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He made a big money from this invention etc

hirashin

Sempai
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8 Apr 2004
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Dear native English speakers,
thank you very much for your ongoing help.
Here's another one. Would you check my sentences?

① He made a little money from some of his inventions and began his business with it.

② Chicago developed into a big city in the late 1800s. (Chicago =シカゴ the late ~s =~年代末)

③ Julia practices very little but she is very strong. (practice =練習する)

④ The new law has enabled more women to return to work. (law = 法律 return to~=~に戻る)

⑤ Music always plays an important part in his movies.

4 英訳しなさい。
①コンピュータは、今日、社会で、重要な役割を果たしている。
[play, part, society, today を用いて ]
The computer plays an important part in the society today.
Computers play an important part in the society today.

②この小さな会社が、後に、ソニー(Sony)に発展した。(7語)
This small company later developed into Sony.
This small company developed into Sony later.
Later this small company developed into Sony.

③テレビのおかげで、私達は家に居て、世界を見ることが出来る。
[enable, us, see, while, at homeを用いて]
TV enables us to see the world while we are at home.

④井戸(well)にはほとんど水がない。(Thereで始めて7語で)
There is little water in the well.

⑤彼はこの発明で大もうけした。
He made a big money/profit from this invention.
He made a lot of money from this invention.
[Can you say "by" or "with" instead of "from"?]

Thanks in advance.
Hirashin
 
"a big money" is not a valid expression in English. "Big money" (without the "a") is valid as slang in some localities, but it's not very popular. The usual expression is "a lot of money". The reason "a big money" is invalid as an expression is because as a general rule, "big" is not used with mass nouns, and "money" is a mass noun.

In answer to your question, "from" there can't be substituted with "by", but it can be substituted with "with".

"Society" is almost always treated as a mass noun when using it as in 4-1, so no "the". The plain singular form is mainly used to refer to old or alien societies, or for other definitions of the word (as in e.g. "the honor society").

Regarding this:

"Julia practices very little but she is very strong."

I'm not familiar with the term 練習する. Does it refer to training in martial arts or something? Or are you trying to use "strong" to mean something like "skilled"? If the former, "train" is a better term than "practice". If the latter, you really should use something like "skilled" as non-physical "strength" is usually interpreted to mean emotional strength, not intellectual ability.

Everything else looks good to me.
 
Thanks for the help. Julie.chan (You have omitted "maru" from your name).

How about these sentences?
The computer plays an important part in society today.
Computers play an important part in society today.
He made a big profit from this invention.
Julia trains very little but she is very strong at her matches. / Julia trains very little but she always wins the tournament. (I am trying to mean Julia is an athlete. )
 
You have omitted "maru" from your name
Well, not exactly. I substituted in an ASCII character that kind of fits, since there's no 丸 in that charset. (I've actually been using "Julie.chan" elsewhere for some time now. It's based on my last name, "Marchant"->マルチャント.)

The computer plays an important part in society today.
Computers play an important part in society today.
Looks perfect to me.

He made a big profit from this invention.
That's good. It's the simple, down-to-Earth way of saying it.

Julia trains very little but she is very strong at her matches. / Julia trains very little but she always wins the tournament. (I am trying to mean Julia is an athlete. )
I see. In this case, you don't want to use "strong", as "strong" refers to physical strength, not adeptness. It brings up an image of someone who can lift a lot of weight, or in the more metaphorical sense, someone who can push forward despite (usually emotional) stress/barriers/etc (e.g. "strong-willed"). The word you want to use for someone who is good at a sport (for reasons other than muscular strength) is something like "skilled", "adept", or "talented".
 
Does this sound off, too?
Julia trains very little but she always wins the tournament.
 
There have been quite a few football players who after a certain age didn't train much due to injuries but still played matches. You would say something like "Paul McGrath never trains anymore, but he's still one of the best defenders in the world". You can't say "the tournament" because you're not referring to a specific tournament. You could just say "She always wins".
It's interesting you thought "a big money" would be acceptable. Now I see why; you are thinking you can substitute little for big, but in a little money we are not saying a money and inserting little, we are saying a little in terms of quantity, like a little/much/a lot of and adding money. I'm sure you know you couldn't say a small money, which is what the actual opposite of a big money would be.
I don't think we would say "make a big profit from an invention" because that's not how inventions and patents work. When you make a profit, a business has earned more than it has spent, but that's not the issue with inventions, it's about whether the idea was good and successful. You could say "he profitted from his invention" but that would mean that he gained benefits and rewards, not that he made a profit in a business sense.
 
