Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[nawee]

Hello,

Another question from my error-identification exercise. Which part would not be acceptable in standard written English?

Despite the disappearance of the Mayan empire, there are still Mayans in the region in which they once inhabited.

At first, I thought it should be "there still are", but then I searched the phrase "there are still" and found many samples on the internet. So now I don't know which part in the sentence is not acceptable in standard written English.

Please help.

Nawee

[LucentShade]

[Anuradha Chepur]

Hi,

'in which' is redundant here. This is how your sentence should be:

Despite the disappearance of the Mayan empire, there are still Mayans in the region they once inhabited.


Also note that:


When we use the word 'reason' we shouldn't use 'why', when we say 'place' we should'nt say 'where' as in

This is why I went there. (or) This is the reason I went there. (not: This is the reason why I went there.)

This is where we first met. (or) This is the place we first met. (not: This is the place where we first met.)

[LucentShade]

[Anuradha Chepur]

This nuance of the language is rare knowledge. In normal usage it is an accetpable common error. But in an error iedentification bit of a TOEFL test, it counts.

[KazAV]

Then a lot of native speakers would probably fail the TOEFL including me. Those are constructions I have used and still use in everyday speech.

Really, spoken English defies a lot of rules and what sounds natural is sometimes more important, although textbook answers are necessary for tests.