Search results for 'tag:Verbs tag:Learn English' matching tags 'Verbs' and 'Learn English'

Re: does anyone describe these sentence with simple way?

Cool Breeze — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:28:28 GMT

I think you are trying to learn English from too complicated sentences. You have problems with basic words such as this and these.

The statement = the subject

threatens = the finite verb, main verb, predicate

to restrict = infinitive

border crossings = object

... carried by the North Korean news agency = a reduced passive relative clause or a clause equivalent: which was carried by...

The second sentence is easier in structure and should pose no insurmountable problems for anyone familiar with the rudiments of English grammar. Repeated is a past participle used adjectivally.

How to explain, âHe lives in London.â but âWhere does he live?â?

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:01:25 GMT

Greetings:

I am helping a student learn English but I am having trouble explaining some grammar to him.

In the sentence, âHe lives in Britain.â, he understand that the third person singular verb always has an â-sâ or â-esâ attached to it. However, he (and I) donât understand the following.

Why does âliveâ lose the âsâ in the sentences âWhere does he live?â or âDoes he live in Britain or France?â. Similarly, â-sâ in âHe drives cars.â but no â-sâ on the verb âdriveâ in âDoes he drive a car?â

Also, the sentence âHe fixes cars.â is easy to understand but why does the verb âfixâ loses its â-esâ in the negative sentence âHe does not fix cars.â

Any advice anyone can give us in this matter is greatly appreciated.

Re: Lack of emphasis on NPs in ESL

Kooyeen — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:38:55 GMT

I obviously agree with Forbes: it depends on your first language. I have never had any problems with passive sentences, subjects and objects, the difference between countable and uncountable, etc. because those are all features I have in Italian too. It is not difficult at all for me to use conditional structures (= modal verbs) in polite requests, like in "Could you lend me 1,000 dollars?", because very similar structures are used the same way in Italian too. On the other hand, I know some Asian languages don't even have past or future tenses, so it's easy to imagine how much more difficult it must be for them to learn English.

So instead of focusing on noun phrases, shouldn't we rather focus on the real difficulties, which happen to vary from learner to learner according to their native language and past experience with languages in general?

Anonymous

How about this student?

<<I assume many of you have watched the cartoon "Totally spies", right?
I just wonder why it is "Totally" here. "totally" is always an adverb, so what do they imply when using "totally" here? How can it go with the noun "spies"?>>>

Heh, good question! I don't know! Could somebody tell me more about that, as a side note here without going completely off topic? Otherwise I will open another thread. I would say "Total spies", but if I suspect that "totally" in "Totally spies" is used informally in some dialects to mean "definitely", like in, like " Are you, like, coming to my awesome party tonight? - Oh, yeah, totally!"
If that is the case, then I don't think that "totally" has anything to do with proving learners have trouble with noun phrases. It would suggest learners have trouble with informal English, and if you ask me, that's true.

Re: so that, so as to, so as for

Cool Breeze — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:21:17 GMT

Hmm... So as denotes purpose, why? I bought a dictionary [so as] to learn English. The infinitive (to learn) on its own is enough to denote a reason. You can also say: I bought a dictionary [in order] to learn English. Wouldn't place not between to and the verb. I would say: ... so as not to disturb you.

So as for looks odd to me. I would say: As for / As to / With regard to / As regards leaving tomorrow, the trip is off.

Need a sentence checked!

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:20:16 GMT

Alright, the sentence is "It's time you learn English."

Now I'm pretty damned sure there's something wrong with having the two verbs like that, but I'm not sure exactly what's wrong with it, if anything at all.

Any help is greatly, greatly appreciated.

Re: Sentence/sightseeing

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:38:34 GMT

Method OF Learning is totally right, because here it's a noun.
You could also use FOR, but I don't see any reasons to change that.
But if your intention is using "learning" as a verb, like "I use this method to learn english",
You SHOULD change that for TO. You can use FOR if you change the phrase to:
"I use this method for english learning" because here it's a noun.

Re: i need help with this sentence, please, it's important :(

Grammar Geek — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:50:51 GMT

Anonymous
i know that i need to add capital letters but that wasn't my question...

But when you ask if something is correct and it has an incorrect element, it would be remiss of us to not point that out. Oddly, we expect that when people come to a forum to learn English and present their work as correct, they have taken all due care to ensure that it is correct. Silly of us, I guess.

Context IS important. Are the professor's sacrifices current or in the past? That will determine the tense of your verb.

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: How to learn English from music/songs?

Seonaid — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:39:37 GMT

Hello,

Interesting thread.

Just to let you know that in English we never say 'are you agree' because 'agree' is a verb (though it's a very common mistake by learners, I guess because we use an adjective to say we agree in many languages).

Seonaid

Re: had had

Yankee — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:27:54 GMT

Hi Mkyol

I'd like to point out a few things:

- The word 'since' does not work in your sentence as it is written. It seems that you want to use the word 'since' to talk about 'from a point in the past up to now', but that doesn't work well with the verb 'started'. The start of something is usually a very short point in time and does not take place over a period of time.

- The word 'since' is usually used with the present perfect continuous, and in that verb tense the verb is extremely connected to the present ('up to now'). To talk about the past time when something began, you need the simple past tense, but you can't use the simple past tense (started) together with the time word 'since' as you have done.

- Using 'had had' would suggest something that was finished/ended before you 'started' -- i.e. she was no longer interested at the time you started. But that wouldn't really make much sense in your sentence. You should use the simple present tense if your mother is still alive and still has this interest.

I would suggest rewriting your sentence in one of these ways:

If you want to talk about a time from the past up to the present, you could write it this way:
"My mother has an intense passion for education, and I have been learning English since junior high school."

If your mother is now dead, or if all of the verbs (events/activities/states) are in the finished past, you could write it this way:
"My mother had an intense passion for education, and I started to learn English in junior high school."

I can't think of any really logical way to use had had (past perfect) in your sentence.