Active and Passive Voice

Tense	Active Voice	Passive Voice
Simple present	Eat/eats	Am/is/are eaten
Simple continuous	Am/is/are eating	Am/is/are being eaten
Simple past	Ate	Was/were eaten
Past continuous	Was/were eating	Was/were being eaten
Present perfect	Has/have eaten	Has/have been eaten
Past perfect	Had eaten	Had been eaten
Simple future	Will eat	Will be eaten
Conditional	Would eat	Would be eaten
Prefect conditional	Would have eaten	Would have been eaten
Present infinitive	To eat	To be eaten
Prefect infinitive	To have eaten	To have been eaten
Present participle/ gerund	Eating	Being eaten
Perfect participle	Having eaten	Having been eaten

Singaporeans dying away from home

By Andrew Loh | SingaporeScene – Sun, Jul 17, 2011

It doesn't hit home until you're standing there, eyes fixed on the old man of 87-years old. He is no longer cognisant of his surroundings, I am told. His ability to register familiar faces and places is no longer as keen as before. He can barely recognise his own son who is standing beside me at the side of his bed on the day we paid him a visit.
First a boat-builder — during the Japanese occupation — and later a plumber, his hands were the only means by which he made a living and raised a family. Now, with children all grown up with families of their own, he is bedridden, immobile and has to be cared for in a nursing home. Alzheimer's has set in, along with Parkinson's and coronary heart problems.
His son and daughters, in their 30s and 40s, try their best to provide the care he needs. They had him at home in the beginning but as his needs grew, they had no choice but to put him in a nursing home. It was no longer viable or practical for the siblings to provide the special care he required.
The costs of caring for the elderly
So in 2007, they decided to seek the services of a nursing home.
Several months ago, they were told that their father had had a fall in the home. On further probing they realised that the home had not been totally truthful about how this had happened. They were initially told that the incident took place at about 6 or 7pm. The family was informed at 8pm. However, they later discovered that it had actually happened at 2pm. They were upset that it took the home 6 hours to inform them.
In the meantime, the family was having problems paying for their father's stay in the home. It came to more than S$2,000 a month. Further enquiries with other homes revealed that they were all fully booked. In any case, they were not much cheaper either. In addition, the siblings too had to provide care for their mother who is wheelchair-bound and suffers from various ailments as well. The family was at its wits' end.
They finally had to consider the one thing they never thought they would have to — to place their father in a nursing home abroad as it would relieve the financial burden in caring for both parents.
After a search of the Internet for nursing homes in Johor Baru (JB) in Malaysia, they shortlisted several and finally decided on one. The siblings paid a visit to the home earlier this year and made the decision to place their father there.
It would cut their financial obligations by some 60 percent, not an insignificant amount for the siblings who aren't financially well-off.
Children have to make a hard choice
"No one wants to have their father in a nursing home abroad," the son tells me, his voice quivering. "But we have no choice. The costs in Singapore are just too much for us."
The consolation he and his sisters take from this is that the home is set in a quiet neighbourhood, in landed properties which are converted to homes, giving a certain familial warmth to the elderly residents. It is located about 40 minutes by taxi from central JB. The staff there too are friendly and compassionate.
When the son enquired about making bank transfers so that payments could be made on time, the person in charge, Ms Suraya (not her real name), of the home repeatedly tells him not to worry. "It doesn't mean that you have to pay on the date we agreed on. It is okay if you are one or two weeks late. It is okay," she tells him. Such compassion gives the family some peace of mind.
We were told that in recent months, more Singaporeans have made enquiries with the home. "The main reason is the cost," Ms Suraya says. "But also the recent case of abuse in a nursing home in Singapore has raised concerns among Singaporeans." She was referring to the Nightingale nursing home at Braddell Road where the staff were discovered mistreating a resident there. The JB home currently has 20 Singaporean residents. Demand has been so strong that it is planning to open a new center in the coming months.
As we took our leave of the home, another elderly resident waves at us. "Young people like you, good," he said, pointing his finger at us. "Old people like us, no good anymore." It was something he keeps repeating during the next few minutes we conversed with him.
On the next bed beside his was a Malaysian, who is no older than 55. "I am Malaysian but I had been working many years in Singapore," he said. "My children all were born in Singapore and are still there." He recently had an accident which broke several of his hip bones. When we asked why he was there and not with his children in Singapore, he said they could not afford the cost of putting him in a nursing home in Singapore.
The government should help ease the burden
As we left them and the home, I wonder how many Singaporeans — after having served and contributed to the country — would end up in homes such as this one abroad simply because they would not be able to afford to stay in nursing homes in their own country.
It is just not right that our elderly, in what should be their golden years, are subjected to this indignity, to be cast aside or forced out of the land they were born in, grew up in and worked for and contributed to, through no fault of their own or their families' — with the prospect of returning home only when they have breathed their last.
With almost a million Singaporeans projected to be above 65-years old in 2030, it is incumbent upon the government to seriously look into this matter and not let our elderly be subject to such unconscionable indignity when they are no longer "economically active."
There is a responsibility for a government to care for those who no longer can, and to extend help to families who are burdened in such circumstances.
Our elderly should not have to seek shelter in a foreign land.
They are as much a part of us as those who are rich, economically active or young. Our country should not and must not abandon them to another country. It is our responsibility and we must not shirk this.

