MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH

Before doing this activity you may need to read the text you will find at the end


  SmartMemo
Make exclamations with WHAT
Focus Grammar
Description Let's practise making exclamations with WHAT
Instructions 1- Look at the sentence and try to make an exclamation out of it using WHAT 2- Move your mouse over the black button to check your answer. 3- If you were right, click on the green button, if wrong, click on the red.
 
Item Match Comments
There are some strange birds in that cage What strange birds there are in that cage !
Wonderful wine What wonderful wine ! "What a wonderful wine!" is possible, but in that case we are not talking about the wine we are drinking, we are talking about the type of wine we are drinking. If we drink a Rioja, a Sherry or a Lambrusco and we say "what wonderful wine!", we are not saying that this wine I am drinking is excellent, we mean that Rioja (or Sherry, or Lambrusco) is an excellent (type of) wine.
But anyway, since the excersise says "wonderful wine", and not "a wonderful wine", the only correct answer here is "What wonderful wine!"
You've got a nice car What a nice car you've got !
A joke What a joke !
She takes nice photographs What nice photographs she takes !
A beautiful smile What a beautiful smile !
You've got a beautiful smile What a beautiful smile you've got !
They are funny children What funny children they are !
A big, big cake What a big, big cake !
An old church What an old church
This is a big room What a big room this is !
A park What a park !
You have some cute puppies What cute puppies you have !
This is a very big park What a big park this is !
A big park What a big park !
Total number of items: 15
This is an activity from Multimedia-English www.multimedia-english.com
 

We can make exclamations using WHAT
 
  WHAT (a) + nouns

the article "a" is only used with countable singular nouns, as usual
 
- What a surprise!
- What a big house you've got!
- What stupid things you say!
- What beer!

since they're not questions, there is no inversion!!!

- What a big car you have ! (exclamation, no inversion)
- What a big car do you have!
- What car do you have?  (question, inversion)

Compare:

- How beautiful she is  (how + beautiful: adjective)
- What a beautiful girl she is  (what + a beautiful girl: noun)