Search results for 'tag:Vocabulary tag:Past tenses' matching tags 'Vocabulary' and 'Past tenses'

Re: Regularising the irregular

MrPedantic — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:34:11 GMT

Anonymous

<(How often do you need to say "I strove", "I sought", and so on? And when you do, you can say "I did my best", "I looked for", etc. instead.)>

How often do you need to say "it was a marvelous party" and not "it was a great party"?

That merely relates to vocabulary. There is no difference in grammatical difficulty between "it was a/an <adjective> party" and "it was a/an <adjective> party".

However, according to your earlier posts, there is a great difference in difficulty between "He <regular verb: past tense> the XYZ" and "He <irregular verb: past tense> the XYZ".

An ESL learner can avoid this grammatical difficulty by using the regular verb "look for" instead of the irregular verb "seek".

MrP

Re: A Lonely Dream

Need.2.C.U — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:37:11 GMT

Dear Sushi*,

I'm not a professional but as a reader you know I certainly have something to say. This is my personal opinion about your poem. Maybe it's right and maybe it's wrong. But it's really what I feel about what you wrote.

Honestly, I like your poem a lot and I like the vocabulary you used. I also think that the theme of the poem is quite good. But, and I should say it, I have some remarks.

- I think that your poem can have a better title. Throughout the whole poem, I see that you focused on the lonely moon more than the lonely dream. The lonely moon can be really a good title for your poem but there are also better ones.

- I like the first part of your poem so much (to "Without his colorful dreams") because it's really clearer, simpler and less "broken" or confused than the other part. I'm sorry to say it but I don't quite understand the last lines of your poem especially that the last two lines are not a complete sentence.

- "Go away", he screams
Then awakes. I stroke him to sleep. Then,
Here is a tense shift that doesn't help your poem at all. I think that since you started using the past tense to tell us about the boy who "wanted", "wished" and "thought", you should then have gone along to tell us that he "screamed" and "awoke" and that you "stroked" him (keeping the same tense not using a different one).

- I think that your poem lacks a good number of rhymes to be more beautiful. I also think that when you finished some sentences in another line where new sentences started, you made your poem a bit awkward and more like prose. Consider these lines for example:
[Never wanted the lights, to
Die away. Nor wished me to stay
With him.] He thought me to be
Don't you think that these would have been more graceful and more of a poem if you had said:
Never wanted the lights to die away
Nor wished me with him to stay.

I suppose that I have more remarks to say about your poem but as I see that what I have written is now long enough, I stop. I hope you will find my remarks really useful, accurate and to the point. Sorry for my late comment.

Re: Can somebody correct half of this letter I have posted?

Feebs11 — Wed, 16 May 2007 13:16:23 GMT

Tinaflurrs wrote:
This is an assigned letter to my teacher for a portfolio assignment. What I am posting is only a portion of what I have written, just want your feedback for mechanical errors.

Any great writer possesses the ability to obtain passion, creativity, and style that shapes a great essay or story into something more than just words. It becomes a reality to the author, because their thoughts become words, and words come with a meaning. To compare myself to a great writer, I would say I possess one forth of what I described, and that is creativity. I am able to use descriptive writing as a tool to my short stories, and stress my creativity further. I enjoy utilizing colorful vocabulary to make my writing seem more captivating and theatrical.

I never really saw[past tense??] myself as a potential story teller, because my greatest weakness has to be grammar errors. When I write, my intentions are to put words on paper, and with natural instincts I assume what comes out are all correct. I realize that I need to be more attentive and read out loud, but I just donât seem to have it stamped in my head. I always forget, and simply read over my writing once or twice and I imagine my grammars are [?plural grammars] efficient enough to submit. Another failure that I lack to succeed [??necessary] is being able to organize my papers into a more structured body. This cause is reflected on my forever unmanageable thoughts that seem to take control of almost every ounce of my brain fluids. Thus concluding to the habit of jotting words down and by the time I realized it, itâs too late. [ a non sequitur - does not relate to what you have written]

Re: past tense of must in reported speech

Inchoateknowledge — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 12:58:05 GMT

page 337?

Hi Marius.

361/6 advanced point?

The doctor said I had to/must stop smoking. Indeed, but

this book says it has to be changed:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grammar-Vocabulary-Cambridge-Advanced-Proficiency/dp/0582518210

Re: Gramar help

Arvsworld — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 07:32:12 GMT

If you are using the word "did", then you already are using the past tense. Did is the past tense of do.

"Did you guys had to..." is not correct.

