Search results for 'tag:Clauses tag:Learn English' matching tags 'Clauses' and 'Learn English'

Re: So that + Present Simple or + Will ?

Goodman — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:31:49 GMT

When we make mistakes, we have to reflect on what we did wrong so that we can avoid making the same mistake again.

We need to learn to be financially responsible so that we donât get caught up in the credit debt trap.

I want to learn English so that I can find a better job.

Whenever we have a situation where we have to achieve plan A to get to plan B, or we have to do something in order to achieve something more significant, we can use the âso thatâ, clause.

Re: I don't have very much in the way of free time.

Liveinjapan — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 08:54:25 GMT

Cool Breeze wrote:
Liveinjapan wrote:

I don't have very much in the way of free time.
I don't have very much of free time.

The structures of the above sentences are the same, so the object of each sentece is 'much', right?

The structures are the same up to the word much. After that, the second sentence jars in my ears. Much + of free time is not good. Simplify it a little: I don't have very much free time. That's all you need. Now the object is time and everything that is between have and time can be considered to be a part of the object because these words modify time. So we could also say that the object is very much free time. Some might say that the object is free time and not include very much.

I don't really see the point of trying to put a label on everything as there will never be universal agreement on grammatical terminology. It varies from country to country and even from person to person. I have read a grammar book in which relative clauses weren't called relative clauses at all. Fortunately I have long since forgotten what they were called. I take it as a sign of a philological novice to adamantly stick to regarding a term as the only acceptable one. It could also be called narrow-mindedness.

Putting grammatical labels on words is particularly difficult in English, a language that defies order and can be incomprehensible to native speakers unless enough context is given. Even with enough context it can be ambiguous and open to interpretations. What is natural and clear to some may be unnatural to others. So, LiJ, if you don't like my suggestion, by all means, use your own! Many others have done that before you.

I try to avoid grammatical terminology but of course I realise that analysing language is impossible without it. Nevertheless, for many people it would be far more useful to just learn English words and expressions instead of trying to find order where it may not exist.

Cheers
CB

Thank you very much, CB.
I've read your comments carefully and completely agree with you.
Your tips definitely encourage me to study English further.

Best wishes, LiJ

Re: I don't have very much in the way of free time.

Cool Breeze — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 08:37:34 GMT

Liveinjapan wrote:
I don't have very much in the way of free time.
I don't have very much of free time.

The structures of the above sentences are the same, so the object of each sentece is 'much', right?

The structures are the same up to the word much. After that, the second sentence jars in my ears. Much + of free time is not good. Simplify it a little: I don't have very much free time. That's all you need. Now the object is time and everything that is between have and time can be considered to be a part of the object because these words modify time. So we could also say that the object is very much free time. Some might say that the object is free time and not include very much.

I don't really see the point of trying to put a label on everything as there will never be universal agreement on grammatical terminology. It varies from country to country and even from person to person. I have read a grammar book in which relative clauses weren't called relative clauses at all. Fortunately I have long since forgotten what they were called. I take it as a sign of a philological novice to adamantly stick to regarding a term as the only acceptable one. It could also be called narrow-mindedness.

Putting grammatical labels on words is particularly difficult in English, a language that defies order and can be incomprehensible to native speakers unless enough context is given. Even with enough context it can be ambiguous and open to interpretations. What is natural and clear to some may be unnatural to others. So, LiJ, if you don't like my suggestion, by all means, use your own! Many others have done that before you.

I try to avoid grammatical terminology but of course I realise that analysing language is impossible without it. Nevertheless, for many people it would be far more useful to just learn English words and expressions instead of trying to find order where it may not exist.

Cheers
CB

Re: Reduction in relative clauses

Cool Breeze — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:12:15 GMT

Hi Gencebay

Sentence No. 1 has a realtive clause and if it were shortened - or as I prefer to say, if a clause equivalent were used - it would read:

They spend a lot of time in their garden running right down to a river.

That would be grammatically correct but it would mean that these people (= they) run to a river because there is a preposition in the phrase in their garden. That means it cannot be the subject of the clause equivalent running right down to a river. Clearly, that is not what is intended. I don't know a grammatical reason that makes a clause equivalent impossible for sentence No. 2. There isn't a rule for everything, or if there is one for this, I don't know it. If we change the sentence a little, a clause equivalent is possible:

Harry, running alongside David, is his cousin.

This seems to be against the rule in your grammar book. I have never heard that rule, by the way. Your mother tongue may be a more logical one than English, with fewer exceptions. It is impossible to have rules that cover all usage of a language, especially the English language. You'll just have to learn English piecemeal and accept the oddities, there is no other way.

Bear in mind that you are learning a language whose speakers used a monetary system in which a pound was equal to 20 shillings and a shilling was equal to 12 pence. The same nation has built underground lines with curved tracks where station platforms are, creating gaps big enough for a child to fall down in them and necessitating announcements: Mind the gap!

