A Small Test on English Grammar

hog.wash

As I said, reading helps and reading helps a lot, but learning some grammar every now and then won't hurt either. Normally I will not ask my daughters to do any grammar exercises at home as I think what is asked of them at school is already sufficient. However, as my approach to learning grammar is 林彪式的,總喜歡帶着問題學,喜歡立竿見影.貪其收效快,記得牢. 遇到問題想不通就翻翻書. Below are 3 questions on English grammar and usage. Good students from P6 or Form 1 ownward should be able to tackle some of them. They are in increasing difficulty. You can ask your kids to give it a try. I'll post my answers this Saturday.

1. Which of the following sentences requires an infinitive, and which an -ing form, and why?

a. I saw him ________ (fall) off the chair.
b. I found May _________ (read) my diary.
c. I have never seen May ________ (dance).

2. Fill in the proper form of the verb:

'I've bought the tickets for "Unstoppable"?'
'Great! When _______ we _________ (watch) it?'

3. What is wrong with the following sentence?

I think she does not love me.

Have fun.

[ 本帖最後由 hog.wash 於 10-11-16 13:10 編輯 ]

hog.wash

原帖由 Y2KChild 於 10-11-17 14:49 發表
//Good students from P6 or Form 1 ownward should be able to tackle some of them. //

是否答對就代表英文了得?

是否有P6 or Form 1  onward 的學生 cannot tackle some of them 就不是 good students?


...

Dear Y2KChild

你剔除了原來回帖某些字眼確有助我提起興趣回答你。

有幸在大學曾修讀李天命邏輯概論的課程，試回覆如下。

原命題為:

小六或中一以上(英文)好的學生應該可以答對部份題目。

而你提出的乃為逆命題:

是否答對就代表英文了得?

當然不是，原命題為真並不等於逆命題為真。若我們說林青霞是美人，並不等同我們說是美人就一定是林青霞。


你又問：是否有P6 or Form 1  onward 的學生 cannot tackle some of them 就不是 good students?

原命題說(英文)好的學生應該可以答對部份題目，自然也包括會答錯部份題目的可能。這等於我們說80分以上的學生可以得A级，而你就問是不是有些題目答錯就不能得到Ａ一樣？

hog.wash

Dear Y2KChild

你說 "你那句有點兒暗示了若有 P6 or Form 1 程度的學生若答不出，不算是英文好的學生。"

你這一次差不多啱啦。若我原命題為真，其逆否命題亦為真。即若P6或Form1以上的學生一條也答不出，不算是英文好的學生。這為原命題的等價問題，不是暗示。還有你漏掉了"一條也答不出"這幾個重要的字眼。

你又說:"Grammar 好不代表英文真的好。"是哪一派的邏輯學令你從我的posts中找到我認為grammar好就代表英文好的推論?

其它的不辯了，就讓讀者自行判斷好了。誰是誰非，並不是什麽大不了的事。

但我是患有a peculiar form of inferority complex syndrome 的人，若碰到你所用的"不要再浪費時間跟我糾纏在我的強項(邏輯)上了"等類似字眼，可能會突然耳目失聰，請張就一下。

I will post the answers tomorrow as originally planned.

hog.wash

原帖由 Y2KChild 於 10-11-19 21:02 發表

希望你不要再糾纏

I think I have to take your advice and treat you as 火頭軍,right or wrong. Bye bye for good.

hog.wash

原帖由 hog.wash 於 10-11-16 12:51 發表
A Small Test on English Grammar

1. Which of the following sentences requires an infinitive, and which an -ing form, and why?

a. I saw him ________ (fall) off the chair.
b. I found May _________ (read) my diary.
c. I have never seen May ________ (dance).

2. Fill in the proper form of the verb:

'I've bought the tickets for "Unstoppable"?'
'Great! When _______ we _________ (watch) it?'

3. What is wrong with the following sentence?

I think she does not love me.

Answers:


1.a. fall
1.b. reading
1.c. either form will do


Primary school teachers normally tell the students the bare infinitive and the –ing form are interchangeable. In fact they seldom are. Only 1.c. falls under this category. Normally, the rule is that if someone did something and we saw it, we use the infinitive; if someone was doing something and we saw it, we use the –ing form.


2. When are we going to watch it? Or
When are we watching it?
The tickets have been bought and it has been decided. The continuous tense is then used.


3. I don’t think she loves me.
When we use verbs such as think, suppose and believe to introduce a negative idea, we make these verbs negative, not the verb in the subordinate clause. Similarly, we don’t say I think he is not coming. We say I don’t think he is coming.