Thank you for the help, Michael2.
Do you mean this would be fine?
Julia trains very little but she always wins.
[Would "practices" instead of "trains" sound off? ]

I don't think we would say "make a big profit from an invention" because that's not how inventions and patents work. When you make a profit, a business has earned more than it has spent, but that's not the issue with inventions, it's about whether the idea was good and successful. You could say "he profitted from his invention" but that would mean that he gained benefits and rewards, not that he made a profit in a business sense.

Sorry, I don't understand. Do you think this would sound fine? It's from the text. [By the way, "profitted" seems to be incorrect. I guess it should be "profited". ]
His first inventions were begun during his adolescence. With a little money made from one of his inventions, he started his own manufacturing business.
 
I think trains and practices would both be fine. Which one would be better would depend on the sport she is doing.

Sorry, yes, profited. Make a profit is concerned with whether the revenue of a business is greater than its costs. It's quite an economic term. Businesses make a profit. People can profit from something though, as in get a reward or benefit, but it could be in any form, including financial. A good example is the story of Toru Iwatani, who invented Pac-man. Namco, the company, make a massive profit from the game, but Iwatani did not personally profit from the creation of Pac-Man, saying, "The truth of the matter is, there were no rewards per se for the success of Pac-Man. I was just an employee. There was no change in my salary, no bonus, no official citation of any kind." You could say he profited from the game because I'm sure he became internationally well-known and earned respect in the gaming world, but making a profit would have been the business procedure of selling the game.
 
Ahh, now I understand, I guess.
Then, would it be all right to say, "He made/earned a lot of money from this invention"?How about "got" instead of "made" or "earned"?
 
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Yes, make and earned would be fine. "Got" sounds a bit strange although you could say something like "He got a lot of money from Sony for the patent for the invention".
 
When you say strong are you thinking 強い or 上手?
"Strong" is a little less flexible than these Japanese words. It typically means physical strength unless it's qualified by something such as mental strength.

"make big money" is used in real life as you can plainly see: "made big money" - Google Search
"a big money" is incorrect (even though, oddly, "a little money" is fine).

I don't think we would say "make a big profit from an invention" because that's not how inventions and patents work. When you make a profit, a business has earned more than it has spent, but that's not the issue with inventions, it's about whether the idea was good and successful. You could say "he profited from his invention" but that would mean that he gained benefits and rewards, not that he made a profit in a business sense.
I don't agree. It's completely fine and natural say "make a profit from an invention." Check the dictionary -- profit has several meanings and the first one is "a valuable return." It doesn't have to be a strict business sense. If you make an invention, file a patent, and sell the patent, that's profit from the invention.
 
Profit by itself, yes, as I said, but not make a profit unless the inventor themselves went into business, which they rarely do, and if they did it would be in the revenue/cost sense that they had made a profit.
 
Thanks for the help, MIchael2 and mdchachi.
I'll make the students use "a lot of money" to avoid using "profit", which seems to be controversial.
 
As to 4③ "TV enables us to see the world while we are at home", how about these? Which sentences would sound right?
(a) The TV enables us to see the world while we are at home.
(b) TVs enable us to see the world while we are at home.
(c) The television enables us to see the world while we are at home.
(d) Televisions enable us to see the world while we are at home.
(e) The televisions enables us to see the world while we are at home.
 
"TV" used as a mass noun refers to the system of broadcasting to televisions, whereas "TV" used as singular or "TVs" (plural) refers to a particular television (the device). (Note: "TV" and "television" are interchangeable in all cases.) It would be a bit odd to refer specifically to one television in that particular context, since any television does what you describe, but "television" (mass noun form) or "televisions" is perfectly fine.

E is incorrect because "enables" is singular and "televisions" is plural.
 
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