Korean Job Discussion Forums

[raewon]

Happy New Year to everyone!

Could someone please let me know if the following sentences are correct/incorrect. For sentences that are incorrect, could you let me know why?

a) One thing I can do well is play the piano.
b) One thing I can do well is to play the piano.
c) One thing I can do well is playing the piano.

Thanks a lot.

[edwardcatflap]

They're all ok in the sense of what would be considered normal usage, though if they appeared in a SAT/TOEC/TAPS etc... test, who knows which one(s) would be considered 'wrong'.

[T-J]

Following the linking verb is (to be), a subject complement is required.

Both b) (infinitive form), and c) (gerund), satisfy this requirement. Choice a) does not and therefore is not acceptable grammatically. In vernacular terms it is common if not accepted.

**edit** complement not compliment the subject's ego is fine.

[edwardcatflap]

It's just an abbreviated version of 'I can play the piano. '

One thing I can do very well is (I can) play the piano.

If you asked someone 'what can you do very well?' and they replied

'Play the piano', would that be considered grammatically wrong?

[schwa]

(b) & (c) are wrong. As Mr Catflap points out, rejigging the sentence gives you "can to play" & "can playing."

[raewon]

Thanks for the replies.

T-J's reply seems correct, but why does option (a) seem so familiar and natural? If a large group of native speakers were to correct a student's writing with that sentence, I wonder how many would correct it.

schwa - Sorry, but I can't really understand your reply.

[akcrono]

[T-J]

[edwardcatflap]

WHether or not these sentences are 'correct'' or not according to some narrowly defined grammar rule is kind of irrelevant with these examples. If a non native speaker you were teaching produced any of these sentences in spoken form it would be ridiculous and incredibly anal to 'correct' his or her English as all of them are effective in terms of communication and would be normal usage from a native speaker. That 's what annoys me so much about these kind of tests (I assume it's from a test)

[T-J]

[edwardcatflap]

Don 't agree. You need to have a sound knowledge of grammar and teaching to be able to decide when it's useful to correct and when not. In this case, not

[akcrono]

[T-J]

[Skill]

Well, just from the sound of things. a) doesn't fit the criteria. (and you don't need a 2.2 to be able to tell that) c) sounds correct to me, but I'm curious why wouldn't b), according to grammatical rule, be acceptable.

[BreakfastInBed]

I don't have a prescriptive grammar rule to cite, but I throw in with Mr. Catflap and Schwa on this one.

c) means that whatever it is that you can do well is somehow miraculously playing the piano. At least it could be interpreted that way.

b) seems like an option, but I don't like it. I feel like the phrase following 'is' should be able to replace the 'do' placeholder to yield a grammatical 'can' statement. After all, that is what the speaker/writer is actually interested in expressing. I think this might be what Schwa meant when he mentioned rejigging things.

That leaves a), as Raewon pointed out, a very natural sounding statement. The most natural to my ears.

I understand T-J's point, but for me, semantically speaking, grammatical precedence should go to the 'I can' phrase over the 'One thing... is' phrase. The 'One thing' is the thing I 'can do,' which is 'play the piano.' In this case, the 'thing' we're interested in is not an activity or a hobby, but the action that completes the 'I can' phrase.

My explanation may be wrong, but my instincts tell me a) is the best answer.