Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[someday]

Which sentence is more natural or grammatically correct? If none of these is natural enough, could you recommend one? Clarifying the content, it is Tom Thompson who is attending Jackson High School. Thank you.

[Suzanne]

Hello,

Neither sentence is really natural, although #1 is slightly better. You don't need "This is" at the beginning of the sentence. Are you able to make two sentences? That might be helpful.

Here are my recommendations for both one and two sentences:

1. Jason Brown is Tom Thompson's uncle. Tom attends Jackson High School.
2. Tom Thompson, who is Jason Brown's nephew, is a student at Jackson High School.

Does that help?

[dragn]

Hi Someday,

Both of Suzanne's recommendations are fine, assuming you can dispense with the this is part.

However, the presence of this is makes these sentences sound a lot like introductions. If that's the case, then you need to keep this is. The context seems to be that the speaker is talking to someone not mentioned in the sentences, and is introducing Jason Brown to that person.

You would still be better off using two sentences, just as Suzanne suggests. We tend to avoid using sentences with nested relative clauses (my own term, but I think you get the idea), mainly because they can easily become confusing and hard to follow.

If they're introductions, you could say something like this:

This is Jason Brown. His nephew Tom Thompson attends Jackson High School.

This is Jason Brown, Tom Thompson's uncle. His nephew Tom is a student at Jackson High School.

...and so on.

Anyway you look at it, two sentences are preferable to having this daisy chain of relative clauses.

Incidentally, in the phrase This is Jason Brown who is blah blah blah in the original sentences, you really need to place a comma after Brown. What follows is a non-restrictive relative clause, giving us some additional information about Jason Brown. It needs to be separated from what it refers to with a comma.

dragn