Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[nanbowen]

The deputy manager want to employ a group of dedicated workers to build the chapel. Becouse our lecturer will be married with a dedicated treasurer. A wedding reception will be held in the chapel. Our lecturer tell me that he want to manage a pharmacy in the arcade and employ some invalids after he would be married. Through some don't have the least comprehension of what he is trying his utmost to do. I think some years hence he might be a rich boss.

About me , his best friend, is a deputy. I think nothing would interfere with my comprehension of a policy that would eliminate bribery.

Thanks Dragn,

I just use some new words (such as "dedicated,reception,interfere") to make some sentences and hope some people can understand them or if someone can tell me anything wrong with my sentences. Or even if you can't understand them , please tell me.

I try my utmost to make these sentences compose an essay (or a passage, story).

verb tense problems: yes, I used some subjunctive tences. If there is anything wrong , please tell me.

thanks a lot

[dragn]

Hi Nanbowen,

I scarcely know where to begin. Well, why don't we begin at the beginning? You say this is an essay. If this is an essay, what is the topic? You should be able to state the topic clearly in one sentence. That would be a good start. That would make it easier for us to help you, because then we would have some idea what you're trying to write.

As it stands, it almost sounds as if you were trying to start a short story. That's an entirely different thing. If this is a story, can you write a very short summary of what the story is about, or what happens in the story? Just a couple of sentences.

Another thing: whatever species of writing this is intended to be, you have all kinds of verb tense problems. First, go back and look at every single verb. Ask yourself, what tense do I want or need here? Past tense? Present tense? Future? Then, make sure the verb is in that tense. When there are a lot of verb tense mistakes, the reader is completely lost.

Until you have done what I have mentioned above, there's probably not a whole lot more we can do to help you. It's very tough for us to correct someone's writing if we don't understand what they're actually trying to do.

Greg

[dragn]

Hi Nanbowen,

Since this is your first post, I'll take a moment to explain this. Please don't make substantial changes or additions to your post after someone has already responded. This can make it very difficult for others to contribute to the thread because they can't figure out who said what to whom or when or why. In some situations it can also make the person who was kind enough to respond to your post look stupid, and much less likely to answer your questions in the future. Just post again. It's fine to edit a post if you just want to make a minor correction or two, and it's OK to make more substantial changes if nobody has responded yet...at least then it doesn't break the flow of the thread.

It seems as though there's something here you're still not q-u-i-t-e getting. If you are just writing a bunch of random sentences to practice using certain words, that's fine. In fact, that's a great way to learn vocabulary. You should do that. Keep doing that. However, if you want to string sentences together to write some kind of story or essay, that changes things. Now, the correctness of each sentence depends on its relation to the context. The sentences can no longer be considered as individual entities. For example:

I quit my job six months ago. I have been working at this company for ten years. I wish I could get a raise. My boss will give me a raise because he is such a nice guy. He had been working at this company for a long time before he quit last month.

This is a rather extreme example, but I just want to drive home the point. Can you tell me what's wrong with my sentences? No, you can't. Nobody can, and I sincerely hope the reason is thunderingly obvious: nobody can figure out what on earth I'm talking about. It is a complete mystery how these sentences relate to one another, yet every single sentence is absolutely 100 percent grammatically correct.

[nanbowen]

Hi,dragn.

oh ,my god. I made so many stupid mistakes !

It's very kind of you to remind me. I think writing in english is the most difficult thing for me. As a person whose mother tongue is not english, I still have a lot of things to do!

PS: I will write some complete short essaies later. I should esteem it a favour if you could help me debug them.

Thanks a lot, dragn.