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If only our millionaire ministers would consider looking after our elderly citizens instead of asking them to go to another country to be cared for. They should ask themselves if they would be happy going overseas to be cared for when they themselves grow old. See children once in a long while and grand children too or would our elderly ministers also long to see them regularly in more convenient settings in Singapore. Ministers, please consider your citizens plea, no excuses please cos this should be the right of every citizen.

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Sad story, I wonder what will happen to me after 30 years.

A PAP minister was asking people to send their parents there, He is absolutely right, some people already done it.

Hardly call Singapore a home, home for rich only, too sad. 2016, we have to make it happen.

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It is the duty of the govt to ensure that no citizen is left behind. There will never be a level playing field in a capitalistic world and that is why the govt must come in to ensure that those who fall through the cracks are not left to rot. A good govt is not judged by how it takes care of the rich as the rich can take care of themselves. A good govt is judged by how its takes care of the weak and the helpless. Already as our citizens see how their old, weak and helpless are cast aside or left to fend on their own, they are slowly beginning to realize that one day that could be what happens to them.

The greatest irony is that our ministers demand million dollar salaries, our army recruits have Ipads while our ailing elderly clean hawker centers or are left to spend their last days in another country just because it is cheaper there. Is this the signature of a first world country?

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If many of these elderly singaporeans had not spent so many precious years of their lives slaving for the singapore economy, perhaps people like LKY would be in a nursing home in JB by now.

Reported Speech

DIRECT SPEECH	INDIRECT SPEECH
PRONOUN
I / you	he / she  they
you	they / we
myself	himself / herself
ourselves	themselves
MODAL
Can	Could
Shall	Would
Will	Would
May	Might
Must	Had to
VERB
Present Tense	Past Tense
Verb/ Verb (s)	Verb (ed)
Eg go/goes	Eg went
Past Tense	Past Perfect Tense
Verb + ed	Had Verb –en
Eg Went	Eg Had gone
Present Continuous Tense	Past Continuous Tense
Is/are Verb+ing	Was/were Verb+ing
Eg is/are going	Was/ere going
Present Perfect Tense	Past perfect Tense
Has/have Verb(en)	Had Verb(en)
Eg has/have gone	Eg had gone
Past perfect Tense	Past perfect Tense
Had Verb(en)	Had Verb(en)
Eg had gone	Eg had gone
TIME
ago	before
now	then
yesterday	the previous day
today	that day
tonight	that night
tomorrow	the next day / the following day
the next day	the following day
this week / month / year	that week / month / year
next week / month /year	the following week/month /year
last week / month / year	the previous week / month / year

Unless & If

Lexical Level	Meaning	Sentence
Unless	Except under the condition that if ... not	I will not help you unless you ask me. = I will not help you if you do not ask me.
If	In the event that	I will help you if you ask me. = I will help you in the event that you ask me.

To change from ‘if’ to ‘unless’ 1) Always change the ACTION to the ‘opposite’ meaning. 2) Do not alter the CONDITION. 3) Use if...not to check if the change is correct.
ACTION Second event	Conj	CONDITION First event
+ve		+ve
I will meet him	if	I have the time.
Change +ve  to –ve.	No change.
I will not meet him	unless	I have the time.
–ve		+ve
I will not play soccer	if	it rains.
Change -ve  to +ve	No change.
I will play soccer	unless	it rains.

  
    Check:  I will not meet him    if                 I do not have the time.
                 I will play soccer      if                 it does not rain.