Harry Potter was born in 1997

J-K- Rowling

J-K- Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter book series. She had the idea of Harry Potter while sitting on a delayed train from Manchester to London. The book was first published by Bloomsbury Children's Books in June 1997, under the name J.K. Rowling. Six further titles followed in the Harry Potter series, each achieving record-breaking success. In 2001, the film adaptation of the first book was released by Warner Bros. and was followed by six more book adaptations, concluding with the release of the eighth film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, in 2011. J.K. Rowling is the Founder and President of Lumos, an international children's charity fighting for every child's right to a family by transforming care systems around the world.

Select exercise

Read the conversation between James and Jean talking about the world of Harry Potter. There are some missing sentences, they're mostly questions. When you finish, select the question that best completes the missing space. Then, read the note at the end of this conversation. Correct answers will be in green and the wrong ones in red.

good n evil

Jean: Wow! You are a huge fan of Harry Potter.

James: I really am. Harry Potter was my favorite saga and I collected everything I could about him. It still is.

Jean: I can see that. I read some of the books, but I am not a big fan like you. I remember that Harry Potter was born on July 31st, 1980 not in 1997, but tell me

James: You are absolutely right, he was born in 1980, but the phrase you see on the wall is related to the first book released.

Jean: Oh! That's interesting! Now, I'm curious about it. Let me ask you some questions I have about the saga that I could not answer when I read some of the books.

James: There were seven books and eight movies. The last two movies were based on the seventh book.

Jean: I thought there were eight books because of that.

James: There were other books related to the world of Harry Potter but the story ended in the seventh book.

Jean: And

James: There were not any favorite ones because I liked all of them. However, one I really enjoyed was the fourth one named “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”.

Jean:

James: Because there was a tournament among the three most important schools of witchcraft and wizardry. Voldemort's body was restored and finally came back to life. And it is also one of my favorites because more details about Harry and Voldemort's life are revealed.

Jean: Oh! I did not remember that Voldemort didn't have a body. His soul was carried by others inside their bodies.

James: Of course, the sixth one because Voldemort's past is revealed, you can finally understand why he became a dark wizard and why he and Harry had a connection.

Jean: Awesome!

James: There were many things. One of the most interesting was to discover that Harry, Ron, and Hermione had two names. The story of the three brothers and the Deathly Hallows and their presence in reality. Harry's Army created by Hermione in a desperate situation to learn defense against dark arts. There was so much wonderful stuff that made me love the books.

Jean: Fantastic! I was always curious to know why Harry could speak to snakes.

James: Yes, there was. In fact, Harry was a Horcrux and part of Voldemort's soul lived inside him, that's why he could speak to snakes.

Jean: I did not know about that. I think I am going to start reading Harry Potter and finally finish the books.

James: That is great! We can talk about it when you finish. It was nice talking to you.

Note:

As you could notice, we can use “There was” or “There were” to express the existence of something or the lack of it. We can also use these two expressions to obtain information about the presence of someone or something when asking questions.

Take a look at the following sentences:

  • ❖ There were seven books and eight movies. (It expresses that seven books about Harry Potter exist)
  • ❖ There were not any favorite ones. (It expresses that it does not exist a favorite book, all of them are his favorite ones).

You can answer these questions as follows:

  • ❖ Was there another book?
    • Yes, there was. | No, there wasn't.
    • Yes. | No.
  • ❖ Were there other things that you liked about the saga?
    • Yes, there were. | No, there weren't.
    • Yes. | No.

Additional info:

You can answer the previous questions with “Yes” or “No”, but it is more common and formal to use the complete short answer ("Yes, there was/were” or “No there wasn't/weren't”).

If you want to obtain more information, you need to use a WH-Question. For example:

  • ★ How many books were there? (It cannot be answered with a “Yes” or “No”, you need to give more information, in this case, a quantity)

The verb “be born” is mostly used in the past to express the date of birth of someone or something. For example:

  • ★ Harry Potter was born on July 31st, 1980. (It expresses Harry's date of birth)

If you think this short explanation is not enough, check out this learning object! We lived a beautiful and happy life.