Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Flossie]

Need help with a grammar point. I always thought the sentence should be:

1) Most people like chocolate.
or for specific groups of people: 2) Most of the people like chocolate.

But my students always say 'Most of people like chocolate' and just lately I've seen that style on Dave's a bit too, so I started wondering if I was right or wrong. Could it be a British vs American English thing?

Any grammar kings or queens out there?

Thanks. This has been bugging me for a while now. ^^

[tzechuk]

I am no grammar queen, but I would say that *most of people* is grammatically incorrect.

And for the record.. just because you (not you specifically, you as in the general public) teach English doesn't really mean that you can write correctly.




























Now flame me for saying that

[RachaelRoo]

Flossie, I believe that your original answer is correct.
The books I am supposed to use with my students are full of errors and are obviously not edited by native speakers, so likely that is why your kids are so insistent on something that is wrong. I think that Koreans love rules to explain things, but the problem is that English is full of exceptions to the rule. Also, the language is always changing and evolving which I think throws the students and their Korean teachers off.
Say out loud to yourself what the kids think it is "most of people like chocolate" and you'll hear that it sounds way off.

[cruisemonkey]

tzechuk,

I can't speak good either.

[wylde]

'most of people' is konglish

[matthewwoodford]

This is interesting. I always used to hear North American speakers attribute unfamiliar, strange or possibly incorrect expressions by students to the British/American English split. Students would insist that some Konglishism was correct and the teacher'd say 'That must be British English', not really knowing. Now there are 2 threads on Dave's with the converse.


Websites get it wrong too. Some insist that 'muffler' is Britspeak for 'scarf' for instance.

[Gwangjuboy]

[Kimchieluver]

Some Korean professor got it wrong when he wrote some book and forgot the 'the' in most of the people. Koreans always forget silly crap like that.

[JongnoGuru]

I'm a flag-waving Konglishman.

[Ya-ta Boy]

The way I read it, it goes like this:

Most people (meaning 'most people in the whole world') like kimchi.

If you want to add 'of', then you are going to have to add some further information (as well as 'the'):

Most of the people who went to the party like to dance.
Most of the people that I know don't eat bundaegi.
Most of the people went home late.

[plattwaz]

I also find that if the Korean teacher teaches grammar, and s/he tells the students it's one thing (ie "most of people") then there's no chance I am going to manage to convince them otherwise. They simply refuse to believe me.

The students seem to think that the K-teacher is the one who KNOWS and I'm just the silly foreigner that the school pays loads of money to for no reason whatsoever.

[some waygug-in]

It's amazing how prevalent that attitude is.

[JongnoGuru]

Is it a "oh, we know there are bona fide native-speaking English language gurus in this big wide world, but you're not one of them" sort of attitude?

Or a "look, we really don't care what your major was, how many degrees or relevant certificates you have, or how experienced you may be -- you're not Korean, so your opinion doesn't really matter" type of thing?

[matthewwoodford]

Isn't it more a 'Korean teacher is god' kind of thing? And a 'Korean teacher hands out grades that determine our future' kind of thing.

[JongnoGuru]

Don't foreign teachers give grades too? I really don't know.