[ 本帖最後由 hog.wash 於 10-11-20 00:19 編輯 ]

hog.wash

原帖由 davidmimi 於 10-11-20 00:49 發表


唉! 其實我真的不想再在此類場合公開指証別人邏輯或理據之荒謬，這樣好似並不夠厚道，希望你不要再糾纏，否則我唯有自動消失。

哎喲，冇心睇佢篇嘢，睇漏咗添。唔知好唔好反口呢？但我反口時佢又反口，盞搞。其實他只不過是渴望別人仰望的神像，而我只不過是一個只愛在神像上爬上爬落玩耍的小孩，玩完就番屋企，留番其他人繼續膜拜好了。

[ 本帖最後由 hog.wash 於 10-11-20 01:12 編輯 ]

hog.wash

原帖由 stccmc 於 10-11-20 08:07 發表



Uncle,

"ing-form vs infinitive" occupies many pages in my grammar book and is not straightforward.  

I am not sure if you rule is correct or sufficient.  If you apply your "rule" to 1c, bare infi ...

Thanks for explaining to Cow on my behalf. Your explanation is correct. As I said, if someone did something and we saw it, we use the infinitive; if someone was doing something and we saw it, we use the –ing form. What I just said is just the simple rule for the bare infinitive verb "see". Unfortunately there is no general rule for when to use an infinitive and when an -ing form. There seem to be more exceptions than rules. The best way to tackle it, I think, is still through knowledge accumulated from extensive reading.

Present perfect tense is another problem area for English learners. I have bought the tickets is similar to I have met him before or I have read this book two times or I have applied for the job. They are all right. Although they are talking some past snapshot events as you describe, the emphasis is on the state of the event which has remained true to the point of speaking. For example we say I have applied for the job and I am still waiting for the result but I applied for the job but I got rejected.

1c is ok with either forms as people can argue both ways.

I hope I have made myself clear. If you are interested you can refer to Murphy's "English Grammar in Use". It is probably the most popular grammar book for secondary school students in Hong Kong. Unfortunately I don't have the page references as I am still using my wife's first edition copy which was published in 1985.



[ 本帖最後由 hog.wash 於 10-11-20 12:45 編輯 ]

hog.wash

原帖由 wbady 於 10-11-20 08:24 發表
Is 'do we watch' OK for #2?

I will say yes in daily Englsih but I will advise against using it in exam English. However, if we continue the original conversation this way. "All right. Tomorrow we have lunch together, do some shopping in Causeway and then see the film." The use of present tenses this way will be acceptable in exams.

However, I doubt how many lower form students of the mainstream schools will ask the question like you did.

[ 本帖最後由 hog.wash 於 10-11-20 12:44 編輯 ]

hog.wash

原帖由 cow 於 10-11-20 10:25 發表
Thansk stccmc and uncle.

uncle,
I hope you can post more. I always find it difficult to choose a suitable grammar form and even difficult to explain grammar to my kids.

I probably need to buy your m ...

Check with your kids first becuase the book is so popular that a lot of schools are using it as the standard grammar book. Commericial Press has published the Chinese edition as well.

hog.wash

原帖由 stccmc 於 10-11-20 20:24 發表


I am a bit surprised my girl got this right.

As you always say reading is the best route to take.

hog.wash

原帖由 stccmc 於 10-11-20 13:12 發表
How many times have you watched Avatar?

I have watched it 3 times.

The use of present perfect is right in this context. However, if we see an solitary sentence "I have bought tickets for the untouchable?", that sounds odd. May be it is just me.

Just google "I have bought" and see how many entries you get.

Actually, there has been a trend of accepting simple past tense in the place of present perfect tense in American Englsih. It is perfectly acceptable in my example to say I bought the tickets in American English. But there are still more people saying I have bought

[ 本帖最後由 hog.wash 於 10-11-20 22:08 編輯 ]

hog.wash

原帖由 stccmc 於 10-11-20 23:29 發表
Googling "I bought" gave 116 million hits, whereas "I have bought" returned 16 million.

I am not saying "I have bought" is wrong, I am saying it depends on the context.

I am just a simple science  ...

Never mind la.

But when I asked you to google it, I meant to ask you to look at the context of the sentences in which "I have bought" is used.

If you had googled "I buy", it would have come back with 1.18 billion results. It certainly does not mean we then use "I buy" in my example.

[ 本帖最後由 hog.wash 於 10-11-21 00:16 編輯 ]

hog.wash

Dear stccmc

One more point. Now you have a question; this will be the proper time to look it up in a grammar book. I only learnt grammar this way. 會有心機啲，入腦啲，記得實啲。

hog.wash

原帖由 stccmc 於 10-11-21 09:33 發表


My google returned 116,000,000 hits with "I bought", that is 116 millions.

