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Would these sentences sound right?

hirashin

Sempai
Donor
8 Apr 2004
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Dear native English speakers,
I've made these sentences for the exam.
Would they sound right?
2③(a) The Economist is an interesting British magazine that everyone enjoys.
(b) Japan is always at or near the bottom in the surveys about what countries have a positive
influence on the rest of the world.
(c) Many people outside Japan see Japan as a safe place with a high level of education.


①強い宗教的信念を持つ人達同士はよく争う。
Those with strong religious beliefs often fight with each other.
②その調査は、人々にどの新聞を信用しているかを尋ねた。
The survey asked people which newspapers they trusted.
③その湖には、いろんな種類の魚がいる。
The lake has a wide variety of fish.
④私は、その生徒達が英語を流暢に話しているのを見て驚いた。
I was surprised to see the students speaking English fluently.
⑤私はすることを探すべきだと言われた。
I was told that I should look for things to do.

5④
(a) Dyron Dabney says that the Japanese need time to build personal relationships.
(b) Ms. Doménech thinks that it's bad for the Japanese not to have a deep belief in any
religion.
(c) Birol Gündüz says that Muslims do not share any ideals with the Japanese.

6③
(a) In China, once you have a passport, you can go almost anywhere in the world.
(b) In Japan, the number of students studying abroad has been decreasing since 2004.
(c) More and more Japanese students are studying abroad.


These opinions are important in giving you an outside view of your own culture.


① その少女はあまりにも引っ込み思案で英語を話さない。
The girl is ( )( )( )( ) English.
The girl is ( too )( shy )( to )( speak ) English.
② 私は、先日訪れたお城の美しさに感銘を受けた。
I was ( )( )( )( ) of the castle I visited the other day.
I was ( impressed )( by/with )( the )( beauty ) of the castle I visited the other day.
③ できるだけたくさん情報を集めるように努めなさい。
Try ( )( )( )( ) information as you can.
Try to ( get/collect/attain )( as )( much ) information as you can.
④ その地震の後、私は、ただちに日本を離れることにした。
After the ( ), I ( )( )( ) Japan immediately.
After the ( earthquake ), I ( decided )( to )( leave ) Japan immediately.
⑤ 姉は、服にたくさんのお金を使う傾向がある。
My sister ( )( ) spend a lot of ( )( ) clothing.
My sister ( tends )( to ) spend a lot of ( money )( on ) clothing.

Thanks in advance.
Hirashin
 
> The survey asked people which newspapers they trusted
I would probably say "The survey asked people which newspapers they trust."
I'm not sure which is most grammatically correct.

The others look ok to me.
 
2③(a) The Economist is an interesting British magazine that everyone enjoys.

Everyone? Best not to make statements that are not true! '...that many people enjoy.'

(b) Japan is always at or near the bottom in the surveys about what countries have a positive
influence on the rest of the world.

Similarly to above, I would have assumed that Japan would be near the top in such surveys. Safe countries that don't start wars (at least, not for a while! ;-) ) are usually considered to make the world a better place.

(b) Japanese is always at or near the top in surveys (no 'the') about...


The survey asked people which newspapers they trusted.

Agree with mdchachi.


(b) Ms. Doménech thinks that it's bad for the Japanese not to have a deep belief in any
religion.

I prefer '...it's bad that the Japanese do not have...'

'it's bad for' sounds as if it is a bad thing for individual Japanese people, such as 'smoking is bad for you'.
I think Ms. Domenech is complaining about the overall state of religion in Japan, not about the suffering individual Japanese people have from not having a deep belief.



Try to ( get/collect/attain )( as )( much ) information as you can.
④ その地震の後、私は、ただちに日本を離れることにした。

Attain is more commonly used with achievements. gather is another possibility.
 
Thank you very much for the help, mdchachi and Lothor.

I changed "trusted" into "trust", "everyone enjoys" into "many people enjoy" and "it's bad for the Japanese not to have" into "it's bad that the Japanese do no have".
(b) Japan is always at or near the bottom in the surveys about what countries have a positive
influence on the rest of the world.

Similarly to above, I would have assumed that Japan would be near the top in such surveys. Safe countries that don't start wars (at least, not for a while! ;-) ) are usually considered to make the world a better place.

I put the original sentence as a wrong choice. So I kept it.
 
"it's bad that the Japanese do not have".

It's fine to say "everyone enjoys."
Everyone knows that you don't really mean everyone when you say something like that.
(See what I just did there? ;-) It's not a matter of being a true statement or not.
 
Thanks, mdchachi. Yes, you are right. It's a typo. I did write "do not have" in the exam.
 
I think you should keep "trusted". Grammatically, it's correct and "trust" is wrong, and those should have been the rules of reported speech you had been teaching your students. In spoken English it's a fine line when the reporting is done at a very close time to the action (i.e. trusting) but even in those cases "trusted" would still be correct because they trusted them at the time they did the survey, which must have been prior to when the person was speaking. Their opinion could have changed in the intervening period, however small a time period that was.
In written English I think it would be even worse to say "trust" because everything was simply done in the past. It would be a basic tense error.
Also, if you say "trust" it would be very strange if the survey had been done years ago but you were reporting it now. That would be incredibly confusing.
 
"it's bad that the Japanese do not have".

It's fine to say "everyone enjoys."
Everyone knows that you don't really mean everyone when you say something like that.
(See what I just did there? ;-) It's not a matter of being a true statement or not.

But The Economist is quite a highbrow publication giving a in-depth analysis of economic and political affairs so is definitely not to everyone's taste - it's not like saying 'Everybody finds Mickey Mouse an adorable creature', which is not strictly true (as a matter of fact, I can't stand the little...!) but close enough to being true.
Since it's easy to give the more accurate statement, '...that many people enjoy', I think it's the better sentence.
 
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