Search results for 'tag:Adverbs tag:Teaching English' matching tags 'Adverbs' and 'Teaching English'

Is "to do" exercise correct?

Anonymous — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 00:50:05 GMT

Hello! My name is Maria Lisette and I am teaching English as a second language (ESL) here in Mexico. I just started training at a new school here and found something odd in one of their manuals. It is a unit for frequency adverbs, but my problem is with the infinitive "to do". Can somebody tell me if I am correct or is the manual from the school correct? The manual says: "How often does he do exercise?" Shouldn't it be, "How often does he exercise?" OR "How often does he do exercises?" ?? Also, the answer they printed was: "He doesn't do exercise very often." Shouldn't it be, "He doesn't exercise very often." OR "He doesn't do exercises very often." ???

This just sounded very weird to me and I have been unable thus far to find the answer to this question in any of my texts. Any help would be MUCH appreciated. I would also appreciate a reference to a grammar text as well, in case I am right and want to show the director. If they are correct, then fine; but if *I* am right then we DON'T want to teach these people the wrong structure! Thanks in advance! Take care, Maria Lisette (from Georgia, USA)

Re: gerund? participle? adverb? - comments and questions

paco2004 — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 01:31:01 GMT

Hello

Please look at the three sentences below, which I picked up online.
      1. She spent the time in working at home
      2. She spent the time working at home.
      3. The time working at home is gradually increasing.
Sentence #1 was traditionally deemed as a grammatical form, but people nowadays prefer the sentence #2. Sentence #3 seems to have been created by some people who analyzed the cluster of "the time working at home" in #2 as a noun phrase. This would be a good example showing a progress in a language is brought about by people who are not well acquainted with the grammar of their mother tongue. I believe phrases like "a position teaching English" also were created in a similar way.

paco

Re: before

Wwwdotcom — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 14:30:41 GMT

Rho,

Ok, I'll play your game. Take your own medicine, fight fire with fire.

"{Q1}. Are you intentionally ignoring the difference between 'before/after' as an adverb and 'before/after' as a conjunction ?"

Are you intentionally making that assertion? Before and After are different by definition.

"{Q2}. If you are teaching English in Kyoto you must be using some textbook. Please mention that textbook."

Do you have a source? Please tell me the source you use.

Re: before

Rho — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 14:24:20 GMT

Rho, this is obvious you are not being honest and sincere.
.........................................................................

Hello MrX.
Your answer was just what I've been expected.
It's really silly of me. I deeply regret now that I butted in.

By the way my questions was:
{Q1}. Are you intentionally ignoring the difference between 'before/after' as an adverb and 'before/after' as a conjunction ?
{Q2}. If you are teaching English in Kyoto you must be using some textbook. Please mention that textbook.

If you have an additional answer please email me; otherwise I'm afraid I'll miss it.

Re: before

Rho — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 10:43:50 GMT

So am I :ï¼
....................................................................................................................
Don't forget my questions, too, MrX ;-ï¼Did you say: ask me everything, didn't you ?

{Q1}. Are you intentionally ignoring the difference between 'before/after' as an adverb and 'before/after' as a conjunction ?

{Q2}. If you are teaching English in Kyoto you must be using some textbook. Please mention that textbook.
Seems ...umm... quite interesting.

(Drop me a line when you have spare time. If you prefer, you can answer me by email. I'm not in a hurry.)

Re: before

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 08:58:16 GMT

Hello MrX. It's funny. I see. This is what you've been insisting.

Okay. Now I'd like to ask your favour. Since I've spent a lot of time in this thread I have a right to ask.

I've asked you several times the following two questions.

QUESTION ONE. Are you intentionally ignoring the difference between 'before/after' as an adverb and 'before/after' as a conjunction ??

QUESTION TWO. If you are teaching English in Kyoto you must be using some textbook. Please mention that textbook. Seems ...umm... quite interesting.

Please be kind with me!

Adverbial objectives

paco2004 — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 06:59:15 GMT

Many English nouns and noun phrases can be used as adverbs. They are called "adverbial objectives". From the standpoint of word order, an adverbial objective is put as if it were an objective of a verb, but actually it works as an adverbial modifier of the verb. This sort of constructs comes from an Old English grammar rule that allowed ti use accusative cases of nouns as adverbs. For example, let's take an Old English sentence "He eode ham"[=He went home]. From the view of current English the word "ham" [home] would be treated as an adverb but it was the accusative of the noun "ham" in Old English. In current English this sort of noun phrase uses is prominent especially in the case the noun phrases means "time/duration", "space/direction/distance", "measure/degree", "manner" and others.

Time/Duration
[1.] Did you see him this morning?
[2.] What time shall we go?
[3.] She is thirty years old.
[4.] I'd like to start Wednesday, the first jury day. ["the first jury day" is appositive to "Wednesday"]
[5.] Please tell me what day you are free.
[6.] The parcel arrived last week.
[7.] They prayed all night in the cathedral.
[8.] They walked two hours.
Some other examples of noun phrases of this use:
every day, next week, next Monday, the day after tomorrow, one of these days, one day, any day in this week, etc.

Space/Direction/Distance
[1.] Today I came a different way. ["Today" is a TIME ad. ob.]
[2.] Elms stood either side of the street.
[3.] Let's go some place.
[4.] He lives next door.
[5.] She'll come home soon.
[6.] Come this way, please!
[7.] We wandered north and north.
[8.] We walked ten miles.

