Search results for 'tag:Pronouns tag:Grammar' matching tags 'Pronouns' and 'Grammar'

Re: This is.. these are

AlpheccaStars — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:59:35 GMT

I have taught English as a Second language to new learners.

The question/answer pair "What is this?" / "This is a ..." Â is lesson 2 (after introductions "Hello, my name is...", "What's your name?")

t teaches students how to ask for vocabulary words.Â

It teaches that English uses a change in word order to make a question from a statement.

It is a basis for teaching the word order for adjectives:

"This is a pencil."

"This is a red pencil."

"This is a yellow pencil."

The question/answer pair "What are these?" / "These are..." Â is the next step.Â

It reinforces the idea of word order, and the question word "what".

It teaches subject/verb agreement for the most important verb in English, making plurals by adding -s, dropping the article "a" in the plural, and that adjectives are not inflected.

"These are pencils."

"These are red pencils."

"These areÂ yellowÂ pencils."

That's a lot of grammar for one lesson!!

Later on, you can teach more complex rules such as the difference between this (something near) and that (something far) and pronouns such as "it" and "they".

Re: This is.. these are

Cool Breeze — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:19:01 GMT

Yes and no. There is nothing wrong with the grammar but it wouldn't be natural for a pupil to use the same pronoun the teacher uses if the teacher is holding something in his hand, for example. If I were a teacher, I could ask: What's this? The pupil would reply: It's a pencil. Even that's a pencil would be better than this is...

"What are these?" "They are pencils."

use of their

innamuris — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:13:07 GMT

Hi,

Can anyone explain when 'their' - possessive pronoun is used? Is it used to refer possession of something with respect to 'people' only or 'objects' like planets etc..

thanks

Re: Tech Editing vs. Grammar?

Grammar Geek — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:02:49 GMT

Hi Nao, and welcome to the forum.

Is this a discussion for a class you're taking? Do you need to write an essay on this? You shoudl share your thoughts too.

I can tell you one thing: I took an editing class, and was bitterly disappointed to find out that it was 90% grammar - and not only that, prescriptivist grammar on things that are now no longer looked down on, like using "their" as a gender-neutral, third-person-singular pronoun.

That doesn't mean that a tech editor doesn't have to know grammar. Good grammar gives credibilty and shows attention to detail. Poor grammar (in a native English speaker) makes me wonder what else your education didn't cover and makes me less likely to trust your other areas of expertise and good grammar shows me you care about your work. If you don't care enough to correct bad grammar, did you care enough to correct coding errors?

Re: language /grammar help in a text

Mister Micawber — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:43:59 GMT

.
Those (which are) in the type...

The demonstrative is used. The object pronoun cannot be the subject of the dependent clause.
.

Re: Sentence combining using dependent(relative) clause

Raen — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 05:12:35 GMT

Thanks Mister,

Grammar Geek
The "then" in the original sentence is oddly placed. If it were "Then she announced ..." it would be clear that the announcement followed the minute.

In many of the sentences combining practices the book uses "then" to prompt students to use the relative pronoun "when" and "there" for "where", etc...to combine 2 independent clauses into one sentence. In this case, I am almost 100% sure "then" doesn't mean "afterwards", rather it's referring to the now infamous "A minute" therefore the rigid answer of "A minute when Terri.......". It was truly a annoying experience to find out the answer, after all the mind-boggling grammar points and head-scratching perplexing rules that one had to go thru and was almost driven to the edge of insanity, one would expect the author to come up with a better and more convincing answer than that. Oh well :(

Thanks all

Raen

Sentence combining using dependent(relative) clause

Raen — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:14:09 GMT

Here is a practice:

Q: A minute passed in complete silence. Terri announced her wedding plans then.

I wrote: A minute passed in complete silence when Terri announced her wedding plans.

A: A minute when Terri announced her wedding plans passed in complete silence.

