Search results for 'tag:Prepositions tag:Uncountable nouns' matching tags 'Prepositions' and 'Uncountable nouns'

using photoalbums from the net-ideas for teachers

linguaprof — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:24:40 GMT

My tips:
Look at the photoalbum: http://picasaweb.google.com/Sean.Pigg/MimsAndSeanSHouse
With an elementary/pre-intermediate student these pictures could be used to teach:
1. The vocabulary of house and living.
2. Present simple by asking: What do they usually do in this room/ place? (interrogative, negative too)
3. Present continuous, by using the pictures with people, asking What are they doing?, etc.(interrogative, negative too)
4. The use of There is, There are. (interrogative, negative too)
5. Countable, uncountable nouns- much and many- Many chairs, much space
6. Prepositions of place.
7. Comparatives and superlatives- This room is bigger than that one. This is the largest room., etc.

These are just a few ideas. Have fun!
Peter

Mistakes made by Chinese Learners

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:30:26 GMT

Hi everyone

I just wondered if anyone could help - I have to write a profile of a chinese learner of English (completely made up). In it I must put any difficulties that the learner has in learning English as an L2. I have got so far:

Intonation transfer from L1 may cause them to be perceived as rude/inconsiderate, more serious transfer may affect comprehensiveness.
No inflections in L1 - tenses difficult to learn in L2 as L1 has no true tenses and concept of time is expressed by adverbs/implicit or contextual assumptions.
Difficulty distinguishing [r] & - Does anyone know why this is as I can't find a reason?!!
Prepositions such as 'on', 'in' & 'at' have one chinese translation in many contexts, 'zai' - may be confused resulting in phrases such as 'on Taiwan' instead of 'in Taiwan'.
Use of awkward gerunds e.g. 'no noising', excessive use of verbs ending in 'ing' e.g. 'do not climbing', confusion of 'ed' & 'ing' verbs e.g. 'i am bored' vs 'i am boring' --- all of these errors occur because verbs are not conjugated in chinese, for tense or pronoun.
No equivalent word for 'the' so may be used excessively when not needed e.g. 'The China' or missed out when needed. May also be confused with 'a'/'an'.
Confusion over countable and uncountable nouns, use of 'how much?' vs 'how many?' - leads to phrases such as 'I want a soup' & 'a lot of shoe'. This is due to there not being plurals in chinese - no inflections.

Switching between 'he' & 'she' - Does anyone know why this is?

If anyone can think of anymore it would be greatly appreciated or if anyone knows the answers to my questions about gender switching and distinguishing [r] & this would also help a lot!!

Thank you in advance.

Shannon

Re: practice

lukeh — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:36:33 GMT

Hi,

I wouldn't make such generalisms about countable and uncountable nouns here, as rules often don't apply so evenly.

The problem I can see with the sentence is not with the use of the word 'practice,' but instead;

1. 'to not to' is unnecessary, and should just be 'not to' or 'to not'

2. 'wide' is a bad choice of word, and native speakers would prefer to use 'common' or 'standard'

Hence, ' it is common practice not to end a sentence with a preposition'

Hope that helps,

Lukeh

Re: About the omission of articles

Buddhaheart — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:26:42 GMT

Thereâre no rules; but thereâre generalizations. You may omit it if:

1. A common noun is used in its wildest sense.

Ex. Man is mortal.

2. The noun is a name for a material.

Ex. Silver is a precious metal.

3.1. Before a proper noun. An article may be placed before it to turn it into a common noun.

Ex. Einstein is a great scientist.

Ex. He is the Einstein of the family

Ex. English is a complicated language.

3.2. Before name of a holiday, day, month, year, illness, title, meal & street.

Ex. New Yearâs day falls on Sunday.

Ex. Corner of 2^nd St. & Main Ave.

Ex. Mumps; Measles.

Ex. Chancellor Helmut Kohl of W. Germany.

Ex. We had lunch.

Note: Thereâre many exceptions to this.

Ex. The US; The UK; The Dead Sea; The Yangzi.

4. The noun is an abstract or uncountable noun used in a general sense. If the noun is being qualified, it may have the article.

Ex. Honesty is the best policy.

Ex. Apple is good for you.

Ex. The wisdom of this man is unsurpassed.

5. Before a title used in apposition to a proper name or as the complement of a sentence.

Ex. Conrad Black became Lord Black in England.

Ex. Professor Iqbal.

6. In some phrases consisting of a transitive verb followed by its object.

Ex. To set foot; To take offence.

7. In some phrases consisting of a preposition followed by its object.

Ex. At home; To prison; To bed.

Please note this is the item you mentioned in your examples.

Remember they are many exceptions to the above. Their use is idiomatic. Like Feebs11 Iâm not aware of any theory behind this.

Re: evening (without preposition) / to start to doing

Hoa Thai — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:05:07 GMT

Hi Cool Breeze and everyone,

First, I would like to disclaim my ability to read Mr. Steinbackâs mind.

Second, beauty is in the eye of the beholder; thus, whatever I share below is just a pure figment of my imagination.

When I first read the passage, the personification usage was quite clear. It was so clear that my brain fixated only on the author's seemingly grammatical mishap. Then, when I read the next sentence in the same passage, I noticed his use of the definitive article the for shadow, which is an uncountable noun â Mr. Steinbeck must have been fully aware of the grammatical contrast between the two sibling sentences.