Hey,

1.18 billion = 1180 million

I googled "I buy" again a minute ago, it changed to 1.35 billion. Funny google.

Never mind lah. But if you looked it up, you might find out I was wrong and correct me. I am wrong all the time as I did not read English at university either.

I'll be off to 飲茶啦. Talk to you later.

hog.wash

原帖由 hog.wash 於 10-11-20 00:17 發表



Answers:


1.a. fall
1.b. reading
1.c. either form will do


Primary school teachers normally tell the students the bare infinitive and the –ing form are interchangeable. In fact they seldom are.  ...

Some follow up explanation on Q2

The following is copied from BBC Learning English website:

"English speakers often use the present continuous tense (subject + 'be' = verb-ing) to talk about future arrangements.

I'm spending Christmas and New Year with my Mum and Dad.
We're meeting Susan at 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

For readers who are interested to know more, they can go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/flatmates/episode73/languagepoint.shtml

To use simple future tense in the sentence like "when will we watch it?" would have been acceptable if the context of the sentence is not that the tickets have been bought but that they are still discussing whether or not to see the film and no arrangement has been made yet.

Follow up on Q3

That is how I taught my daughters. The error in Question 3 was picked up from their writing. After I told them what went wrong, I asked them a few days later to translate for me sentences like 我想明天不會下雨. This way they would remember. Repetition is the key. Same for mathematics. Before exams I only asked them to redo those questions they made a mistake originally. If they still got it wrong, I would then make up some similar questions with different numbers plugged in. After a while, they could do it themselves in senior forms. That is also how they prepared for the HKCEE. Keep a record of mistakes when they first attempted the past paper questions, then only redo those wrong ones several times. But this approach is more suitable for science students, particularly for multiple choice papers.

[ 本帖最後由 hog.wash 於 10-11-21 18:57 編輯 ]

hog.wash

Round 2 Articles

As some readers are interested, I see no reason why we cannot have some more for a while.

Articles are problematic for Chinese students as we do not have such things in Chinese. Funny enough, the best way to learn them is probably through writing, not through reading, because you tend to skip them when you read.

Again, able students of P6 to F2 should be able to answer at least some of them as they are copied from the notebook I used together with my daughters when they were such ages.

I will post my answers next Saturday.  

Fill in suitable articles (a, an, the) where necessary:

1. He is ___ university student.
2. There is ___ MTR exit nearby.
3. He works at ___ hospital.
4. I am going to ___ hospital to visit Mr Wong.
5. There is a fair at ___ church this afternoon.
6. Is ___ Dengue fever contagious?
7. The teacher came into the classroom, ___ book in hand.
8. The policeman caught the robber by ___ arm.

Q7 & 8 are quite difficult and I don't expect too many lower form students will be able to answer them, possibly except for those who really do a lot of reading or study in international schools.

[ 本帖最後由 hog.wash 於 10-11-22 21:28 編輯 ]

hog.wash

原帖由 stccmc 於 10-11-21 20:22 發表
For Q2, while I agree most of what uncle said, saying "When will we watch?" is Wrong is really harsh for young students.

Agreed. Simple future tense is perfectly acceptable in primary schools or most junior forms. As I said to Whady, even simple present tense is sort of acceptable.

hog.wash

原帖由 stccmc 於 10-11-21 21:37 發表


My girl's answers:

1. a
2. an
3. a
4. the
5. the
6. /
7. /
8. the

I forgot this. Please indicate whether your kid is biased towards British English more or American English more?

hog.wash

Answers to Quiz Two


1. He is __a_ university student.
2. There is __an_ MTR exit nearby.
3. He works at __a_ hospital.
4. I am going to __the_ hospital to visit Mr Wong.
5. There is a fair at __the_ church this afternoon.
6. Is __X_ Dengue fever contagious?
7. The teacher came into the classroom, __X_ book in hand.
8. The policeman caught the robber by _the__ arm.

Actually, the answers to Q3 to Q5 are the same even American English is used. However, we say "the victim has been sent to hospital" in British English but "to the hospital" in American English. We say "go to church on Sunday" in British English but "go to the church on Sunday" in American English. Q7 and Q8 are fixed expressions. Many students in their writing would write "caught the robber by his arm" but the proper expression is "by the arm".

All the answers provided are very impressive indeed. They help to illustrate the point that reading helps.

[ 本帖最後由 hog.wash 於 10-11-27 21:08 編輯 ]

hog.wash

原帖由 wbady 於 10-11-27 21:09 發表
Thank you for the answers. May I ask why #6 is 'X'? I thought it is 'the' because I have seen sentences like 'the flu is contageous but usually not fatal'.

We say "influenza" but we say "the flu". Strange, isn't it?