Grammar rules say: The adjective clause is used to modify a noun or a pronoun. It will begin with a relative pronoun (who, whose, whom, which, and that) or a subordinate conjunction (when and where). Those are the only words that can be used to introduce an adjective clause. The introductory word will always rename the word that it follows and modifies except when used with a preposition which will come between the introductory word and the word it renames.

It seems to me the official answer is a strict product of the rules and does not sound natural to me. If "when Terri announced her wedding plans" is to highlight/modify "minute" (as the grammar rule indicates), shouldn't the article "A" be a definite "The" specifying the time in a period of ONE MINUTE when the wedding plans were announced?

I just thought the length of time (a minute) was more of a figurative speech when the silence occured as a result of Terri's announcing her wedding plans not the precise minute that it took to announce her wedding plans. Any thoughts? Thanks a lot.

Raen

Re: nominative and objective pronouns.......confusing!

Avangi — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:41:35 GMT

Raen
[Do you mean opinion different from one person to the next, or "one grammar book" to the next?

Language is constantly changing - especially English. Grammarians disagree constantly, as Huevos has said.

Consider the expression, "Between you and me. . . . " Both pronouns function as object of the preposition.

Little kids sometimes say, "Me and him went to the movies." Parents and teachers keep harping at them, "No! It's 'he and I.' Always say the other person first! 'He and I, You and I !' "

They eventually learn that "you and me" is bad English. So when they need to say "between you and me," they hypercorrect it to "between you and I," because the objective case sounds wrong to their ears.

When the majority of native speakers prefer an incorrect usage, grammarians respond. The usage board, like the US Supreme Court bending the Constitution, yields to the pressure.

Re: nominative and objective pronouns.......confusing!

Raen — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:03:33 GMT

Huevos
if the verb is only implied use the objective pronoun, and if the verb is present use the nominative.In your sentence the verb is implied.

Huevo,

could you be kind enough to expound on that, even now I don't think I have a clear and complete sense of what pronouns to use. What do you mean by "implied" verbs as apposed to verb being "present". Also,

Huevos
Whatever you do someone will disagree.

Do you mean opinion different from one person to the next, or "one grammar book" to the next? If it's personal opinion, it's almost impossible to have everyone agree on all rules considering that languages are forever evolving one way or the other. But isn't there a universal grammar book that has the most authority and most English-speakers stick to? I simple just want to pass a test :(

Thanks

Raen

Re: Adjective Prepositional Phrases vs. Adverb Prepositional Phrases

Raen — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:45:31 GMT

Thank you very much Avangi for your explanation. But I have to confess I'm still as confused as before if not more.

For this sentence: In the cage we saw a jaguar from the jungle of Brazil, I did a little more work. After reviewing the rules more closely, it does say in the grammar book that 1) An adjective prepositional phrase will come right after the noun or pronoun that it modifies, and 2) Adverb prepositional phrases can come anywhere in the sentence and can be moved within the sentence without changing the meaning.

According to it, since "in the jungle" falls into the rule #2 above that Adverb prepositional phrases can come anywhere in the sentence and does not affect the over meaning and #1 that "in the jungle" doesn't follow the noun (jaguar) therefore not an Adjective prepostional phrase. Therefore it's an Adverb prepositional phrases that modifies the verb "saw".

But my question is this, put aside the grammar mumble jumble, if I agree the verb "saw" is modified by "in the jungle", an adverb prepositional phrase that tells how, when, where how much or why, it would almost seems like We were in the cage and saw the jaguar from the jungle of Brazil since "in the cage" (that tells where) modifies the verb "saw"..

I don't know, it's just confusing. I'm only studying the garmmar at this extent in order to take the exam. It seems to me, the detailed grammar analysis doesn't help improve communication skills in real life. In fact if I allow myself to be caught up with it, it hinders my ability to communicate, I'd be thinking in my head: now did I put that prepositional phrase in the right place in my sentence.....?

Thanks you again, Avangi!

Raen