Entertainment

Lyrics: The Sound of Silence

Listening 4 min Lyrics

Vocabulary - 13 contectual words

Grammar - Word Order iii (indirect/direct objects)

Pronunciation - American

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.

Simon and Garfunkel are among the greatest songwriters of all time. In this week’s song, The Sound of Silence, you’ll notice that the word order is a bit unusual. This is because songwriters often change word order to fit their creative intentions. see if you can spot the unusual word order?

Exercise

Fill in the missing words.-fell – never – softly – walls – sound – Hear – alone – cold – streets – split – thousand – my – people – ⇩

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

Grammar

Word order III (indirect/direct objects)

When we talk about a person receiving something, we call the receiver the indirect object and the thing they receive is the direct object.

We normally use the order subject + verb + indirect object + direct object:

I (subject) send (verb) my mother (indirect object) a letter (direct object: article + noun) every week (time).
Mr. Calloway (subject) teaches (verb) us (indirect object) difficult grammar (direct object: adjective + noun).
Rick gives everyone presents (everyone is the indirect object, the receiver; presents are the direct object everyone receives)
Maria tells me everything.
I tell Harriet all of my secrets.
(You) Please give Mallory this book.

We can see we often use object pronouns (me, you, him, her, us, them, whom) or proper names (Mr. Calloway, Maria) in this structure.

We can also sometimes use the order subject + verb + direct object + indirect object when we want to emphasize the receiver of the action:

I (subject) gave (verb) that book (direct object) to Mallory (indirect object) on Tuesday (time).
Mr. Calloway (subject) teaches (verb) difficult grammar (direct object) to us (indirect object).
Rick gives presents to everyone.
Maria tells everything to me.
(You) Please give this book to Mallory.