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

Re: "any"-defining

Fandorin — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:18:36 GMT

Kooyeen

You can do that too, but it is not common, it's only used sometimes for emphasis. It's easy to build odd sentences that way, so I personally prefer to avoid using it that way, as a learner. When talking about one thing, using the article "a" (or "an") is the common way to say it...
Do you have a sister? Is there a hospital near here? I don't have a sister, you must be mistaking me for someone else...

I didn't consider uncountable nouns because they are not usually used in the plural, so they weren't part of our problem. I didn't consider idioms or exceptions either... I can think of a couple of them right now:
Is there any reason why you are not allowed to do that?
There isn't any way to find out the truth, I'm afraid.

The singular seems to be the idiomatic choice in those cases.

Yes, it's odd way not to use "a". Indeed, "any=some" implies itself plural noun to be used. So the difference in translation some of constructions in English seems to be slightly smoothed between two meanings you mentioned above. At least it's so in my language.

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: Pls correct my translation homework

abbie1948 — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 12:57:21 GMT

Hi Lyn,

Here is one of my posts from a previous thread on the topic of articles. It might help.

Posted: 03-30-2005 12:26 PM

The correct use of articles is acknowledged to be one of the most difficult points of English grammar, so don't be despondant Ali; mistakes don't usually matter too much, as you will still be understood.

First, we don't usually use an article with plural or uncountable nouns. e.g. "there are lots of fish in the sea" NOT "Lots of the fish in the sea". "I love cats" NOT "I love the cats".

"The" is a definite article, as Jazz says. We use it for the following:

* to refer to something which has already been mentioned

"Ali posted a question to English Forum; THE question was about articles."

*when both the speaker and listener know what is being talked about, even if it has not been mentioned before.

"Have you done the housework?"

* when we are speaking about a particular person or object
"The man over there is a famous film actor."

* objects which are regarded as unique
"The sun" "the moon" "the sea" "The world"

* with adjectives which refer to a whole group of people
"The English" "The Americans"

* names of geographical areas
"The Indian Ocean" "the Sahara Desert"

and finally
* with groups of years
"the seventies" "the 1800's"

a/an are indefinite articles.

We use 'a' when the word which follows begins with a consonant. (i.e. any letter whch is not a vowel),
"a book" "a film"

We also use 'a' in front of a word which begins with vowels which sound like a consonant (e.g. 'u' & 'eu' sound like 'y', so we say "a university", "a euphoric experience"

We use 'an' when the word which follows begins with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u).

"an apple" "an exciting time"

As Jazz says, sometimes 'h' isa silent letter, i.e. we don't pronounce it, and we use 'an' in front of these words. I'm afraid these just have to be learned, but there aren't many of them. (e.g. "an hour" "an honest boy" "an hotel".)

Indefinite articles are used:

* When we talk about something for the first time.
"lets go to see a film"

* when we talk about particular groups of people (don't confuse this with the groups mentioned above)

e.g.
*jobs "a doctor"
*nationalities "an Englishwoman",
*religions " a Muslim"
*musical instruments "a piano" (but, if we are describing an action we say "he is playing THE piano", because we are speaking about one particular piano)
*names of days "I go to town on a Monday"
*with numbers "a hundred pounds" "a thousand and one uses"
*when we talk about one particular thing or person "she has a beautiful silver bracelet", " a thief stole it"

Ok - that's a fairly long explanation! Now how about some practice? Go to this site

http://a4esl.org/

Click on English grammar quizes, easy, then look at level 2 "Articles". You will find some exercises there to help you.