Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[klafterreith]

Please have a look at the following sentences. Would a native speaker accept them? (please indicate Y(es)/N(o)

- WHICH ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE ME?
(should it be �piece of advice�?)

- SHE HAD PANIC.

(must it be: `She got into a panic�?)

- TWO HOURS SLEEP
(must it be`OF sleep`?)

Please comment.

Peace
klafterreith

[redset]

The first one's trickier than it looks - advice is some useful information or a recommendation about what someone should do. 'Which advice?' implies that the person has already given you several pieces of advice, and you want them to choose which advice to give you - but they've already given you the advice!

'What advice would you give me?' would be fine. You could also say 'what would you advise', or 'which would you advise' if you've explained some options and you'd like the other person to give you their personal recommendations.

A piece of advice generally means one small, specific bit of advice. We can give it to other people ('Let me give you a piece of advice' - let me tell you something useful), or you could ask other people for it ('if you could give me one piece of advice, what would it be?' - if you had to pick one bit of wisdom to impart, what would you choose?)



'She got into a panic' is fine, we'd usually say [i]she panicked. Someone can be in a panic as well, or in a state of panic. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say 'she had panic', but I'm reluctant to rule it out completely.



'Two hours of sleep' is fine too - people would usually say two hours' sleep though. Note the apostrophe!