"Did you guys have to..." is correct.

But the word do is often used in speech these days to replace several other words or phrases. It shrinks our vocabulary and it's not always specific or clear.

Did you guys study Chapter 15? Did you guys discuss Chapter 15? Did you guys summarize Chapter 15? Did you guys recite Chapter 15? Did you guys burn Chapter 15? Did you guys shred Chapter 15? There are many other words or phrases which are more specific, but these days, people would just say: Did you guys do Chapter 15?

Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather use words that closer describe what I say.

-A

Re: The confusing teaacher

nona the brit — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 08:34:37 GMT

Overall points. Don't forget to end all sentences with a full stop/period/question mark. You overuse 'understand' in contexts where 'learn' would be better.

I've made a few corrections for you but otherwise spelling errors in red. Grammatical errors in blue. Parts that need rephrasing/do not make sense/a different word choice in yellow.

I am depressed

I always get problem speaking English.

It is very hard to speak English fluently

I canât express my opinions, ideas, or whatever is inside my head comfortably.

Vocabulary is the greatest problem.

No self confidence

However, Iâll try.

I was typing when the teacher asked what you were doing and wheter you were typing the lecture material or doing something else. I said that I was typing the lecture. Then she asked us not to type. She said that we could copy the material and we were asked to listen to her talk only.

I was confused. How could she prohibit us to make a note. In a classroom, students are encouraged to make a note what the teacher teach. The more diligent the student, the more he gets appreciation, eventhough appreciation is not the target. And I have the same opinion. Our target is understanding. In my opinion, making a note by computer is one step infront of one by ballpoint. Documents in computer can be re-arranged, sorted, freely cut and pasted, deleted or added, so that the contents are built on a specific manner according to our understanding. This process is almost impossible if we make a note on a book.

And she said about copying the material ?

Yes, absolutely. It should not be a question, because it has been traditionally done, every students knows automatically what they should do when a material in Powerpoint is infront of them. And it was also what teachers mean when they made a material in power point. So, the question was not understandable. (It sounds as though she issued an instruction, she didn't ask a question).

Then she said just listening to her in addition to copying the material :

You know that what a teacher said was not exactly the same as the material. Furthermore, the material was not complete. It contained short terms, words and sentences which were points of lecture. In turn, the points would be explained orally.

I couldnât guarantee that everybody could catch the points without listening to their explanation. And understanding the points didnât guarantee that they would remember them in another time. Thatâs why we made a note.

Then she said that typing disturbed consentration ?

I didnât think so. We were students. We were here to (You are mixing up present and past tense in this essay. Decide on one or the other) absorb, understand, and remember the lecture, not to discusse it. We could discuss it in another opportunity, when we were not burdened from system judging right or wrong, bad or good, and pass or fail.

The student atmosphere push us to study on that manner.

Furthermore, we understand better by listening and typing compared with listening only. Remember that the first way involves more senses than the second one. The only obstacle was teaching too fast.

Finally, she was the only teacher prohibited us.

By making a note, we try hard, we practice to express our understanding with our own sentences. We donât like becoming a robot. We are alive.

Re: Question

LanguageLover — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 11:03:39 GMT

The language of media is a bit different, both in vocabulary and grammar, than the normal writing. One of the differences is the tense, as you've mentioned. If the time of the event, state,... is past, the tense of the sentence is present; if it is past perfect, then the sentence is past; and you can figure out the rest. For example, the verbs in the first paragraph would be in the past tense if it wasn't a part of newspaper article (this also can happen in narrations in a book or story, ...as well), so we would have:

Many of today's headlines focused on the new alliance with France. The Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper wrote "Poland teamed up with France against stingy Great Britain". Just two weeks ago, it added, the Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, had told his British counterpart Tony Blair in London, that Poland considered the UK its closest European ally.

And about "is offered", the sententence is passive, and it was actually "was offered". Hope that it helps.

