the UK, selling consistently for years after its release. Enjoy it!

Exercise

Fill in the missing words: told – life – Before – never – world – Confused – enough – own – garden – lay – bursting – lay – feel – forget. ⇩

Press play to hear the song

This activity is case sensitive so make sure to use capital letters when needed.

Grammar

‘If’ + second conditional

We use the second conditional to talk about unreal situations in the present or future.
We often use this structure with unlikely or hypothetical situations.

We use the structure if + subject + past simple; subject + would + verb. We can also exchange the if and would clauses:

If we were rich, we would travel the world.
If Sam was smarter, he would own the company by now.
You would help me if I needed you.
Elizabeth and Francis would make us work harder if they were the managers.
If I were baking a cake, I would burn it.

We make this structure negative when we place not between if and the subject, would and the subject, or in both places:

If you weren’t short, you would be a basketball star.
If Rachel wasn’t kind, she wouldn’t have so many friends.
I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care about you.
We would own a home if the bank didn’t deny our loan application.

We make this structure interrogative when we place would + subject + past simple; if + subject + verb.

We use this structure to ask questions about unreal or unlikely situations:

Would they help us if we needed them?
Would everyone escape this building if it was burning?
Would Tristan have married Rachel if he hadn’t met Macy instead?
If you were an animal, would you be a bear?
If I was sick, would you visit me in the hospital?