ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: Has/have

Liveinjapan — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:42:37 GMT

Thank you all!

MrPedantic
2. Of the languages that have many speakers, English is the easiest.

(No one would use "has" here.)

Great idea!

Kooyeen, your explanation is quite understandable. Thanks.

Re: Has/have

MrPedantic — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:34:20 GMT

A parallel case may clarify:

1. English is the easiest of the languages that have many speakers.

which can be rephrased as:

2. Of the languages that have many speakers, English is the easiest.

(No one would use "has" here.)

Best wishes,

MrP

Re: Has/have

Doll — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:22:35 GMT

Thank you Kooyeen and Yoong Liat, I understood it.

Re: Has/have

Yoong Liat — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:14:17 GMT

Hi Doll

... English is one of the languages that has/have many speakers.

... English is one of the languages that have many speakers. ( The verb should agree with the noun 'languages'.)

English is not the only language that has many speakers. Other languages also have many speakers.

My reply in the earlier post is 'Grammatically have should be used.'

I think the sentence should be rephrased as: Besides other languages, English is spoken by many people.

I hope my explanation enables you to understand why 'have' slhould be used.

Re: Has/have

Kooyeen — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:24:19 GMT

Hi,
"have" is the "prescriptively correct" one, because it actually and grammatically refers to "languages".
Now, the fact is that a lot of native speakers use the singular in those kinds of structures, because they make the verb agree with what comes before "one of".

The advice is: use the plural when you feel you will be judged on strict grammar rules (= ESL Tests), otherwise use either one, depending on what you have in mind, what you are thinking of.

Venusian is one of the languages that don't have the subjunctive. --> You are thinking of the languages that don't have the subjunctive, and Venusian is one of them.
Venusian is one of the languages that doesn't have the subjunctive. --> You are thinking that Venusian doesn't have the subjunctive, along with other languages.

Oops, that's true for American English... I don't know if you are interested in BrE.

Re: Has/have

Doll — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:43:56 GMT

Ooh! I am confused a bit. We only refer to English, don't we? Then, why don't we use "has"?

Re: Has/have

Yoong Liat — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:10:59 GMT

Liveinjapan

Among them English is one of the languages that has/have many speakers.

I think have is a correct choice but is has also possible? (No. Grammatically 'have' should be used.)

Thanks
LiJ

Has/have

Liveinjapan — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:04:56 GMT

Among them English is one of the languages that has/have many speakers.

I think have is a correct choice but is has also possible?

Thanks
LiJ