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Would anyone help me?

hirashin

Sempai
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8 Apr 2004
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Hello, native English speakers.

Question 1
Which would be used?
(a) Those people are American.
(b) Those people are Americans.
(c) Those people aren't American.
(d) Those people aren't Americans.

Question 2
Would the following sentences be all right?

1 When Mary saw me, she said, "Hello. How are you doing?"

2a Recently I read a book about the beginning of the universe.
2b I read a book about the beginning of the universe recently.
2c I recently read a book about the beginning of the universe.

3 The professor found a lot of fossils in this area.

4 When Tom came to my place, Tom and I drank a lot of wine.

5 I wrote a letter to my parents in London.

6 My daughter went there with her mother last month.

7 I didn't see Bob today. (Bob = ニ畜ニ置 窶冕ツ青ォ窶堙娯?督シ窶楼 today =ツ債。窶愿コ)

8 Mary did not go to school yesterday.

9 Nancy didn't eat breakfast this morning.

10 My uncle did not say anything to me.

11 Did you go to a shrine on New Year's Day?

12 We didn't eat anything yesterday.

13 Did they find any fossils here?

14 Did you talk with Bob in English?

Thanks in advance.

Hirashin
 
Hi, again.

Q1:a,b,c,d) all good for me.
Q2

2:a,b) good, 2:c) is also OK, but I'd not use that.

4) 'wine' is non-countable, so, I think that could be right:

When Tom came to my place, Tom and I drank lots of wine.

All other senteces are looking good for me 🙂
 
2a could use a comma after "recently". Otherwise they are all fine.

Andromedashun's suggestion regarding 7 would change the nuance of the sentence. The original suggests that opportunities to see Bob today are finished, while the proposed alternative suggests that the speaker may still have some chance of meeting Bob later on today.
 
Thank you for trying to help me, ewww and andromedashun.

Thank you for your help, Mike. I really appreciate it.

In order to teach good English, I need native speakers' help
because I don't fully understand the language.

Thank you.

Hirashin
 
I think I'm probably being a little picky here but, I would change 14 to "Did you talk to Bob in English?" as I think it sounds better

But other than that, the rest are fine (Apart from the comma that Mike suggested, that is :)).
 
I think 14 could be situational. Where the original might suggest that Bob and the other person had a conversation back and forth. While your suggestion sounds like it may suggest that Bob did not reply to your speaking. Of course that one can also imply a conversation with two sides though.
 
Hello, native English speakers.

Question 1
Which would be used?
(a) Those people are American.
(b) Those people are Americans.
(c) Those people aren't American.
(d) Those people aren't Americans.

Question 2
Would the following sentences be all right?

1 When Mary saw me, she said, "Hello. How are you doing?"

2a Recently I read a book about the beginning of the universe.
2b I read a book about the beginning of the universe recently.
2c I recently read a book about the beginning of the universe.

3 The professor found a lot of fossils in this area.

4 When Tom came to my place, Tom and I drank a lot of wine.

5 I wrote a letter to my parents in London.

6 My daughter went there with her mother last month.

7 I didn't see Bob today. (Bob = ニ畜ニ置 窶冕ツ青ォ窶堙娯?督シ窶楼 today =ツ債。窶愿コ)

8 Mary did not go to school yesterday.

9 Nancy didn't eat breakfast this morning.

10 My uncle did not say anything to me.

11 Did you go to a shrine on New Year's Day?

12 We didn't eat anything yesterday.

13 Did they find any fossils here?

14 Did you talk with Bob in English?

Thanks in advance.

Hirashin

In Q1 B and D are correct depending on context, since you use "those" and "people" it means plural, so its correct to say "Americans"/"aren't Americans"

Q2
1 - OK

2 - all would be understandable and OK, but to me 2c seems the most "natural" way of saying it

3 - that would be OK if you were describing the area where you currently were in, if you were saying somewhere else then you would give the name of the place/area where he found the fossils

4 - that would be understandable, but it might be better to say something like "Me and Tom drank a lot of wine when he came to my place."

5 - thats OK

6- that would be acceptable

7 - that would be OK as well

8 - OK, you could also say why she didnt go to school if you wanted, but that sentence would be fine

9 - I cant see anything wrong with that sentence

10 - OK as well

11, 12, 13 and 14 are all good as well

You're English is good! I hope I helped!
 
4 - that would be understandable, but it might be better to say something like "Me and Tom drank a lot of wine when he came to my place."
This is not correct, but it's a common error.
The way to remember it is that the correct pronoun does not change just because you group it with other nouns or pronouns. Test the sentence in the single form if you're in doubt.
Me drank a lot of wine -> Obviously wrong
I drank a lot of wine -> Obviously right

Therefore, 'Tom and I drank a lot of wine when he came to my place.'
The same testing technique works for she/her he/him problems too, although I feel like this error is typical of native speakers and rare for foreign speakers.

