Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[klafterreith]

Is this one acceptable (A) or not acceptable (NA) Please indicate:


She sometimes feels not so good.

[EnglishRaven]

NA.

I believe it should be:
"She sometimes doesn't feel so good"

I don't think it's a good idea to think of "not so good" as a language phrase or chunk that can be applied generally across a range of sentences (as a kind of adverb phrase as you've shown in your initial example).

It's often used in these sort of utterances:
"How are you feeling?" -> "Not so good" (from "I'm not so good")
"How's work?" -> "Not so good" (from "It's not so good")

It's thus a shortened form from utterances where a verb precedes the "not" ('am' or 'is' in my examples above). Your main verb here is not the verb to BE, so we need to use 'don't/doesn't' for the negative construction.

I hope that makes sense. This is just my quick answer...

- Jason
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