And if you take a Piccadilly line tube to Heathrow Airport, you'll notice that the train floor isn't always flush with the station platform. It's sometimes two inches above it, sometimes two inches below. As far as the English language is concerned, expect the unexpected.

Cheers
CB

Re: colon or hyphen

Yoong Liat — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 15:34:27 GMT

Believer wrote:

Hi,

I sometimes dithers between the choices to use a colon or a hyphen when I am giving an explanation of the main clause in whole or in part like this one:

In a race to learn English faster, a person needs to possess these two personal qualities among others to do better: patience and persistence.

In a race to learn English faster, a person needs to possess these two personal qualities among others to do better-- patience and persistence.

I think both are fine, but a colon is better.

colon or hyphen

Believer — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 13:06:16 GMT

Hi,

I sometimes dithers between the choices to use a colon or a hyphen when I am giving an explanation of the main clause in whole or in part like this one:

In a race to learn English faster, a person needs to possess these two personal qualities among others to do better: patience and persistence.

In a race to learn English faster, a person needs to possess these two personal qualities among others to do better-- patience and persistence.

Re: Change English As You Wish

Cool Breeze — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:20:32 GMT

Thank you to all those who have posted their suggestions to my little imagination game. Some have taken it very seriously thinking they would have to relearn English after the 'changes'. This was meant to be just a game, not for those wo take everything seriously, and of course in this game everybody automatically speaks and writes the new English fluently without having to learn anything.

In the colonial days several European languages got exported as taking peoples' lands from them was considered a virtue and something to be proud of. This resulted in some languages being more dominant than others. Spanish and French were the most important languages till the end of the 19th century when the USA rose to be No. 1 in world politics and commerce. The foundation for English as the lingua franca had been laid.

The world should be thankful. There is no such thing as an easy language; every language is difficult if the learner aims at perfection. However, there are grammatically and structurally far more complicated languages than English, and we should consider ourselves lucky it's only the spelling that drives us nuts about English, not inflections.

Here are the changes I would make to English:

A. Spelling: Grammar Geek, Alienvoord and Englishuser would all make changes to the spelling, and indeed so would I. I think Englishuser puts it nicely: "I'd certainly change the spelling of words with an 'irregular' spelling, that is, words whose pronunciation can't be determined basing on how they're spelt." I would also accept more than one spelling for a word in many cases.

There isn't enough space and I don't have enough time and patience to cover all the tens of thousands of words this entails, but here are some examples of new spellings:

OLD                                 NEW
fight                                  fite
perceive                           perceive, percieve
tough                                 tuf
though                              tho
knight                                 nite
caste                                 cast
pace                                 pace, pase
write                                 rite

B. Grammar: English grammar is so uncomplicated due to 500 years of simplifying foreign influence (200 years of Vikings and 300 years of Normans) that English grammar really couldn't be made much simpler even if it were an artificial language. However, as a foreigner I'll continue the foreign influence and enforce the following changes.

1. I will get rid of the third person singular s and has. Henceforth we will say: He speak English. He have a car. He have asked it twice. The s is a totally needless relic and Swedish, another Germanic language, needs no verb endings for any person even though it is more complicated than English in other respects.

2. There will be no irregular verbs from now on with the exception of to be and the defective or modal auxiliaries, which will remain unchanged. Examples of new English:

OLD                                 NEW
He saw us.                        He seed us.
He has written a letter.    He have rited a letter.
Who wrote it?                   Who/Hu rited it?
I haven't hit him.               I haven't hitted him.
I ran too fast.                    I runned too fast.

3. I'll return English to its pre-Shakespearean state with regard to questions and negations. Henceforth, English will be like the other Germanic languages and questions will be asked without the totally unnecessary do auxiliary:

OLD                                  NEW
Do you speak English? Speak you English?
I didn't see him.                  I seed not him.
Did you do it?                   Doed you it?

4. All past participles can be used attributively before nouns: a rited report, a catched fish, two asked questions, a surrendered country.

5. There will be no irregular plurals for nouns:

OLD                                     NEW
two men                               two mans
many children                      many childs
these phenomena              these phenomenons
two geese                           two gooses

6. Any uncountable noun can be used as a countable if the need arises:

OLD                                    NEW
two pieces of advice         two advices
two news items                  two newses

7. I'll leave the articles, pronouns, numerals, adjectives and adverbs as they are. There are countless idioms where the articles are used contrary to reason and logic, but non-natives' incorrect usage seldom gives rise to misunderstandings. Besides, who am I to deprive English of all its fascination?
Those who don't like sentences like He runned too fast have my permission to say He runned too fastly if they prefer that.

8. Since there are so few inflections, the word order will just have to remain as it it with a few exceptions. For the sake of clarity, some minor changes will take effect: You Only Live Twice has to be renamed (and rerecorded) You Live Only Twice. (Fortunately Nancy Sinatra is still alive, she can rerecord it next week!)

