Korean Job Discussion Forums

[icicle]

I need some grammar advice on this answer. I had asked the classes to write down their answers to 4 "When do you...?" questions after a lesson looking at some of the different ways to answer the questions. One of them was "When do you sleep?" and was out of the four the one which almost all had trouble with for a range of different reasons. I am trying to decide whether one of the answers a student gave is correct.

In answer to "When do you sleep?" her answer was
"I do my sleep at night".

Is this a gramatically correct answer to the question? I think it is but just need to make sure...

Icicle

[kat2]

No. It should be "I sleep at night."

If hte question was, "When do you eat?", you couldn't say "I do my eat in the morning."

"Do" in this question is just the marker that it is a present tense question. "Sleep" is the real verb. So the answer should be "I sleep (present tense form to match the present tense that "do" in teh question marks") at night."

[icicle]

[bacasper]

No. While "I sleep at night" is, of course, grammatically correct, to hew closer to the form of the question, the answer could be "I do my sleeping at night." Here, however, "sleeping" is a gerund, i.e. a noun, and not a present participle, while "do" is the verb and not an auxiliary as in the question.

Although not a proper answer to the question, also possible is "I do sleep at night" but this is a construction used only for emphasis, e.g. after someone has said, "You don't sleep at night."

[icicle]

[Novernae]

I just want to clarify, as I'm confused as to what you understood to be correct or incorrect, so just to make sure:

"I do my sleep at night" is not an acceptable answer to "When do you sleep?"

"I do sleep at night." (with the do emphasized) is a possible sentence but only used when you want to emphasize the fact that you do, as opposed to don't sleep at night, usually right after someone has said somehting like "So don't sleep at night?"

"I do my sleeping at night." is a possible answer, but it is more of an informal joking way of saying it (to my ears).

"I sleep at night." is the simplest answer to the question, and probably the one you should expect to see.

You mention that you think your students are having trouble because night is not a specific time. I would argue that it is a specific time, and the students must start to understand that. Night, although very fluid in its definition (not always the same idea depending on the context), generally refers to the dark hours of the day when discussing sleep. It is a time, though a period of time, represented by a word rather than numbers. If you have time, you might want to spend some time explaining this concept to help them be able to answer the questions (also afternoon, evening, morning, day, etc.; all periods of time that could easily come up in answering 'when' questions).

[icicle]

I was thinking of correct / incorrect in the context of answering the question. I understand the context in which the "I do sleep..." with the stress on the do would be correct.

The problems that the students experienced were not with night as a part of the day. Over the course of the lesson through a couple of different things we had discussed many of the different ways in which the "when" question could be answered, including what the different parts of the day were .... I definitely agree with you that this is an important part of answering when questions.

The problem which they did have was in answering the
"When do you sleep?" question starting the answer with I sleep ..... .
The commonest ways of starting the question included I do sleep ... ,
I go to bed .... I go to sleep ....
OR answering the question with "I sleep at 10 O'clock (or another exact time)" I see that "I sleep from 10 O'Clock" or "I sleep after 10 O'Clock" could be correct answers to the question.

This included students who could give several possible correct answers to the other three questions.

Icicle