Teacher Discussion Forums

Thanks people I guess I got it, as far as I can tell pure adjectives cannot be left alone as easily as noun when functioning as adjective. Have I got it right? *There's a nice boy and a nice too. (If there's a nice girl/man/woman whatever around and I want to refer to the other person even though it...

This sentence comes from Huddleston's Introduction to the Grammar of English (page 109) The second candidate was holding forth at great length while the third was getting very impatient. Accoding to Huddleston candidate is omitted by ellipsis. When I was learning English I was told that no Adjective...

As native speakers, what sounds more natural?

(1) they get nervous and can't act naturally too.
(2) they get nervous and can't act naturally either.

Something tells me (2) sounds nicer because the negative phrase is closer to the words too/either (modifiers?). What do you say?

Thanks


José

The three other most difficult European writing systems are French, Portuguese and Danish.

How do you make that?


José

First of all Merry Christmas for all here. You have really helped me since 2003. Because of you I've been mastering the language and I have been a better practitioner. It's common for learner, here at least, to say I use to do right after they learn the form I used to do to express present habits. M...

It's common for learner, here at least, to say I use to do right after they learn the form I used to do to express present habits.

Do you accept it as a native speaker? Is there any variety of English that you know of which such formulaic usage is possible?

Thanks

José

My typo.... in the book "masters course" (no apostrophe)

Studying non-defining relative clauses I came across the following statement: " That is sometimes used instead of which , but some people think that it is probably safer not to use it" (Advanced Grammar in Use, Martin Hewings, page 142) So, according to Mr Hewings we could have: (1) That Master cour...

What do you think of the use of are here, is that ok?

"Last year the number of houses that were robbed increased about 45%. From the beggining of this year until now the number of robbed houses are 450 , 30% higer than last year..."

Thanks

José

Do you accept such a construction?

(?) it kept me on to saving her.

The sense is that something motivated me to save her.

thanks

José

It was an exercise where students were supposed to change sentences to reported speech and one of my students went like this: "Use the force" => "He emphasised he use the force" I'm aware of constructions like He insisted that she come earlier tomorrow (although I'm always tempted to use a modal ver...

It's difficult to pin down a simple answer. I'd say 'no, that will only make things difficult for students' at basic level or if they are not interested in grammar at all, but maybe there are some people around who really like to see things moving like the mechanical universe and it might be useful ...

I refrain from doing/presenting anything remotely transformational. The only time I ever used anything like them was right at the beginning of my TEFL career, in China: I'd been asked to take on and try to teach a private student (more or less for free, as a favour), so I decided on a kernel (proba...

If it's a subject and not an object, why is the objective case used and not the subjective case? (accusative and nominative cases for you know who) Whithin the grammar school that I follow it is subject of the infinitival to come and the whole infinitival clause is the object of want (according to ...

The question I have to ask José is what you mean by teach "it" - theoretical linguistics or the English language? This arguably phenomenon of the English language (whether when one has to contract want to or not). Some of what the so-called Generativists especially say doesn't occur actually does, ...