Search results for 'tag:Singular verbs tag:Consonants' matching tags 'Singular verbs' and 'Consonants'

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: Spelling of Plural noun /vs/ the Third-person-singular verb inflection.

Loojka — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 01:42:06 GMT

Digger36 wrote:

But what about the SPECIAL cases of the inflection on the 3-rd person singular;
      it seems less obvious, as in these cases ..
    he destroys / ~~destroies~~         sand dunes
    he ~~trys~~ / tries                  jumping high
    he ~~carrys~~ / carries            the load
    he ~~emptys~~ / empties        the glass of milk
    he ~~finishs~~ / finishes         the task
    he ~~flys~~ / flies                  the airplane
    he loafs / loaves                on the couch
would appreciate reasoned choices in the above and some rule(s).

Thanks,,

Change y into ie only when it ("y") is preceded by a consonant.
Add es when a word ends in s, sh, ch, x or o.

Re: How to improve English grammar without reading grammar book?:^)

Marianat — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 21:32:46 GMT

Here are a few basic grammar rules to pay close attention to:

When you write "a" or "an" before a noun, it has to match the noun. This is done simply by using "a" if the word starts with a consonant, and using "an" if the word starts with a vowel.

Vowels: a, e, i, o, u.

An exception is the word "hour" because you can't hear the "h", and therefore it sounds like it begins with the vowel "o."

Examples:

An hour

A dog

An example

A key

___________________________________________________

Another thing to be careful about is verb agreement.

If the subject is plural, then the verb has to be singular (in most cases)

Example:

The dog runs. ("dog" does not end in an "s" and therefore the verb, "runs" has to end with an "s".)

The dogs run. ("dogs" ends with and "s", so "run" does not.

There are a few exceptions to this rule, one of the most common exceptions is verb "to be", but just use the following rule:

I am

You are

He is

She is

It is

We are

They are

Also, watch out for the words "everyone", "one of", "and", "or", etc.

Everyone is referred to as a group of people; therefore, it is a singular subject which requires a singular verb.

Ex: Everyone reads.

"One of" is what confuses most native English speakers. You have to watch out for this one. The most logical way to think about these sentences is to identify the subject.

One of the dogs runs. One is the subject in this sentence because only "one" of the dogs runs. If all the dogs were running, the sentence would look like this: The dogs run.

This technique works very well with almost all sentences.

If you have a sentence like "John and Jerry run" You have to remember that TWO boys are running, not just one; therefore, you have to think about it like "they run", and then you will find it easier to understand.

The word "or" is a little harder to figure out:

The girl or the boy runs. This is one of the easier examples because you can tell that only one of the children runs.

The girl or the boys run. This one is a bit harder because the subject could either be singular (the girl), or it could be plural (the boys); in this case, you have to use the subject which is closest to the verb. In this sentece, the subject which is closest to the verb (run) is the one you have to consider. So, think of it as "he boys run."

Commonly misspelled words:

accidentally, agreement, argument, analyze, benefited, existence, parallel, receive, weird, therefore, subtle, pastime, particularly, etc.

I hope this little guide helped some people more than confusing them. Feel free to correct any mistakes I might have made, nobody's perfect.

Thanks for reading this,

Marianat