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

Need a sentence checked!

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:20:16 GMT

Alright, the sentence is "It's time you learn English."

Now I'm pretty damned sure there's something wrong with having the two verbs like that, but I'm not sure exactly what's wrong with it, if anything at all.

Any help is greatly, greatly appreciated.

Re: Sentence/sightseeing

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:38:34 GMT

Method OF Learning is totally right, because here it's a noun.
You could also use FOR, but I don't see any reasons to change that.
But if your intention is using "learning" as a verb, like "I use this method to learn english",
You SHOULD change that for TO. You can use FOR if you change the phrase to:
"I use this method for english learning" because here it's a noun.

Re: i need help with this sentence, please, it's important :(

Grammar Geek — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:50:51 GMT

Anonymous
i know that i need to add capital letters but that wasn't my question...

But when you ask if something is correct and it has an incorrect element, it would be remiss of us to not point that out. Oddly, we expect that when people come to a forum to learn English and present their work as correct, they have taken all due care to ensure that it is correct. Silly of us, I guess.

Context IS important. Are the professor's sacrifices current or in the past? That will determine the tense of your verb.

Re: "s" and "z"

Pter — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:41:41 GMT

Thank you very much CJ, Zerox, and Carson. You all have given me very valuable advices. After reading through all you said carefully, and then watching a couple of English TV programmes, I believe I can now tell the difference! The ending /z/ in most cases are much shorter, voiced but less audible than the hissing sound of the ending /s/. Now, I found out what's the problem. Those sound files I was listening to are from a pronouncing dictionary. And perhaps in trying to make them as clearly audible as possible, both the ending /s/ and ending /z/ are spoken very "clearly" and become unnatural.

For people like me that learn English as a second language, we are often influenced heavily by our mother tongue. This is like looking at something through a piece of tainted glass. In those aspects where our mother tongue has big differences with English, unless we are told the rules explicitly, we often never realize how people really say them in English just by listening. My mother tongue does not have any voiced consonants and consonant clusters, therefore, it is quite a challenge for me to learn how to pronounce a cluster of voiced consonants, such as /-ndz/, /-gz/, /zd/.

Again, thank you very much to you all. You really helped me a lot!

=======================
EDIT:

Let me summarize what I have learnt here plus a little that I have discovered myself.

1. Final voiced consonant (b, d, g, l, m, n, ng, r, v, voiced th) + s ---> /z/
2. Final voiceless consonant (f, k, p, t, voiceless th) + s ---> /s/
3. Final vowel + s ---> no rules, except when any of the following rules apply
4. Some words that can be used both as verb and noun/adjective ---> verb: /z/, noun or adjective: /s/
5. Words ending in -as, -is, -os, -us:
when the s is part of the word in its basic form (not plural or third party singular verb) ---> /s/
when the s is added to make it a plural or third party singluar verb ---> /z/
6. Words ending in -ces, -des, -oes, -shes, -ses, -zes ---> /z/
7. Words ending in -sis, -nce, -nse, -ss (including -less, ness), -sce ---> /s/
8. /z/ is more common than /s/ overall

Re: How to learn English from music/songs?

Seonaid — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:39:37 GMT

Hello,

Interesting thread.

Just to let you know that in English we never say 'are you agree' because 'agree' is a verb (though it's a very common mistake by learners, I guess because we use an adjective to say we agree in many languages).

Seonaid

Re: had had

Yankee — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:27:54 GMT

Hi Mkyol

I'd like to point out a few things:

- The word 'since' does not work in your sentence as it is written. It seems that you want to use the word 'since' to talk about 'from a point in the past up to now', but that doesn't work well with the verb 'started'. The start of something is usually a very short point in time and does not take place over a period of time.

- The word 'since' is usually used with the present perfect continuous, and in that verb tense the verb is extremely connected to the present ('up to now'). To talk about the past time when something began, you need the simple past tense, but you can't use the simple past tense (started) together with the time word 'since' as you have done.

- Using 'had had' would suggest something that was finished/ended before you 'started' -- i.e. she was no longer interested at the time you started. But that wouldn't really make much sense in your sentence. You should use the simple present tense if your mother is still alive and still has this interest.