Re: Su Cheng Zhong's Post: the Vocabulary Problem in Modern English

Su Cheng Zhong — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 00:21:08 GMT

If you don't like to use another explanation, then I try to explain it and you may correct it for me. The sentence of:
"I like him more than she gives the impression of I like him more than she likes him."
means: She expressed an idea that I like him more than she likes him. But in fact I like him more than this.
You said: "Why do people use irregular verbs? Depends on the origin of the verb, I guess. English did borrow from many languages."
But I have a different idea. The past tense of old English 'wear' was 'wered' not wore. This word is harder to pronounce than current 'wore'. You may repeat them several times to find it. So the economy of pronunciation is the first priority. Like wise, plenty of the irregular verbs have such property. Just think about 'taked' and 'took', 'seed' and 'saw' 'haved' and 'had', 'runed' and 'ran' etc. that means to say the English victim memory to remember a new word in order to reduce the times of oral action. Why this happened? Because English has not got enough phonetic patterns. Once the number of phonetic pattern increased, all the grammatical system would be changed. Some German linguists had found some thing about this.
Yes, it should be a hassle. But the full question is that the ancient people caring about the past and now, so they invent the past and present tense. Current people caring about every minutes, if keeping on the track, then we have to invent a suffix for every second for every verb. Yet when we separate them or free the suffix from the verb, then every thing would be simple. I think you agree with me at this point, but why not we free those suffix from the current verb?

May be this time I got what you want to say.
I like him more than she.
Means 'I like him more than she does.'
I like him more than her.
Means 'I like him better than her.'
If I am right, than the 'does' will divided the two meanings not 'she' or 'her'.

You said
"-Linguistic engineering is like genetic engineering -- it's something I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole! Maybe it's better to have consistent tense markers, but any artificial manipulation of the language is bound to have unintended consequences."
Any development in language would be step by step. Even the ancient monarchy couldn't change it overnight. The question is currently most of the linguists intend to explain the some ancient legacy or habit as linguistic science. It is a big mistake.

Re: Su Cheng Zhong's Post: the Vocabulary Problem in Modern English

Su Cheng Zhong — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 01:15:33 GMT

You said: "As for the second one, I've made myself very clear. Tense markers are more effective when no specific time is mentioned. Please refer to my example about "I came. I saw. I conquered.""
I agree with you that "I came. I saw. I conquered." are more effective. But I have another two questions that why people using irregular verb 'came' and 'saw' instead of 'comed and seed'? Can we find a uniform of the symbol of 'ed' and can the new symbol being separated from the verb?
Some linguist believes that the past tense was started from ancient time, when people don't care about time too much. They just care about past or present. But we care about every minutes of our life. In scientific study, they even care about one thousandth second of time. If we put a symbol like 'ed' in every words, then with the development of the science we should put at least every second before or from now a different suffix like 'ed' behind every verb, how many new suffix would we invent? Do you think they make sense?
As for the sentence:" I like him more than she gives the impression of I like him more than she likes him.", I am not sure what it means. But I reckon, when people want to express an idea likewise, normally they use a much simple sentence, for they have to have the confidence that the audience would understand it easily. But since I am not sure what do you mean, please explain it in a different sentence.

Re: Su Cheng Zhong's Post: the Vocabulary Problem in Modern English

julielai — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 01:57:04 GMT

Su's post:
I always wonder some thing in English grammar. For instance, the sentence:
I drive him.
'I' is the subject. 'Him' is the object. Yet their position have told us this too. Is that means the English grammar is sort of double expressing? For if the sentences of: I him drive. drive I him. drive him I. him drive I. him I drive. never happened in our printing material, the position will tell us what they are.
Another example is this:
I carried him, before.
It is also double expressing. The past tense 'ed' tells us the action happened in the past, while the word 'before' tells this too.
So the question would be; why should we express a certain meaning in a sentence twice, while other meaning only once? Is there any meaning that need to be expressed three times?

Julie: Subject Verb Object (SVO) isn't universal. In Japanese, the order is SOV.

e.g. honya e ikimasu. (bookstore, to, go = I go to bookstore)

If memory serves, suffixes in Latin determine the case, so word order is more flexible.
(is that right, Mr. P?)

Old English had a lot more inflections, but as inflections became more simplified, the language relied more and more on word order for its meaning. We can't assume the position determines the case, since SVO isn't universal.

Besides, look at the classic case of:
I like him more than her.
I like him more than she.

How do we distinguish between the two if we don't have objective cases?

As for your second example, I think Chomsky has brought it up in his transformational grammar book(s).
IMHO, tense markers do seem redundant in some cases. e.g

I watched TV last night.

Since we know it's "last night", the tense marker in "watched" does seem redundant as we can simply say "I watch TV last night".
Based on this, we may want to do away with tense markers. But then look at this example:

I came. I saw. I conquered.

Now if English doesn't have tense markers, we will have to add another word to explain the tense (like we do in Chinese):

I come already/before. I see already/before. I conquer already/before/etc. etc.
In this case, "I came. I saw. I conquered." is a lot more efficient.