Korean Job Discussion Forums

[some waygug-in]

How can I explain this?

I like to study English a lot. ( I really like to study)

also means

I like to study English often.


I want to study English a lot. ( I really want to study)
=
I want to study a lot of English.

Is this right, or am I in need of some serious grammar review here?


Do both of these examples have 2 meanings?

I tried to explain this to a student today and I seem to be getting more confused with each attempt. (aigo!)

[peppermint]

[d503]

your students are way more advanced than mine. but anyway in college I took a linguistic class that used diagrams to show those differences (a lot of native speakers missed them as well) as they are really context and tone based. Ugh. So I can't figure out how to format the diagrams to show up right, but I spent a lot of my childhood diagramming sentences and I have found it a good way to explain nuances to people. Because you can show them that in this case a lot is modifying the verb and here it is modifying the noun. That plus a demonstration on how the inflection can be different helps.
My diagrams were swell and I wish I could show them to you, hope this helps some.

[matthewwoodford]

[some waygug-in]

Thanks people. I'm glad I'm not the only one who has had to try to explain this one.

The question my student asked me is why sentence "a" has 2 meanings, but "b" doesn't.......... or something like that.

I am of the impression that 90% of the time, native speakers would assume

I like to study English a lot. = I really like to study English.

and the second meaning could only be assumed through context.

Does this make sense?


The second example:

I want to study English a lot. = I really want to study English.

I still think it is possible to have a second meaning here, but it does sound strange. Again it would depend on the context.

What does countable/ non-countable have to do with anything?

I want to drink a lot of water.

I want to eat a lot of cookies.

[peppermint]

[some waygug-in]

Perhaps this is a cultural thing, I'm not sure, but to me the sentence,"I want to study a lot of English," is perfectly OK.

I like to meet a lot of people.

I had to take a lot of flak over this.

(not measurable)

Sorry if I seem nitpicky here.


I do appreciate your help, by the way. I am just trying to get this thing straight in my head.

Thanks again.

[casey's moon]

I was once told that "a lot" is a terrible expression and should be avoided in any kind of writing. Perhaps part of the reason is that it is ambiguous. Both of the sentences with "a lot" are somewhat awkward and would best be rewritten in another way. Of course, your student may have encountered this on a TEFL test or some other such horror and therefore needs to understand it.

I agree with Peppermint that "I want to study a lot of English" is not a good sentence. What does it mean? It suggests there are many different parts to studying English and I want to study all of them (i.e. listening, reading, speaking, etc.), but what a weird thing to say. If it was "I want to learn a lot of English" it would be somewhat better but still pretty freaking awkward. "I want to study a lot of languages" seems okay, however.

[Son Deureo!]

I wouldn't worry about it. Most of our students will never want to say this sentence anyway.

[some waygug-in]

Thanks again for your replies. This same student has been staying after class every night this week asking me difficult to explain questions like this.

I am glad that he is trying to understand these things and I'm glad that he's showing some initiative and effort in his studies. I just wish I were better equipped to explain them for him.

How about this one?

If you want to learn English, you have to study a lot of English.

(as in reading, writing, listening, speaking, grammar, pronunciation, syntax, spelling, as well as movies, books, videos, music, television, and magazines)

[casey's moon]

It still sounds strange. Wouldn't you just say, "you have to study every aspect of English?"

Anyway, I've had that kind of student before. He was reading a linguist book that I couldn't understand, and my degree was English and teaching (English lit mind you, and teaching primary/junior)... One of the questions he asked me that I never did explain, possibly because there is no real reason is why do we call it the Vietnam was and the Korean war. Shouldn't it be the Korea war? Or the Vietnamese war?

Anyone know?

[peppermint]

I'd bluff an answer about how there's two Koreas and only one Vietnam.

[some waygug-in]

There are a whole lot of uses for a lot. To answer your question, no I wouldn't say "you have to study every aspect of English" I would say,"you have to study a lot of English." I'm not trying to be anal here, I just want to make a point that this usage is very common in Canada and I would guess in the United States as well.

There are a whole lot of reasons why a whole lot of people use a lot of expressions a lot of the time and in a lot of places, for a lot of different reasons. A lot of those may or may not make a lot of sense to a lot of other people, but that's something a lot of teachers have to deal with a lot of the time. Thanks, a lot.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

About the war question, I have no clue except maybe it's because we were used to hearing "the war in Vietnam" and somehow that got shortened to "the Vietnam war" eventhough it should be "the Vietnamese war". But that's just my wild stab in the dark.

[d503]

For the Vietnam War and Korean War you might also mention that it could be because most Americans wouldn't know how to make Vietnam into a modifier, they also say the Iraq war. It most likely does come from a shortening of phrase ��the war in Vietnam.��

Also I too come from the school of avoiding 'a lot' in writing because it is ambiguous. I do use it when speaking, so do my students, and given the amount they say it I use it a lot. In the sentence "If you want to learn English, you have to study a lot of English. " I would take that to mean that you have to study English frequently or for a long time, I wouldn't understand it to mean different aspects of English. To show that you have to study many different types of English, it would have to have been a topic in the conversation or added to the sentence, as in "If you want to learn English, you have to study a lot of different types of English." That's from my US English.