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Please check some sentences

hirashin

Sempai
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8 Apr 2004
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Hello, native English speakers,

Would anyone correct the following sentences if needed?

1. My name is Suzuki Jun-ichi, but my friends call me Jun. My hobbies are listening to music and swimming. I belong to the guitar club and practice in the the audio-visual room after school every day

2. I would like to exchange opinions with you about volunteer activities. I would like to do some volunteer activities for the town where I live. Because I love small children, I would like to take care of them at a day-care center.
My dream is to become a nursery school teacher. So this idea may be good. I'd like you to reply to me writing your opinions about this topic.

Thanks in advance.

Hirashin
 
No major problems , but .......

The last sentence would sound better if you put "reply to me in writing....." I think. Also , the sentence before ....."My dream is to become a nursey school teacher,so this idea may be good " seems better as 1 sentence.
As always , maybe others will have a better idea on it.

Uncle Frank
 
If you change the last sentence to "in writing" then you will need to make another change too; for example, "I'd like you to reply to me in writing with your opinions about this topic." However, I'm wondering if "reply to me in writing" may be a tad too formal and official-sounding for your purpose. Perhaps you could say "I'd like you to write back with your opinions on this topic."

Also, I noticed that you have a "the the" in the third sentence.
 
Hola, amigo.
Sorry, I am not a native, but ... sorry here is my opinion

My hobbies are listening to music and swimming.

That sentence is OK, but I'd say: "My hobbies are music listening and swimming"

I belong to the guitar club and practice in the the audio-visual room after school every day

I am not sure about audio-visual room, because audio-visual rooms are very expensive rooms and they are common for corporative/office buildings, universities, but, sometimes, You may find it in high school too. I do not think that somebody will allow to practice guitar here. From another side, based on knowledge of couple local HS, school authorities could allow it in media room, cafeteria, music room/class, and in garage.

"I belong to the guitar club" it is good, but sounds very possessively, I mean phrase "A am member of guitar club" sounds more neutral.

Just 2C.
ewww...
 
That sentence is OK, but I'd say: "My hobbies are music listening and swimming"
Your suggestion is not correct.

"I belong to the guitar club" it is good, but sounds very possessively, I mean phrase "A am member of guitar club" sounds more neutral.
"I belong to the guitar club" is fine and does not have any unwanted connotations. "I am a member of the guitar club" is also fine.
 
Hello, all good for grammar except for a typo where "the" was repeated twice, style is natural. The "guitar club" and "listening to music" parts are fine as they are, they are more natural than the suggested alternatives. The only thing I'd do differently if I wrote it is:

My dream is to become a nursery school teacher. So this idea may be good.

I think it would be smoother to combine those into one sentence, its a little clunky to separate two ideas that are so closely related.
 
eeky, sorry for annoying.

Your suggestion is not correct.

Could You, please, explain what is wrong with that suggestion?
Just curious, cuz I am using that construction quite often, and ... I think here is place for some improvement.

Thanks in advance,
ewww...
 
"music listening" is quite an awkward phrase. I can't imagine anyone saying that their hobby is "music listening"; it just doesn't sound right. I suppose the reason is that you don't "listen music", you listen to music. Compare "My hobby is bird-watching/bell-ringing/cake-making/etc.", which are all OK since you "watch birds", "ring bells" and "make cakes".
 
The last sentence would sound better if you put "reply to me in writing....." I think. Also , the sentence before ....."My dream is to become a nursey school teacher,so this idea may be good " seems better as 1 sentence.
As always , maybe others will have a better idea on it.

Uncle Frank

Each phrase can grammatically stand as an independent sentence and they are thematically related. They should be joined by a semicolon rather than a comma splice.
 
Thank you for the help, Frank, eeky and Rick. I appreciate it.

ewww, I think you are also learning English through my questions. That's a good thing, isn't it?

Hirashin
 
I suppose the reason is that you don't "listen music", you listen to music. Compare "My hobby is bird-watching/bell-ringing/cake-making/etc.", which are all OK since you "watch birds", "ring bells" and "make cakes".

I think you may be right about that. I'm trying to think of other verbs that work like "listen", and one that comes to mind is "attend to duties", it would also be weird to say "duty attending". "Music listening" doesn't sound quite as strange, I guess because the subject comes up a lot more often and people do say it, so some of the weirdness has worn off, but it's still less natural than "listening to music"
 
Everything I was going to mention about your first paragraph has already been discussed.

In the second section, you wrote "I would like to" in both the first and second sentences. It's a little awkward.

"So this idea may be good." - It's not wrong, it just sounds a little unnecessary.

"I'd like you to reply to me writing your opinions about this topic." - Again, this isn't wrong by any means, but it's a bit wordy.
Try "I'd love to hear some opinions from you about this topic." - Though, the original sentence is fine the way it is.
 
Thanks for the help, I Am A Baka san (oh, it's hard for me to write your screen name since I know you're not Baka at all!).

"I'd like you to reply to me writing your opinions about this topic." - Again, this isn't wrong by any means, but it's a bit wordy.
Try "I'd love to hear some opinions from you about this topic." - Though, the original sentence is fine the way it is.

I used "reply to" because the textbook instructed you to use it. Does "reply to" sound too formal?

Hirashin
 
ewww, I think you are also learning English through my questions. That's a good thing, isn't it?

Yeah, learning is always good. 🙂

BTW, eeky is not completely correct. "Music Listening" and "Listening to music" is perfect case of "cola" and "soda". If You will have time, You may google "music listening", and here You could find something like that Minnesota High School Music Listening Contest. "Music listening" is widely used and it is not awkward at all.
 
Acceptable cases of the two words "music listening" occurring together no doubt exist in certain contexts. However, the general phrase "music listening" viewed in isolation is awkward, and "my hobby is music listening" is especially so. Remember also that thousands of hits of almost every example of bad or awkward English can be found via Google.
 
(oh, it's hard for me to write your screen name since I know you're not Baka at all!).

I may not be a baka when it comes to English, but my Japanese is an entirely different story. ;)

I used "reply to" because the textbook instructed you to use it. Does "reply to" sound too formal?

No, 'reply to' is completely acceptable. The reason I changed it was because there were far too many words put together to form a sentence.

'I'd like you to reply to me writing your opinions about this topic.'

See, 'reply and 'writing', while not the same, send across a similar message. You could remove either one to make the sentence sound more natural.

'I'd like you to reply to me stating your opinions about this topic.'
'I'd like you to message me back stating your opinions about this topic.'
Though, both of these aren't how I'd write it.

Now that I think about, my first suggestion in my first post was probably wrong. 'Hear' isn't the right verb considering it's a message, and not real life speech.
 
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