ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: Can anyone help me to explain why this sentence is incorrect?

Real_Princess — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:12:03 GMT

Thank you all so much You all make it sound so easy. That was the problem - I knew it was wrong (duh), but wasn't sure how to explain it

in such a way that my German friends would understand. I'll explain it all to them tommrow, and no doubt they will be asking for more grammar

practise. I may be back soon

Warm regards,

Re: Can anyone help me to explain why this sentence is incorrect?

CalifJim — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:24:23 GMT

Real_Princess
why the following sentence doesn't work:

* I didn't talked to Simon on Sunday.

Too many d-markers. do > did; talk > talked

You can have only one d-marker (or s-marker) per clause, and it has to be on the first verb of the series.

See Re: Have or has

Re: Can anyone help me to explain why this sentence is incorrect?

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 21:45:55 GMT

I think the best way to explain this is telling your friend that in English you use only one verbal element to indicate the tense. In this sentence the auxiliary "did" is indicating the past tense so you should keep the verb in the infinitive. Otherwise it will be redundant.

I hope your friend can understand it.

Best wishes,

Re: Can anyone help me to explain why this sentence is incorrect?

Clive — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:25:21 GMT

Hi,

I would appreciate any help to explain in grammatical terms why the following sentence doesn't work:

* I didn't talked to Simon on Sunday.

Is it because a past simple verb cannot follow another past tense? It is obviously incorrect, but I'm not sure how to explain this to my German friend.

I'm not a qualified teacher, but I live in Germany at the moment and have been trying to help some of my friends with their English. They usually ask

for grammatical explanations

Your example breaks the rules for how tenses are formed.

How to form Simple Past tense

I talked Here, the suffix '-ed' denotes the past

I did not talk. Here, the auxiliary verb 'did' denotes the past, and the main verb must be in base form only.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: Can anyone help me to explain why this sentence is incorrect?

Susankay — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:19:03 GMT

Simple past is talked - I talked, you talked, we talked, etc.

However since you are using the helping verb "did", you use

I did talk

you did talk

he does talk

we did talk

you (plural) did talk

we did talk

I did not talk to Simon on Sunday.

Can anyone help me to explain why this sentence is incorrect?

Real_Princess — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:13:29 GMT

Hi,

I would appreciate any help to explain in grammatical terms why the following sentence doesn't work:

* I didn't talked to Simon on Sunday.

Is it because a past simple verb cannot follow another past tense? It is obviously incorrect, but I'm not sure how to explain this to my German friend.

I'm not a qualified teacher, but I live in Germany at the moment and have been trying to help some of my friends with their English. They usually ask

for grammatical explanations

Thank you