Search results for 'tag:Affirmative sentences tag:Word order' matching tags 'Affirmative sentences' and 'Word order'

Re: Question from non-native speaker that stumped

Yankee — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:57:03 GMT

Hi pjyrdo

Here are my comments:

1. The word order is not the most natural. The time aspect is more typical at the end: "I don't know what I should do for three hours."

2. 'In three hours' is frequently used to refer to a point in time that is three hours from now. (e.g. I'll see you in three hours.) Your friend should use 'for' instead of 'in' because 'for' is typically used to talk about duration of time. Using 'in' will easily lead to misinterpretation. (e.g. "I don't know what I should do three hours from now.")

3. "I don't know what I should do" is correct. That is an indirect question. However, indirect questions generally do not use interrogative word order. The word order should be the same as in an affirmative sentence. Your friend should be able to find this in any grammar book.

Re: Could you please enlighten me... (followed by what?)

Ant_222 — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:17:28 GMT

You can use both "on how" and "about how". Or just "about":

«Could you please enlighten me about the registration process on the website?»

«Is it supposed to be followed by an affirmative sentence word order or...?)»

Normal word order, NOT like in a question.

EDIT: Forgot about the old-style way:

«Could you please enlighten me as to how I can register with your site?»

Could you please enlighten me... (followed by what?)

Loojka — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:03:55 GMT

Hi everyone!

I got stuck with this one... If I begin with "Can you please enlighten me...", what's the preposition that follows? I suppose that it depends on what you are asking. If I wanted to ask about the registration process on a website, for example, should it be:
Can you please enlighten me on how....? (and what's the word order after the preposition? Is it supposed to be followed by an affirmative sentence word order or...?)

Thank you very much!

Re: Right or wrong? (Guest:Iman)

X11 — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 16:12:50 GMT

In English you have an fixed word order, except in interrogatives and exclamations.

It looks as this:

Subject + verb + object/complement - this is how an affirmative sentence looks like, normally.

From this your sentence 4. Max cleaned up it, is correct but since it is a verbal phrase consisting of two items you need to split them up and put the pronoun in between. I cannot explain this grammatically. perhaps another one can.

Jay

Re: ? Or .

pieanne — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 14:39:23 GMT

Exactly.
Direct speech: "When will you go there?": it is a question > ?, and word order for a question.
Reported speech: "Tell me/let me know when you will go there.": it's not a question, > no ?, and normal word order.

But I wonder if, in this case, it wouldn't be better to say: "Let me know when you go there"; I don't like "when" & "will" together in an affirmative sentence...

Re: Spanish (or German) student Vs Japanese student!

Novalee — Tue, 02 Nov 2004 15:45:04 GMT

Hello meg2589 and all,
I almost exclusively teach Spanish students, with the exception of some American students who are learning Spanish but this is a different story. I can tell you the most common mistakes and difficulties that we, Spanish people, find when studying English.
The first problem that you mention is the 'false cognates' which we call 'false friends': they are similarly written words or expressions that have different meanings in both languages. The funniest example I can give is 'to be constipated', which I'm sure you know the meaning. Well, in Spanish we have 'constipado' which means to have a cold: not at all the same meaning
The overuse of articles is also a problem. But students learn the rules of when to use it and when not.
As for more grammar mistakes:
- 'Auxiliary verbs': there is no such thing in Spanish, so a lot of emphasis must be put on the use of them. A useful and popular exercise is to change an affirmative sentence to negative and interrogative.
-Third person singular s in the Present Simple: Even with 18-year-old students, we still have this problem. They simply skip it and we, teachers, must put a lot of emphasis in this simple aspect of grammar.
-Adjectives: 'they have no plural form'. I repeat this sentence thousands of times and they don't catch it. This doesn't happen in Spanish: adjectives have gender and number, unlike English. The same happens with the order: in Spanish they usually go after the noun, not before it.
-Speaking of order...: Word order in a sentence. In Spanish it's much more free, but in English is more fixed. Another point to be taken into account if they want to be understood. Common mistakes are, for example, Said the teacher that would give we more homework which should be The teacher said that he would give us more homework Do you see what I mean?
Well, the list would go on and on, but I'm giving you some examples. I don't know if you were looking for this. If I'm right, feel free to ask for more, and I'll post more examples of common mistakes Spanish students make.

See you.