Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[luciaC]

Thank you in advance.
1. What is baseball spring training?
2. Are the following sentences correct?
Little could I think he was a guy.
Little can I think he is a guy.
Little could I know he was a guy.
Little can I know he is a guy.
Little could I understand why he did it.

3. Quality time is what counts-those shared experiences when we really focus in on our children. What is focus in on?

4.It can be ongoing as adults stop what they are doing every so oftne and pay attention to a child.

5 I have been talking about quality time as if it were a one-on-one experience. What is as if? Why do we use past tense "were"?

6 Children need to have a parnet to themselves at times. Does "at times " mean sometimes?
_________________
Mimi

[bud]

1. It is a period of about 6 weeks before the regular season begins. Each team reports to its training camp. They exercise and do drills for the first couple of weeks to get in "playing shape." Then they play practice games with other teams for the remainder of the time. Initially, each team starts with 60-70 players, and by the end of spring training, they have to select their best 25 players who will start the regular season.

2. Well, I believe they are all grammatical, but I don't know that positively. It may be more common, though, to say "little did" for "little could" and "little do" for "little can." Then again, there would be a slight change in meaning by making those substitutions. Your way says it is/was not possible to know, while my way says simple that you do/did not know. Have I confused you enough, yet? In short, I think your sentences are good.

3. To focus in on something is to give undivided attention to something. To focus in on your children is to talk to them, to find out what's happening in their lives and how they feel about it, to play with them... things like that.

[LucentShade]

4. I don't know the context, but this seems good, aside from a typo in the word "often."

5. "as if" comes before a condition that is unreal or "contrary to fact."

"He acts as if he owned the place" means that he does -not- own the place, but that he's acting in a way that the owner of the place would act. "as if" is followed by what could be called "past subjunctive," (which is usually the past tense, as in "owned") because "as if" always introduces something that is unreal or impossible. Another example would be "If I were rich, I would buy a new house." In this case, "were" is used with I and he/she/it in place of "was" to indicate an unreal condition. For more, look at this site: http://www.englishpage.com/conditional/pastconditional.html

6. Yes, "at times" means "sometimes."