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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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 Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 7:47 am Post subject: |
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| Heh, any course(book) by definition will contain a limited range of examples, but those produced in Japan do seem to contain too many "questionable" ones, even when the authors should know better; that being said, few would favour the other extreme of dumping mainly authentic native-speaker data into classrooms here. There's clearly a need for 'corpus-informed' materials (and less so for the 'corpus-driven'). |
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gaijinalways
Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 2279
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| Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 9:27 am Post subject: |
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I agree fluffy, note my Japanese grammar in English thread in the general discussion forum. These kinds of examples of English that are grammatically or structurally wrong, or sometimes just very awkward and unnatural are common in some of the textbooks distributed here in Japan. Sopmetimes I spend more time 'reteaching' some points than teaching.  |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 9:52 am Post subject: |
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| Where is Stephen Jones when you need him? |
You're the kind of person, zorr03. who lies bleeding on the floor moaning how the ambulances just never come, and then at the inquest it's pointed out you forgot to dial 999.
I don't frequent the Japan forum, so if my opinon is needed on a grammar point somebody has to PM me. Or you can repost the question on the applied linguistics forum.
I have to hand in an exam and catch a plane for the summer vacation so I'll be brief, and possibly not that well thought out.
Note in the sentence above
I have to hand in an exam and catch a plane.
not
*I have handing in an exam and catching a plane.
Note similar constructions.
All I enjoy doing now is lazing in the sun and drinking beer.
*All I enjoy doing now is to laze in the sun and to drink beer.
This 'have to' controls both 'do' and 'study'. You could also think of it as "have' + 'to do' and + 'to study', which is why you can say
All I have to do is to study.
This however is I think less common than the bare infintive; I do suspect however that the preference for the bare infinitive would diminish if there was a lot after it.
The construction actually is quite interesting. I'll try and come back to it when I've recovered from the beers I'll be drinking to make up for four months alcohol free in Saudi |
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zorro (3)
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
Posts: 202
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| Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:54 am Post subject: |
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| I'll try and come back to it when I've recovered from the beers I'll be drinking to make up for four months alcohol free in Saudi |
Looks like the ambulance driver is a p1sshead. Drinking and driving is dangerous, especially when you are driving bleeding people to the hospital. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:59 am Post subject: |
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Bleedin' people? What would you prefer SJ be driving? Bleedin' camels (I'd recommend in a lorry rather than an ambulance, though)? Nah, they can walk too!
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