General English Level 4 Version 2.1 © 2004 acl Pty Ltd GELEV4 Unit 04 Topic 02.doc 4. Amjad: Have you seen my keys? Suada: No. Where did you put them? Amjad: I’m not sure. I had them when I came in, didn’t I? Suada: Yes. Oh, are these them? Amjad: Yes, thanks.  LANGUAGE FOCUS 05 The impersonal “it” Usually we use “it” to refer to something that has already been mentioned. For example, “The fire was very big. It destroyed many homes.” In this example “it” refers to the fire. Here, “it” is a personal pronoun. Sometimes, however, we use “it” when we are not referring back to anything. This use of “it” is called the “impersonal it”. The announcer says: Announcer: It's 9 o'clock. Let's go to Brad Furniss, who's at the scene of yesterday's bushfires. Dave says: Dave: Yes it was about 10 o'clock then. … In these examples it means the time but it does not refer to any noun. We can use it as the subject of a sentence to talk about time. Brad says: Brad: Good morning. Well, it's a day after the fires and I'm standing … This is another example when we use it to talk about time. We often use it to talk about time - the day, date, month, year… Look Is 12 o'clock. was Tuesday… was March, 2001… It Is early in the morning… 125