"must" and "have to"

Dear native English speakers,
would you check my questions and answers?

Choose the correct one.
①I ( must / have / has ) to help my mother this afternoon.

②Mary ( must / have / has ) to practice the piano to win the contest. (win ~=~に優勝する)

③Do I ( must / have / has ) to go to your house?

④We ( must / have / has ) arrive at Tokyo Station before noon. (before ~ = ~までに)

⑤You ( must / have / has ) not swim in this river.

⑥You ( don't have / doesn't have / must not ) to come with me.


２ ( )の指示に従って英語に訳しなさい。[Translate into English. ]
①私達は毎朝５時に起きなくてはなりません。(to, get, o'clock を用いて10語で)
①We have to get up at five o'clock every morning.

②彼らは，みんな、日本語を勉強しないといけないんですか。(to, they all を用いて7語で)
②Do they all have to study Japanese?

③マイクは、今、宿題をしなくてはいけない。[｢宿題｣には｢彼の｣を付ける](toを用いて7語で)
③Mike has to do his homework now.

④トムは、７時まで事務所(office)に残らなければいけないんですか。[残る＝stay](toを用いて10語で)
④Does Tom have to stay in his office until/till seven? 下線部はどちらか一つ

⑤君は、正午(noon)までに大阪駅(Osaka Station)に着いていなさい。(must を用いて8語で)
[~(駅や建物)に着く= arrive at ~ / ~までに=by~またはbefore~]
⑤You must arrive at Osaka Station before [/by] noon. 下線部はどちらか一つ

⑥君は、明日、そんなに早く(so early)ここに来なくてもいい。(9語で)
⑥You don't have to come here so early tomorrow.

⑦君は、今、この箱(box)を開けてはいけない。(7語で)
⑦You must not open this box now.

Thanks in advance.
Hirashin

Everything looks OK to me.

In part 2, one answer translates ５時 as "five o'clock", while another translates ７時 as "seven". Of course, both answers are correct, but I am concerned that this will confuse some of your students, and take up lots of their time while they are trying to answer these questions. Perhaps you can add a note to #4 that "o'clock" is not needed.

joadbres said:

Everything looks OK to me.

In part 2, one answer translates ５時 as "five o'clock", while another translates ７時 as "seven". Of course, both answers are correct, but I am concerned that this will confuse some of your students, and take up lots of their time while they are trying to answer these questions. Perhaps you can add a note to #4 that "o'clock" is not needed.

Click to expand...

Agree. Although students should be introduced to some inconsistency because people don't all speak the same way, telling students how many words to write in their answer and then expecting them to use o'clock in one case and nott in the other case will confuse students.

By the way, I really don't like the idea of telling students how many words to give in their answer. It's an artificial constraint that is never imposed in real life and prevents them from giving a correct answer that is slightly different.

I looked through the test questions and didn't see any other problems.

Thanks for the help, joadbres and Lothor.

joadbres said:

In part 2, one answer translates ５時 as "five o'clock", while another translates ７時 as "seven". Of course, both answers are correct, but I am concerned that this will confuse some of your students, and take up lots of their time while they are trying to answer these questions. Perhaps you can add a note to #4 that "o'clock" is not needed.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, joadbres. I'll add a note.

Lothor said:

By the way, I really don't like the idea of telling students how many words to give in their answer. It's an artificial constraint that is never imposed in real life and prevents them from giving a correct answer that is slightly different.

Click to expand...

Most of my students in high school are not good at English and they are not willing
to learn the language. They would not try to answer my questions unless I didn't give
any clues. So I have given how many words to use in most J to E translation questions.

Some students walk around and others talk loudly in class. It's really hard to teach.

Hirashin

hirashin said:

Most of my students in high school are not good at English and they are not willing
to learn the language. They would not try to answer my questions unless I didn't give
any clues. So I have given how many words to use in most J to E translation questions.

Some students walk around and others talk loudly in class. It's really hard to teach.

Hirashin

Click to expand...

I sympathise but the use of Japanese teachers giving the number of words is a widespread practice.
My son (1st year junior high school) came home from juku with this question.

子の公園で野球をしてはいけません。(baseball, this, 6語で）

He'd been taught about can and can't (and many of the questions in the exercise used 'can' and 'can't' and he wanted to say
'You can't play baseball in this park', which is 7 words.

I had to think a bit before I got
'Baseball is forbidden in this park'
I didn't know 'forbidden', which seems a rather advanced word for someone who has just started (officially) learning English, so this
is a clear example where artificially imposing a number of words made the problem more complicated.

I think it's fine if the word count is used as a guideline ("our model answer has this many words") in order to assist the students, rather than as a strict requirement.

Lothor said:

子の公園

Click to expand...

Children's park? (j/k)

joadbres said:

I think it's fine if the word count is used as a guideline ("our model answer has this many words") in order to assist the students, rather than as a strict requirement.



Children's park? (j/k)

Click to expand...

Sorry my mistake, so much for my 'proofreader extraordinaire' name! Should have been この but the computer changed it to kanji.

Thanks for your opinion, Lothor. Wow! You have a son who is in the first year of junior high. Does he speak Japanese and English fluently?
If he speaks English fluently, he can be puzzled by the English taught in Japanese schools.

I think the answer his juku teacher assumes is "Don't play baseball in this park." The imperative form is taught in the first year of junior high.
Most of the students who have just learnt the form can solve it easily.

When you give this type of clues, students' answers are limited and teachers don't have to ask native speakers about students' questionable answers .
Very few English teachers in Japan are as good at English as native speakers, so we often can't judge if some students' answers are correct or not.
(I am really lucky to have a lot of kind and reliable native English speakers here.)

Hirashin

Thanks for the reply. I'll send you a private message about my son because it's not relevant to the thread.
I was also wondering whether 'Don't play baseball in the park' was OK, but my lack of confidence in translating the exact nuance of てはいけません made me hesitate. I'll tell him.

Do keep asking us if a student writes something you're not sure about, a quick post titled 'Is this student answer OK?' will take us very little time to answer.

Thanks, Lothor. I will.