It's also somewhere halfway between a grammar rule and a matter of politeness to always put yourself last in lists like that. Always 'He and I' (or more rarely 'him and me'), never 'I and he' or 'me and him'. This rule really only applies to formal writing and polite conversation, it's ignored often in casual conversation. In some dialects it's even more common to put yourself first.

As for the original sentence,
"When Tom came to my place, Tom and I drank a lot of wine."
This sentence is perfectly correct, by the textbook. It is, however, unnatural because of repeating 'Tom'. In much the same way and situations that natural Japanese omits subjects, natural English contracts them to pronouns.

The rewrite "Tom and I drank a lot of wine when he came to my place." is fine, but far from the original sentence.

You could say, "When Tom came to my place, he and I drank a lot of wine." This is fine, but sounds a little stiff, like a line from a biography, not from a conversation.
You can say, "When Tom came to my place, we drank a lot of wine." This is also fine, more natural. The 'we' is slightly ambiguous, but this is normally understood to mean 'Tom and I' unless there's some other context that would change that.
 
I'm not going to answer your questions as I think everyone already did a great job helping out :) Just a word of advice though, it might be a little better for you to use dialogues instead of a random series of sentences without context. Keep it up!
 
Thank you for your help, Wardie and Chris.

Patric, do you know I am an English teacher? I asked about those sentences because I was going to use them for
the English examination for my high school students. Thanks anyway.

Hirashin
 
Hello, Patric.

Patric says;
>I hope I can help more in the future.

Thank you for saying that. I'll need your help. By the way, are you in Nishinomiya, Hyougo Prefecture?
How long have you been in Japan? Are you working here?

Hirashin
 
You're very welcome.

Yes I live in Nishinomiya, Hyogo, I've just been here for 8 months, so obviously still have a lot to learn about Japan and how things work in the country.
Yes I run my own English coaching business (ELIT English Coaching). How about yourself? How long have you been teaching English for?
 
Thank you for your reply, Patrick.

I run a small "juku" school in my house. I believe you know what "juku" is like. I teach
various subjects, such as Math, English, Kanji, science and so on to my students aged
from 8 to 18. I have run the school for about 30 years.

English is a difficult subject for me to teach because I don't have full command of it.
I know I can speak and write it to some extent, but I often can't judge whether the
sentences my students use are correct or not.

I taught English at a nearby high school as well for a year from 2012 till 2013. Most of
the students there were unwilling to learn English. It was a challenging experience to
motivate them to learn it.

Hirashin
 
I see. Sounds interesting.

Don't worry, it's also sometimes difficult for native speakers to figure out whether a sentence is grammatically correct, they rely on their ears which, though often accurate, are not always the best judge especially when it comes to academic matters.

I agree. I also taught some elementary students who'd never had the slightest interest in English. Who can blame them? There were many things I didn't like at school because I thought they were irrelevant. At the moment, I'm teaching JHS students only on Fridays, and it's just equally hard.

Well, we've got to do what we've got to do :).
 
Just a suggestion, give them interesting movies or shows relevant to age groups of those whom you are teaching English.. in that way, they might gain some interest on learning the language.. Most of the people in this world will like something that is relevant to their interest, and so as the language.. It's the same as one of the prides of Japan - their anime.. I guess, we can't deny the fact that at least a great percentage of those who wanted to learn japanese is because they like or had been inspired by watching animes.. I hope this helps... 👍
 
Just a suggestion, give them interesting movies or shows relevant to age groups of those whom you are teaching English.. in that way, they might gain some interest on learning the language.. Most of the people in this world will like something that is relevant to their interest, and so as the language.. It's the same as one of the prides of Japan - their anime.. I guess, we can't deny the fact that at least a great percentage of those who wanted to learn japanese is because they like or had been inspired by watching animes.. I hope this helps... 👍

By the time a child reaches high school age in Japan he has seen many English language movies (dubbed or subtitled). They are frequently on television, in theaters, and the rental shops are full of them.
 
I agree. When I was teaching adults in Australia, I was using "Seinfeld" as classroom material and it worked wonders. I would personally love to use movies or "anime" in the classroom, but Japanese schools (or maybe the school I work at) are not much into it. They seem to have a cap on how creative you can get and there are certain expectations in terms of what to teach and how to teach it. What I often do is use performance and physical comedy quite a bit just to keep it all light and fun. I taught at an elementary school last year and the students went from "Oh not you again" to "please don't leave us"! But that takes lots of energy and I don't think many teachers think it is worth it.
 
By the time a child reaches high school age in Japan he has seen many English language movies (dubbed or subtitled). They are frequently on television, in theaters, and the rental shops are full of them.

So what keeps them from learning the language? Subtitles?
 
Here in Japan, most of us are taught English at school for 6 years. The Education Ministry has forced every Japanese student to learn it. But, unfortunately, very few can speak the language fluently. That's probably because most of us do not need to speak it in everyday life. Learning a foreign language requires a lot of time and efforts. Very few people are willing to spend their time on English learning.

Please correct my English if needed. I hope I make sense.

Hirashin
 
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