9. Some changes in clause equivalents would make English more exact, but I am reluctant to make them. I'll let English remain somewhat inexact. It is plain impossible to make it exact in every respect without more inflections, and more inflections would make learning English a more laborious task for non-natives.

Consider these examples:

Having said that, he left the room. (After he had said that, he left the room.)
"Having said that, he did win Wimbledon two years ago." (A tennis commentator has said something slightly negative about a player, then decides to mention a positive thing about him. The sentence does not usually mean: After he had said that, he won Wimbledon two years ago. But of course it could mean that, too.)

English abounds in ambiguity and native speakers disagree on what common verbs such as the defective auxiliaries mean in some contexts. I'll let all that be as it is, I know when to give up.

Vocabulary: I'll add some short words that can be used to indicate surprise, disbelief etc. in spoken English in sentences like: He goed there? You like not it! Haven't you seed it? I won't write the words here, though, I just think English could and should have more finesse and be more expressive and colorful.

I won't delete a single word from the vocabulary, on the contrary, I'll add a way of forming a word denoting a person from a town or a village. English already has many such words but on the whole they are rather impractical: a Liverpudlian, a Memphian. Some are easier: a Londoner, a New Yorker. But what do you call a person who lives in Timbuktu?

From now on, the ending will always be er: a Liverpooler, a Memphiser, an Uppsalaer, a Hong Konger, a Tokyoer, a Timbuktuer. This will add hundreds of thousands of words to English. I'll also let you call a Swede a Swedener and a Thai a Thailander if you wish.

I have simplified the grammar a little and that should help non-native learners in particular. I have left the basic structure of the language untouched except for the disappearance of do in questions and negations. But even this is actually a minor thing since it just returns English to the early 16th century.

I have increased the vocabulary a great deal. Every three-year-old Finn knows what to call a person from Timbuktu once he is told there is such a place. English-speaking kids should be able to do the same.

Cheers
CB

Re: Definitions of the word 'love'

Feathers — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 04:27:14 GMT

Dear GG,

Thank you so much for your help. (That anon was me, sorry for my posting anonymously.)

Grammar Geek wrote:

Do you want an edited version, or is this enough to let you know that you are making good progress?

Actually, I'd love to have your help a bit further, if you don't mind. Although I'm doing this translation just for fun, as I said, I'm eager to learn English stylistics and related matters, inch by inch, through trial and error. I'll be grateful if you visit this thread, too, when you have a spare time.

Grammar Geek wrote:

The one thing that seems inconsistent (which you asked us to look at) is the use of the word "one" in the second definition - in the first, you say "a man and a woman" and in the second you say "one."

Yes, but it's due to the change in the original text. The editor of the dictionary chose "a pair" as a subject at first, but, during the revision, changed it to some general singular person (which seems fairly reasonable, I think). So I used "one" as a subject. Please ignore that discrepancy. The use of "one" in the second sentence is still that improper? Or tolerable? I didn't have better idea then, but "people" could be a better choice?

Grammar Geek wrote:

The second one is not as good - people in love wish to be together, but do not wish to suffer. This definition would be better as two sentences. People in love may suffer deeply (because...) or feel delight (because...)

Then I failed in making clear what I wanted to say. The original sentence defines the word love in one sentence, as: [Love is such a state when people come to feel~, get tormented or delighted easily, wishing~.]

You know, I wanted to put everything into when-clause which modifies a state. I'm at a loss, I don't even know where to put a conjunction 'and.'

May I ask your favor, GG? If you were to write this definition, what would you do? Are there any general tips in stylistics...?

PS. A wild rose? Wow... Beautiful!

Re: Suggest somebody to -inf.

paco2004 — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 21:36:43 GMT

Hello Franmonaj

I think the English verb "suggest" is a bit tough to learn to us learners. In my mother tongue the verb equivalent to "suggest" and that to "advise" are used almost the same way. But in English "suggest" seems much weaker in 'to-person transitivity' than "advise". "Suggest" can't take a person as its object directly (i.e., without use of 'to'). "He suggested to me that I should learn English" is theoretically correct but sounds stiff. On the other hand, "He suggested me that I should learn English" is absolutely wrong, despite of the fact that we can say "He advised me that I should learn English". Another queer feature of "suggest" is that this verb cannot take an infinitive clause as its object. So "He suggested to learn English" is wrong, though we can say "He suggested learning English". We can say "He advised me to learn English" but "He suggested me to learn English" is completely wrong.

As for your second sentence, my dictionary suggests "suggest whether" is a right construct. However, I feel "suggest that" is more natural in your context.

paco

hi counfused about relative clause, the use of which and in which

S54exrtcyughvuh — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 06:28:18 GMT

hi all,

as i learn English as my second language , i'm just confused about

the use of which and in which;;

i know when to use which but sometimes i found some clauses use

in which,,,

i'm confused these two..

is there any significant difference in terms of it's meanings?? and also when to use one and the other??

please help me out~