Measure
[1.] She was thirty years old.
[2.] The bottles was about three quarters full.
[3.] They stood up together *** high in the sea.
[4.] He stands head and shoulders above his fellow.
[5.] Her skin was snow white.
[6.] It was pitch dark inside the room.
[7.] Stars are diamond bright and there is no dew.
[8.] The sea went mountains high.

Degree
[1.] I should not mind a bit.
[2.] She blamed herself no end.
[3.] She used to laugh a good/great deal.

Manner
[1.] Don't look at me that way.
[2.] He speaks good English
[3.] He came full speed.
[4.] He stood there sailor-fashon.
[5.] She run upstairs two steps at a time.
[6.] They walked barefoot.
[7.] Our ship sailed first thing in the morning.

Noun Couplets
[1.] Bind him hand and foot.
[2.] He smote them hip and thigh.
[3.] We all got to go sometime reason or no reason.
[4.] Let's fight tooth and nail.
[5.] They discussed the matter heart to heart.
Some other examples of couplets: day after day, year after year, face to face.

The Superlative and the Comparative
[1.] My father liked this hat the best.
[2.] He runs the faster.
[3.] She couldn't know which she liked the better.
[4.] I don't know whose eyes would be the widest open.

Distribution
[1.] She visited the States twice a year.
[2.] He paid $ 20 a pair for my shoes.

To my guess, these collocations are so common that most of native speakers could acquire them even without knowing the concept of "adverbial objectives". And (therefore?) many of grammar books currently available don't mention this, and dictionaries give a definition to a noun used as an adverbial adverb as an adverb separately from the definition as a noun. As for the complex adverbial objectives, they are explained as simple idiomatic phrases without giving any grammatical explanation. Accordingly, in teaching English as a second language too, the concept of "adverbial objectives" is rarely taught at the beginner's stages in school at least in Japan. So many of English learners in Japan (including me) learned theses expressions one by one without knowing the mechanism why native speakers use nouns as adverbs. I sometimes feel it might be better to let students know the concept of "adverbial objectives" at an earlier stage of English learning and it could be helpful for them to learn this kind of noun usage more efficiently. But I'm not sure. I would like to hear opinions from English teachers (especially those who teach English to ESL students) about this.

paco

Re: With or without 'me'

paco2004 — Wed, 25 May 2005 03:31:28 GMT

Hello Komountain

I'm Paco from Japan. It has been a long time since we had the last talk. It's nice to know you look as fine as before.

As you are far more advanced learner than me, I am not in a right position to answer your question. But I incidentally found in a Japanese online site [ Okada lecture No27 and Okada lecture No28 ] some discussion that seems to relate to your question. The author is Professor Nobuo Okada who is teaching English at Osaka University. As it is written in Japanese and rather too lengthy, I'll shorten what he is saying there.

Okada started his discussion answering a question from a learner. The question is whether one should delete "him" in "He ran too fast for me to keep up with (him)". To this, Okada answered that we can go either with or without "him". According to Okada, the phrase "for me" can be interpreted as a sentential adverb in the sentence "He ran too fast for me to keep with" and the sentence can be paraphrased as "For me, he ran too fast to keep up with" (Nobody can know whether I tried to keep up with him or not). In the sentence "He ran too fast for me to keep with me", on the other hand, "for me to keep with me" works as a semi clause and the sentence can be paraphrased as "He ran so fast that I could not keep up with him" or "Because he ran very fast, I could not keep up with him"

What Okada is insisting in his lecture is that there are two kinds of "for ~". To show this clearly, he quoted Chomsky's example.
(Ex-1) It is pleasant for the rich for the poor immigrants to do the hard work.
Here, "for the rich" is clearly a sentential adverb, and we can move it at either the sentence head or tail: "For the rich, it is pleasant for the poor immigrants to do the hard work" or "It is pleasant for the poor immigrants to do the hard work, for the rich". On the other hand, "for the poor" is regarded nothing but the subject of the infinitive "to do", and therefore we cannot move it to any other position.

(Ex-2a) This problem is too abstract (for Bill) [to solve].
(Ex-2b) This problem is too abstract [for Bill to solve it].
In the sentence (2a), "for Bill" works as a sentential adverb, and the sentence can be paraphrased as "For Bill, this problem is too abstract to solve". In another words, "to solve" in (2a) can be taken as adjoining directly to "abstract". On the other hand, in (2b), the infinitival clause "for Bill to solve it" as a whole adjoins to "abstract", and the sentence can never be paraphrased as "For Bill, this problem is too abstract to solve it".

These are the main points of Okada's lecture. However, in the last past of the lecture, he also added the influence of "distance" on the naturalness in the construct "too ~ for ~ to ~", which was pointed out by Ross in 1964.
(Ex-3a) The rock is too heavy for me to pick it up.
(Ex-3b) This rock is too heavy for me to begin to decide about helping Bob to try to pick it up.
(Ex-3c) This rock is too heavy for me to begin to decide about helping Bob to try to pick up.
The sentence (3a) sounds odd to most of native speakers. But to native speakers (3b) sounds more natural than (3c). It is due to the fact that "pick up" is positioned too far from "this rock" in (3b) and (3c) compared with (3a).

I hope this will serve as any help to you.

paco