ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: Experience

Grammar Geek — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:09:50 GMT

Your experiences as a teacher is valuble to the forum

The MAIN verb is "to be" - it should be was, but whether it's is or was, it's the main verb (or "simple predicate," if you prefer), and it is not functioning as an auxiliary verb. (And no, I just was typing too quickly. Auxiliary is correct.)

Re: Experience

Rotter — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:01:03 GMT

Thanks Grammar Geek

Usually the verb which determines the tense of the sentence is the auxiliary verb.

So the verb 'is' or 'are' should be an auxiliary verb. I can't fathom out your point.

You have written the word 'auxiallary'. Is it AmE?

I have learnt to write 'auxiliary'.

Re: Experience

Grammar Geek — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:17:49 GMT

2 - I would make that "experience" as the mass noun, not the countable noun. But if you have a reason for wanting it to be a plural use of the countable form, then certainly use "are," which is not an auxiallary verb, but the main verb.

Re: Experience

Rotter — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:12:58 GMT

Thanks Grammar Geek

You didn't see the following:

2.Your experiences as a teacher is valuble to the forum.

[ Probably the auxiliary verb 'is' wrong here. It should be 'are'. Please tell me.]

Re: Experience

Grammar Geek — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:38:06 GMT

Your experience as a teacher will be valuable in this new job. (Mass use of the word experience.)

Your experiences as a teacher in an urban school will make this wealthy, suburban school feel like a picnic. (Countable use of "experiences" referring to many separate encounters.)

Re: Experience

Rotter — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:29:18 GMT

Let us say you work as a teacher of English.

2.Your experiences as a teacher is valuble to the forum.

The verb experience in the above is countable.

Your or my experience on some aspect knows no boundaries. I mean it is not possible to fix a size or volume; I maybe wrong here.

How do you justify the countable nature of verb experience in the above sentence?

2.Your experiences as a teacher is valuble to the forum.

[ Probably the auxiliary verb 'is' wrong here. It should be 'are'. Please tell me.]

Re: Experience

Takoyaki-English — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:58:01 GMT

New2grammar,
Thank you for the comment.

1) three years' experience
2) three years of experience
The second would be more common.

Re: Experience

New2grammar — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:19:42 GMT

Another good explanation, Takoyaki. By the way, I remember reading a thread about your last example, and if I remember correctly "three years of experience is preferred". Just a small comment.

Re: Experience

Takoyaki-English — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:03:15 GMT

Rotter,

If someone says, "In my experice...," the word "experince" means "knowledge that you gain about life and the world by being in different situations and meeting different people, or the process of gaining this."
In this case, "experience" is an uncountable noun.

- In his experience, women did not like getting their feet wet and muddy.
- I'm speaking from experience.
- He has three years' experience in business.

Re: Experience

Rotter — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:30:18 GMT

Thanks for the reply.

I hear people say the words 'In my experience ... '

I would not discard your way of writing. It sounds fine.

My question is how to judge the uncountable nature.

Re: Experience

Takoyaki-English — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:58:54 GMT

Rotter,

It sounds better to start the sentence with "As far as I know," not "In my experience."
It is not your experience that people gain weight if they don't work out.

Experience

Rotter — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:52:30 GMT

1. In my experience people who don't train are prone to put on weight.

[ I train 3 times a week and thanks to the training schedule I weigh 60-62 kilos. Most of the people I associate weigh over 80 kilos because of lack of physical activities. ]

My question is on the word experience here.

The verb experience is both countable and uncountable.

In the above it is uncountable. How do I judge that it is uncountable in the above?