Teacher Discussion Forums

Dear Tara B, I appreciate your help and comments. My thanks also go to JuanTwoThree. In Richards' new edition "Interchange," the part at issue has dropped. Instead, he made himself clear about the usage of his examples in terms of illocutionary acts, by giving a tag of "complaints." I had wondered w...

Dear Tara B,

I appreciate your help and comments.

Seiichi MYOGA

As I've said elsewhere, my question has nothing at all to do with whether something may or may not happen again. But I appreciate your help and comments as much, JuanTwoThree. OK, I don't agree that you can get any information about what may or may not happen again from the choice of when or if, in ...

Dear JuanTwoThree, I appreciate your help and comments. Now I understand what you meant by "frequency." Seiichi MYOGA But it might be fair to say that Google tells us a different story: We can get 111 hits for "I can't bear it that...", 714 hits for "I can't bear it when ...", and 376 hits for "I ca...

Dear lolwhites, I do appreciate your advice and concern. But I'd appreciate it even more if you could concentrate on a question someone has asked in this forum and give your own answer. Then what you ought to have said previously would be just one word: "No." And no more or less. Don't get me wrong....

If you want a second opinion, you're getting a bit too worried by the difference between "if" and "when" in these zero conditionals. From my point of view there is often nothing to choose between "if", "when", "if ever" and "whenever" in these situations. Dear JuanTwoThree, I appreciate your help a...

Dear JuanTwoThree, I appreciate your help and comments. Let's concentrate on "a ranking of frequency implied in these three." Could you please explain what you mean by that? I'd like you to put aside adverbs of frequency, because after all, there's no such thing in the original three sentences and t...

Dear JuanTwoThree, I appreciate your help and comments. Seiichi MYOGA This is an interesting way of introducing a comparison: to contrast with what bothers or is hated by another person At first, I thought it strange, because something that is formally compared with "me" or "I" is a person, so it mu...

Dear lolwhites, I appreciate your help and comments. Do you agree that the choice between (1) and (2) depends on your choice of (1') or (2') as your premises; you will choose (1) if (1') is your presupposition, and if (2') is your starting point of argumentation, you will switch to (2)? (1) If John ...

I wonder how to use "when/if/that" adequately. (1) She can't bear it when people criticise her work, and she gets very upset. (M. Hewings, Advanced Grammar in Use) (2) She can't bear it if people criticise her work, and she gets very upset. (3) She can't bear it that people criticise her work, and s...

The intended answers to (1) and (2) are bothers and hate : Mark the emphatic stress in these sentences. (1) It bothers me when I get a phone call before 8:00 A.M. (2) I hate it when people are rude to me on the subway. (J. C. Richards, New Interchange Students Book 3 .) My question is, Does the emph...

Dear all, I appreciate your help and comments. I think in spoken English especially , you may hear, or inadvertantly, even you may hear yourself speaking of, something like (1), but native speakers of English will disagree with (2) and (3), without any reservation. (1) Driving in from the airport , ...

Do you accept (1) in spoken English, or rather do you think you would find yourself saying this?

(1) Driving in from the airport, the flags were fluttering proudly.

Thank you in advance
Seiichi MYOGA

(1) is cited from J. Humphrys, Lost for Words.

Do you think we can use both sentences below to report the same situation?

(1) It's wonderful when a Moroccan knows French. (Pesetsky 1991)

(2) It's wonderful if a Moroccan knows French.

Thank you in advance
Seiichi MYOGA

Do you think we can use either of the two sentences below to report the same situation?

(1) If John sings arias, it bothers me. (Emonds 1985)
(2) When John sings arias, it bothers me.

Thank you in advance
Seiichi MYOGA