Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[iain]

Hello,

I'm a newbie here.

I've got confused about the order of words in the following sentences. Could anyone help me please?

1. The university offers 10 elective English courses to undergraduate students and other 4 (or 4 other) elective English courses to postgraduate students.

2. There are 14 courses offered to the students. Ten are prepared for undergraduate students. The other 4 (or the 4 other) courses are for graduate students.

3. From Sentence 1, can I also say:

3.1 The university offers 10 elective English courses to undergraduate students and another 4 elective English courses for postgraduate students.

If sentence 3.1 is also correct, how can 'another' be followed by 'plural nouns'? Why not a singular noun as in: There is "another course" for students at all levels. If Sentence 3.1 is correct, is it because "4 courses" are regarded as 1 group of things (one pack), so it is considered to be only "1"?

Or, I just misunderstood about 3.1, and came up with a wrong explanation?

Please help me. I cannot sleep without sorting out this problem.

Many thanks in advance for your help.

[chinateacher]

Another can be used as a pronoun and an adjective. In this case an adjective meaning "an additional".

So this:
The university offers 10 elective English courses to undergraduate students and another 4 elective English courses for postgraduate students.

Is correct.

courses agrees with the number 4, more than one is plural add the 's'.

Think of the sentence like this to remove the confusion:
The university offers 10 elective English courses to undergraduate students and the university offers an additional 4 elective English courses for postgraduate students.

[iain]

Thank you very much for your explanation. It really helps me understand and remember how to use them.