Job Discussion Forums

[mjed9]

[Kurochan]

But this is grammar relating to "reported speech" and basically the tense drops back one

So if I say "Yesterday I went to the mall and met my friend."

Reported speech would say "he said the yesterday he had been to the mall and had met a friend"

So present tense becomes past tense
Past tense changes to past perfect
Future tenses take their past form (should, would, was/were going to)

So your students are right ... the sentence should have replaced will with would!

Hmm! But what about reported speech about something that hasn't happened yet? When my students first asked me about this, I commented that the way it's written, the president is saying he CERTAINLY will go to Latin America, whereas if he said would, it just means he expects or intends to go.

Ironically, the sentence came from a grammar and style book for reporters!

[Stephen]

Now this is definitely something that annoys me. Students who try to tell me or other native speakers how to speak English, especially how to pronounce words, especially as some of them have awful pronunciation. The pure offensiveness of the idea that you as a non-native speaker could tell a native speaker what is and isn't correct in their language is quite shocking. (My advice stamp it out quickly!)

Stephen

PS. The comments about degrees of certainty is the explaination I would have used as well, I quite agree.

[johnslat]

Instead of "would", you could also use "was going to".

and a very minor quibble:

In the sentence: ""he said the yesterday he had been to the mall and had met a friend"

I'd drop the second "had". When you have parallel verbs joined by "and" the second "helping verb" is unnecessary and occasionally sounds odd:

He said he was going to go there and was going to see him.
Regards,
John

[mjed9]

Hi John

You're absolutely right .. I thought the same regarding dropping the second "had" but I guess I was trying to make the grammar clear.

But talking of "going to" vs "will" ... can anyone give me a serious answer as to the difference.

I know that there is supposed to be a difference in the degree of certainty.

Is "will" more definite? Can anyone give me a solid example?

Ta

J

[johnslat]

Dear mjed,
Well, personally I think "will /would" is less definite than "was going to", just as the future tense "will" is usually less certain than "am/is/are going to".

I'll probably go; I probably won't go

versus

I'm going to go

Regards,
John

[johnslat]

Dear mjed,
Well, personally I think "will /would" is less definite than "was going to", just as the future tense "will" is usually less certain than "am/is/are going to".

I'll probably go; I probably won't go

versus

I'm going to go; I'm not going to go

Regards,
John

[FGT]

The word "probably" dictates an amount of uncertainty in those examples rather than the tense used. At least in my opinion.

What about the bride/groom who says "I will": isn't this (in theory) the most definite commitment possible?

As far as the examples of reported speech go:

1) He said that he would go. 2) he said that he will go.

In (1) it is (a) grammatically correct and (b) the opportunity to "go" has passed.

In (2) it is [maybe] grammatically correct and (b) the opportunity to "go" still exists.

What is grammar anyway? We teach our students (1) = one tense back, but they will often hear (2). Which is correct???

"I'm going to the party tomorrow" = She said she's going to the party tomorrow/ She said she was going to the party tomorrow/ She said she was going to the party on Tuesday.

When do we change "tomorrow"? Only then do we HAVE to move the tense back.

[shmooj]

[Lynn]

Many of my students do not have an education in their home countries. I actually love teaching this population for many reasons. I have, however, come across some interesting challenges. I have a student from Fujo(sp?) China. He's 29 and has lived in New York for 5 or 6 years. He works as an assistant at a very upscale hair salon in Manhattan. He speaks broken Chinese-New York English very well. I don't have a problem with this. It just takes a lot of patience and time.

My problem is that he doesn't understand many concepts because he wasn't taught in China. For example, meters. This came up in class and he just couldn't grasp the meaning. His classmates translated and explained to him in Chinese, but he was still clueless. I tried explaining that it was a term of measurement, which didn't help at all. I tried to visually explain how long a meter was by putting out my arms. This is a meter, I said, as I held out my arms. "WTF" is what he was probably thinking and I don't blame him. I tried to "measure" the wall, with my imaginary meter, but this also didn't work. Then I told him we measure height in meters. I demonstrated that I was 166cm or 1.66cm. The other students offered their heights too. He was even more confused.

When I think about it, I was taught terms of measurment in elementary school. I remember spending whole lessons on it. We would measure all sorts of things in our classroom and school, and talk about miles around the city. (one mile from school to downtown, 5 miles to the beach) I was able to understand this. I can understand why he didn't understand. I really wonder how many years of school he attended in China.

[FGT]

I'm sorry, I don't know what system they use in China, but they must (even uneducated people) have the concept of measurement - "my cousin is x tall", "my room is really small, only y X y" etc. The metre isn't a difficult concept (I was brought up on feet and inches), surely it's like a really big stride? Can you explain to me where the problem is coming from? Is it something unique to Chinese culture?

[mjed9]

[denise]

Lynn--

Just out of curiosity, if you were to ask him (in English/Chinese/whatever) how tall he was, how would he respond?

I've heard other stories of students not understanding "the basics"--things that they need to know in order to function in a classroom or on the streets--but this one still seems bizarre.

d

[Lynn]

All students are Chinese in this class. His classmates told me their heights in cm, and I wrote them on the board. I also wrote mine on the board. When I asked him, he said, "I think the same as you" (we're about the same size)

Before this lesson I already knew he didn't understand meters/miles. Of course, only Americans use miles, so I am used to explaining meters to miles. But he didn't even understand meters. I told him I went running. And he asked,"how long?" I said, and wrote on the board, "3 miles or about 5K". He had no idea what I was talking about. He said,"how many minutes?" I just told him about 30 minutes and he seemed to understand.

The book also talked about how tall the Empire State building was. The first thing he asked was, "how many floors?". He could understand the concept of floors, but not meters.

I don't think he had ever heard of them in his life. He measures everything by time, not distance.

He's actually very street smart, and he tells us all what goes on in his salon. I'm just finding out more and more than he seems uneducated.

[FGT]