Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[luciaC]

Are they correct sentences?

1 I am on a course of creating a new class.

2 It�s very popular to study your Spanish overseas.

3 Many companies like to outsouce their staffs.

4 If an American company hires people in India, it can cut down the staffing costs.

5 I mistakenly think that he is interested in me.

6 Your child has a lot of potential.

7 The governor in Harbin stressed that the water was OK to drink.

8 He is a straightforward person. He never hides things. He is very honest.

9 I took some cough medicine and felt fatigue.

10 He has too many interests. He likes to dabble in lots of things, but there is nothing that he can do really well.

11 If you don�t really like the house, don�t buy it. Don�t make a half-hearted attempt to buy it and hope that it will increase its value.

12 It was hot yesterday, but today it has a sharp fall.
_________________
Mimi

[bud]

1. Yes.

2. It's OK for casual English, but probably not for proper English. "... study Spanish..." is more usual.

3. Yes.

4. I think it's OK. More likely, though, is: "... cut down on staffing costs."

5. It's grammatical, but doesn't make a lot of sense. If you change it to past tense ("thought"), then it makes sense. (In the present tense, why would you continue thinking something once you knew it was a mistake?)

6-8. Yes.

9. I think so. Using "fatigued" (as an adjective) is more common, I think.

10-11. Yes.

12. The "it" is referring to "the weather." The temperature is what has fallen, not the weather. Also, even if the sentence started, "The temperture was high yesterday," you could not finish with, "... but today it has a sharp fall." I guess it's probably grammatical, but it is very unusual. More natural is," The temperature was high yesterday, but today it has fallen sharply."