Korean Job Discussion Forums

[asams]

What's wrong with the following sentence? And what are the rules that dictate exactly why this sentence is wrong?

I teach business men and women of Korea English.

[samcheokguy]

It's not wrong...it's terrible....it's a garden path sentence. The mind freezes at 'of Korea English' because we think
subject+verb+object or subject+predicate

[Goku]

It should be:

I teach English to Korean business men and women.

I believe "English" is a misplaced modifier. I'm DEFINATELY no grammar expert, but that's what I believe.

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/msplmod.html

[samcheokguy]

Well, it(English) isn't a modifier, as it is a direct object. A misplaced modifier is
"The man teaches English with Blond hair."
What kind of English has blond hair?

[Goku]

[asams]

thanks. I know it's a terrible sentence. I've been trying to explain this particular type of writing, and how bad it sounds, to a few kids. I was hoping there were exact rules for this, but it's been forever since I was taught this. I had a much better example when I taught this a few months ago, but somehow I've forgotten it.

[Privateer]

I personally don't have any problem with it but I see why it could be confusing, especially if students give it the wrong intonation, which they probably will.

'Teach' is one of a class of verbs that take two objects: person and thing.

The structure goes: (i)'teach [someone] [something]' OR (ii)'teach [something] to [someone]'. I find students tend to overuse the latter and have problems computing the former, mostly.

I guess what you can say to students is use (i) when the [someone] slot is filled with a simple noun (e.g. "Jose" or "my students") but use (ii) instead when you have a more complex noun phrase or group of nouns like "business -men and -women of Korea" or, perhaps, "students who fail to pass their SAT the first time around". Why? Because it's confusing to poor native speakers who don't like too much distance between subject and object (and find students' cruddy intonation misleading and confusing).

[crossmr]

[Privateer]

^ Yeah I think they learn to use 'of something' as an alternative to possessive 's' or perhaps to using an adjective. Actually I tend to notice students overusing possessive 's' instead of an adjective. It's pretty hard to draw up rules for when to use which form so you can't blame them for occasional awkwardnesses.

I think I read somewhere that we tend to use good old Anglo-Saxon possessive 's' with simple concrete nouns, and Frenchified 'of X' with abstract nouns or concepts. But it's not a hard and fast rule.

[alphakennyone]

Doesn't sound grammatically incorrect to me. Just antiquated. Sounds like saying "Men of Rome" (like you'd see in a gladiator movie, as opposed to Roman men) or some such.

Much more contemporary to say Korean business men and women.

So yeah, for me, the two choices would be:

I teach Korean business men and women English.

or

I teach English to Korean business men and women.

Your student said, like an ancient Roman:

I teach (the) business men and women of Korea English

but could also say

I teach English to (the) business men and women of Korea.

The last one sounds like Borat and is even worse, but I think it's grammatically correct.

I think adding the article makes it sound a bit better as well. It might be necessary, but I'm not quite sure here.

[jkelly80]

It's placing the adjective within the noun phrase at the end of the noun phrase using 'of', rather than as an attributive adjective at the beginning. Which is syntactically acceptable but stylistically a no no.

[asams]

it actually wasn't a student - it was on an English teacher's profile

[I'm no Picasso]

It's way simpler than that. It's missing an article, and that's the only thing that's technically wrong with it.

When you say "of" anything, you are specifying. It's not "Korean business men and women" in general. It's THE business men and women of Korea.

[I'm no Picasso]

[Rory_Calhoun27]