By Tenses, Inflections

Hi everyoneI 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...

Main Entry: irregular verb Part of Speech: n Definition: any verb whose past tense and past participle are not formed by adding -ed, -d, or -t to the present tense, a verb that does not follow the general rules of inflection Examples of irregular verbs are...

All the rules for adding S are the same for plurals as for third-person singular present tense verbs, including the words that end in y. That said, there are a few exceptions that you will encounter from time to time, for example, words that end in f or fe. There are so few that you can just...

Jackson6612 wrote:Need sometimes behaves like a modal, for example 'She need know', 'She needn't know', or, in more formal English, 'She need not know'. Examples: 1: You needn't worry 2: Buying budget-priced furniture needn't mean compromising on quality or style... 3: Loneliness can be...

Hi ForbesThank you for your long reply. I do appreciate it. I would just like to say that I my opinion is based on the knowledge I have of the Germanic and Romance languages and it is of course very subjective. I fully understand that not everyone agrees with me and what I consider easy may be...

Hi KFEWelcome to EF. You have already learned about the continuous tenses (I am reading, he is coming etc.) and no doubt you'll learn about other ways to use the ing-ending in due course.Because there are only a handful of inflections in English, the same verb forms must be used in many functions...

Your sentences are not very good English as they contain grammatical mistakes. If I understand you right, you are asking whether need not + infinitive is a subjunctive. No, it isn't. Need in the present tense can be made negative in two ways:1. He need not go there.2. He doesn't need/have to go...

New2grammar wrote:So you are saying the 'if' usage does not automatically make a sentence subjunctive? Can you give me a couple of examples in different contexts where 'if' is not subjunctive?Certainly, New2grammar:1. I showed him some pictures yesterday. If he liked a picture, he would nod.2. I...

Mister Micawber wrote:The idiomatic 'try and do' is not acceptably used in any but that fixed form. Any inflection of the verb (tries and, tried and) illegitimatizes it.I'll try and help you later.She's going to try and bake a cake.(X) She tries and bakes cakes.(X) I tried and helped you...

I wrote a very short story using a homograph a few years ago. It was published in a Literaty Journal. Hope you like it: One Night Stand by: lee youngblood You can tell if a man is truly a bachelor the instant you walk into his bedroom. It’s not the mislaid clothes or disheveled dresser,...