I would suggest rewriting your sentence in one of these ways:

If you want to talk about a time from the past up to the present, you could write it this way:
"My mother has an intense passion for education, and I have been learning English since junior high school."

If your mother is now dead, or if all of the verbs (events/activities/states) are in the finished past, you could write it this way:
"My mother had an intense passion for education, and I started to learn English in junior high school."

I can't think of any really logical way to use had had (past perfect) in your sentence.

make my dream come true

Quangtrungvtv — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 05:20:48 GMT

Today is Tuesday,September 12, 2007 . I was joint a interview in S-Fone corp . Itâs hard to pass because itâs very difficult . IQ part I did quite well but english part I did very bad .Tuesday next week , the result of interview will report, I am very worry because I am afraid i will be fall!

Oh! Ghost ! I wish I was( after âwishâ verb will be simple past tense) good at english, so I should pass every exam for interview ! Oh ! dear! I have to work hard to become a person good at english !

OK! I am doing to make my dream come true ! ( he he : my dream is expect in eclectronics and telecommunication engineering , but that is difficult because it have too much problem I have to pass ! Ok , I will learn english and good at english soon!

Do you believe me? Problem only depend on time. My english is improve by day ! you see, I love english very much , so I believe next month my english will be improve !

I wish I had much money for my my study . I want to study MCSE certificate because it need for my work and buy an laptop for me . Oh, I havenât money for this purpose . I have to find jobs and earn money , save , and buy and study things I wantâ¦.

I have met teacher avalable help me improve my english , but first I have to work hard .

Re: What makes English so difficult to learn?

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:51:12 GMT

Hello, I am an English teacher who never thought he would post a message on the internet, but it just seemed so appropriate. Basically, English is so difficult because of its innumerable exceptions to rules. A student told me the other day, "at least when you see a new word in Spanish, you know exactly how to say it." After spellings, modal verbs, pronunciation, etc. you realize that there is no easy way to learn English. Practice, practice, practice. Granted, some have a greater capacity for language acquisition than others, but even they know how to say or use many of the words. According to Websters English language dictionary ( or so I have heard so feel free to research) there are like 150,000 words in the English language and only 75,000 in French. The good news is . . . if English speakers continue to talk the way they do now and watch E! Entertainment television there will only be about 4,000, which will be considerably easier to master.

Re: the and adjective

Kooyeen — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 18:12:21 GMT

Grammar Geek wrote:
Kooyeen wrote:
Hi,
2. It's just a question of style. Write the way you like best, not the way people tell you to write. Unless you are like GG, lol.

What do you mean by that, Kooyeen?

Hi GG,
you are a writer right? So you are in the professional writing field. I remember reading in some of your posts that you (maybe not you, but writers in general) can't do everything you want in that field. If I'm not mistaken, editors, publishers, etc. sometimes force you to follow particular guidelines and use a certain style. Is it so?

As for "All I want to do is (to) have fun" I learned (I don't know where) that "to" is ok, but it is usually left out. It seems you can leave it out when there are some structures with the verb "do":
All you have to do is (to) try to stay away from...
The best thing to do is (to) learn English in the US...
What you should do is (to) report that behaviour to the moderators...
etc...

Re: Tips for getting fast and full responses (from me)

Clive — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 04:24:10 GMT

Hi,

I am a Brasilian student that does want to learn English correctly. At this moment I am facing a difficult subject at school: The use of Present participle or Gerund. Could you please give some hints on how to differentiate them????

The following sentences, for instance, are they present participle or gerund??? Why???

It took the computer three seconds to solve the equation that has been confusing the mathematicians for several days.

Calming the residents, the firemen assured that the flames would soon be ***.

I would be so grateful if you could send me a quick answer!!!

We prefer to post comments here, so that others may benfit from reading them.' target=_blank>erpetuawizard@hotmail.com"> We prefer to post comments here, so that others may benfit from reading them.

Look at these three simpler examples, and then fill in the blanks below. That way, we can see more clearly what you understand and what you don't understand. OK?

A. Dancing is fun.

B. I saw a burning house.

C. Mary is cooking dinner.

Sentence ____ uses a present participle as part of the main verb structure, ie as part of the tense.

Sentence ___ uses a gerund.

Sentence ____ uses a present participle as an adjective.

Best wishes, Clive