Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Annyzhang]

Only one word �carefree� can describe my childhood. My parents never forced me to do anything. I can play any games which the children fancy, e.g. swarming up the tree, hide-and-seek, kicking shuttlecock, or just only watch clouds or stars in the sky to do nothing etc. Although we had few toys and poor in material life, we were happy. Later, I attended primary school, the assignments were easy to me, and my parents were farmer, so they didn�t care about my study or asked me to learn others. I can read any book which I liked, and my parents didn�t check in advance.
Sometimes my childhood was simple and dry, but it was carefree indeed. Nowadays the children were well-off materially and poor in spiritual, they were lonely and lack of fun. So I do my best to not forced my son to do anything. What is more important than giving a �carefree childhood� to the child?


hello, everbody, this is my homework, please check and correct it, thank you!

[timtom]

Overall the paragraphs are quite good. You had some trouble with tenses, but you are not alone in that (I had a lot of trouble with using a consistent tense in papers when I was a child, I distinctly remember having to change almost every verb in some of my paragraphs because I was inconsistent (My mom edited my papers for me when I was growing up)) The main problem was actually that you had a tense switch in your second paragraph after the first sentence (When you switched from your childhood to the kids of today).

The sentence about your parents being farmers doesn't really mesh well together. I understand what you are trying to say (at least for most of it, see my later comments), but I wouldn't say it that way.
The 'parents checking in advance' sentence is also somewhat odd. The sentence conveys the meaning correctly, but its diction isn't the best. If I can think of a better way to convey it, I will repost.

I also really like the topic. This is a concept that I too think about because even though I grew up in a moderately wealthy family, I never really had many toys, so I grew up in a similar environment in that respect (Well it wasn't as much that I didn't have toys as I was only allowed to use the electronic things on weekends which left a lot of time for playing outside with sticks and reading, lots and lots of reading).

Only one word, �carefree,� can describe my childhood. My parents never forced me to do anything, I could play any game which I wanted (e.g. climbing up trees, playing hide-and-seek, playing badminton, or evenjust watching clouds or<1> stars in the sky). Although we had few toys and were materially poor, we were happy. Later, I attended primary school<2>. The assignments were easy for me, and my parents were farmers, so they didn�t<3> care about <4> my studies<5> or asked me to learn others<6>. I could read any book I wanted without my parents checking in advance.
Sometimes my childhood was simple and dull<7>, but it was carefree indeed<8>. Nowadays,<9> children are well-off materially and poor spiritually: they are lonely and lack fun. So I do my best not to force my son to do anything. What is more important than giving a �carefree childhood� to the child <10>?

1. I prefer 'and' here, but either way works
2. In the US we call this elementary school (just for your information if you run across it)
3. My parents always told me to not use contractions in formal writing
4. Maybe 'if' instead of 'about'
5. Or maybe didn't care whether I studied
6. I don't understand the underlined part
7. Not sure what you wanted to say here, but I gave a guess.
8. I like the indeed here but it is not needed and is not common grammatically (I think it is grammatical though)
9. Somewhat colloquial, you might want to use 'today'
10. You need to give another option here. As it is, your last statement is not a question. An example end would be 'or a shallow, materialistic childhood?'

If you have any questions about what I have posted, don't feel shy, reply.

-TimTom

[timtom]

Oh, ignore my comment #10. I understand what you were saying now (It is quite late over here, I am about to go to bed). My mistake.

-TimTom

[Annyzhang]

Good morning! (maybe I should say: Good evening), Timtom, you are a great help, thank you.

" or asked me to learn others", the meaning exprssed incomplete. Today, mostly parents ask children to learn painting,dancing,playing piano and more whether the children like or not, and leave little time to children to playing their games.

About <10>, I want to say, a "carefree childhood" is the most important to a child.

Other, I often confuse "for" with "to(prep.)", what different?
eg.
<1> it is trouble to him.
<2> the museum is open to public.
<3> the assignments were easy for me
Best regards.

[pavilion]

I agree with timtom's assessment, except I believe the first sentence will flow a lot better if you move "carefree" to the end of the sentence: Only one word can describe my childhood, "carefree".