Nevertheless, my brain did not register anything besides focusing on the contrast until I saw the last word from MrPedanticâs comment, âpersonificationâ. Suddenly, it made sense to me if I replaced Evening of a hot day with John of a one-person village. Why does that matter?

To me, âThe evening of a hot dayâ sends a message that a hot day restricts the meaning of evening. Again, it must be out of my own imagination, such restriction - from personification point of view - diminishes the role of evening, the passageâs main actor that âstarted the wind and cast the moving shadow up the hillâ. If The is removed, the seemingly grammatical error would tarnish the beauty of his painting. To solve the dilemma is to name evening Evening!

Mr. Steinback turned âa picture worth a thousand wordsâ on its head; with lesser than 50 words in three sentences he painted a very dynamic picture for us to behold.

Best Regards,
Hoa Thai

Re: evening (without preposition) / to start to doing

Cool Breeze — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:52:23 GMT

CalifJim wrote:
since laughter is an uncountable noun, unlike evening.
Unlike evening? Wow! In that sentence I understand evening as uncountable! (evening-ness?) Aren't all singular nouns in English uncountable when used without articles?

I didn't make my point clearly enough. I said evening is countable, I didn't say it is countable in Steinbeck's sentence. Evening is listed as countable in dictionaries, unlike laughter. Therefore it is possible to say: I spent two evenings with her, but we can't normally say: I heard two laughters from the street. Steinbeck uses evening as uncountable in his sentence. I find that a little odd and it makes me ask: why? I am just trying to figure out an answer for myself, I'm not trying to convince all members of these forums that I have the ultimate truth on the matter.

I mentioned representative in a previous post. If Portugal sends only one representative to a beauty contest, we normally say:

The representative of Portugal won the beauty contest.

If I treat representative as uncountable, I get:

Representative of Portugal won the beauty contest.

I find that sentence a little odd, if not downright incorrect. Similarly, since a hot day has only one evening - it is possible to say "one evening" because "evening" is countable - I would prefer to say:

The evening of a hot day...

I don't object to Steinbeck's choice, I'm just trying to squeeze it into the right grammatical pigeon hole in my brain. Anyway, Jim, I think you said earlier that you also considered the sentence perhaps a little odd or something, I don't remember your exact words right now. We are actually in complete agreement! And even if we weren't, what would it matter? My signature is: Live and let live. In this case it should be understood: Use your English and let others use theirs. I'm all for linguistic freedom.

CB

Re: evening (without preposition) / to start to doing

CalifJim — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:45:34 GMT

since laughter is an uncountable noun, unlike evening.

Unlike evening? Wow! In that sentence I understand evening as uncountable! (evening-ness?) Aren't all singular nouns in English uncountable when used without articles?

CJ

Re: evening (without preposition) / to start to doing

Cool Breeze — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:51:01 GMT

CalifJim wrote:

Light from several lanterns filled the room with a soft glow.
Laughter of children was heard on the playground.

Hmm. Do these have to be The light ... and The laughter ... ?

I certainly don't want to criticize Steinbeck's English at all. I dealt with the of-genitive in my previous post and there isn't one in your first sentence, so I'll say nothing about it. Laughter of children is also different grammatically since laughter is an uncountable noun, unlike evening. I'm not saying this is always the decisive factor but in this case it seems to make the difference in the use of the article, at least to me. When laughter of children was heard, it means that some laughter was heard, not necessarily all of it, and consequently dropping the article is normal.

This is how I understand the difference and I don't mind at all if some people disagree with me.

CB

Re: what could come after a preposition?

CalifJim — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:27:38 GMT

The only thing that can come after a preposition to form a prepositional phrase is a noun phrase, usually a noun accompanied by its preceding determiner and perhaps an adjective. A relative clause may be added. The noun itself may be a gerund.

If the element after the candidate for a preposition looks like it's not a noun, then either of these holds:

a. The preposition candidate is not a preposition, but perhaps an adverb or conjunction.
b. The structure after the preposition candidate actually is a noun phrase.

Both of your examples are in the category labeled b.

In your first example bad should be viewed as an adjective used as a noun, 'promoted' to a noun because of the elision of situation or its equivalent, one.

The situation can be seen as a bad situation.
The situation can be seen as a bad one.

In your second example, bad and good are simply abstract uncountable nouns meaning that which is bad and that which is good, respectively.

CJ

Re: more examples please

CalifJim — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 02:42:07 GMT

Thank you, CalifJim. I am going to give you four sentences that have a preposition followed by what looks to be a noun equivalent. Can you please tell me if these are illustrations of your points that you made above? Are they all correct noun equivalents?

1.He is displeased with filling of his pail. -- general abstract reference (used as an uncountable noun)

2. He is displeased with the filling of his pail. -- specific reference (used as a countable noun)

3. He is displeased with a filling of his pail. -- an instance of 'filling' (also used in a countable sense)

4. He is displeased with his filling of his pail. -- could be both abstract and specific but in the possessive 'his'

The gerund filling is the object of the preposition with in each case, so yes, they are all noun equivalents.

The descriptions you give show a connection with the points I made above. Yes.
However, filling a pail is difficult to conceive of as an abstraction, so the resulting sentences aren't particularly natural sounding.

CJ