Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[faith2k]

Is the "neither ~ nor" is properly used in the following sentence?

"I can't say neither L1 shuld be encouraged in the classroom, nor the 'only English' method should be discoursged in the classroom."

Thank you.

[meg1571]

We don't use "neither/nor" with a negative verb. In other words, "neither" and "nor" are ok in the sentence, but you need to change "can't" to "can".

"I can say neither L1...should be encouraged..., nor should... be discouraged..."

The reason is that "neither" comes from "not either" and "nor" comes from "not or", so both words already contain the negative meaning.