Capitalization and Comma Errors

Here are the answers to the "Common Mistakes" handout this week. Corrections are mostly in red:

1. I saw beautiful coral reefs and yellow, red, and blue tropical fish.

2. I like to watch CNN nNews on YoutTube.

3. I saw a short video about the origin of the universe on the TED tTalk app yesterday.

4. I like the characters, especially Elsa, and songs, such as 'Let it gGo.'

5. I watched famous comedy movies, such as "Breakfast at Tiffany's.”. (The period goes inside the quotation marks)

6. So, I watch entertaining movies, especially heroic movies or adventure movies, like 007.

7. Shuri-jyo was built in the 1400’s.

8. She was a faster swimmer than I was, and she inspired me to practice hard every week.

9. People often make mistakes, so it is necessary to double check reports.

10. We practiced throwing, running, and tackling everyday after school.

11. So, I agree with Francisco.

12. Also, I did yoga and swam, like freestyle and breastroke, at the fitness club.

Mistake of the Day: scores and points

 I was scoring essays yesterday and came across this common mistake:

• I got 23 scores on the TOEFL exam.

There are two problems here. One is that the writer means "points," not "scores." The other is that the writer means "on the TOEFL speaking section," rather than "exam. So this is correct:

• I got 23 on the TOEFL speaking section." 

Mistake of the Day: Due

 This week, one of our questions is about meeting a deadline. Every time we use this question, we get responses like, "I finished my essay before the due." 

The mistake here is that the speaker thinks the word "due" is a noun, when it's actually a adjective. So the correct way to express this idea is: "I finished my essay by the due date."

"The essay is due on Friday," has the same grammatical structure as "The man is happy on Friday." 

Please use English well!

Mistake of the Day: スパ, spa, and syllables!

I've been meaning to get back to posting "mistake of the day" for a while, and I've got a little extra time today, so why not?

 A few years ago, I had a student who was talking about visiting Hawai'i with her husband, and she said, "We went to a supa (スパ)."

I stopped the IC recorder and played it again, and asked, "What's a supa? A supermarket?"

My Japanese isn't perfect, but I passed 日本語能力試験2級 twenty years ago. I know the word スパ in Japanese, but it didn't occur to me that she meant "spa" because she was speaking English. 

The mistake, of course, is that the number of syllables is wrong. "Spa" has one syllable, not two. The more general lesson that syllables are important! If your English pronunciation has the wrong number of syllables, it's more likely to be miscommunicated.

Advice: intentions and accidents

Here's a great mistake from last year:

I put spaghetti sauce on my wife.

Put indicates an intentional action. I think it's fair to assume that he wasn't trying to put spaghetti sauce on his wife. Instead, he probably meant:

I spilled spaghetti sauce on my wife.

In which sentence spill indicates that there was some kind accident, and the spaghetti sauce ended up on his wife.

Some verbs indicate intentions. Others indicate accidents. Some are just descriptive.

Let's use English well!

Sentence-initial transitions

I know that many elementary teachers say "Don't use "And" (or "So" or "But") at the start of a sentence. My elementary teachers told me the same thing. But there are a lot of English teachers in Japan who just parrot their own elementary school teachers' admonition without really understanding the reason their teachers told them that. The question is "Why do elementary teachers tell kids not to use "And" at the start of a sentence?"

Elementary-age kids are not sophisticated writers. Of course. They are learning the conventions of the language. They'll write things like: "I went to the mall. And I bought some shoes. And I ate ice cream. And then we played video games. And it was fun."

In other words, they are writing like they speak. And as you can see, the "And~" at the start of the sentences becomes annoying and redundant. That's why teachers tell kids not to do it.

But that doesn't mean that it's always wrong to use "And" at the start of sentences, just use these sentence initial conjunctions judiciously.

Don't believe me? Google it.

新入社員?

I got an interesting question from a student in the writing class, and I want to share it, because many Japanese people struggle with this issue:

Mistake: "Lots of employees left and freshmen didn't want to enter the company." 

Question: I understand that you can only say "freshman" for high school or college students, but how would you describe the 新入社員 in English? 

アルク gives many ways to say this, but the fact is that we don't use these expressions often.

This is a cultural difference, not a language issue. In Japanese culture, the idea of a place in the hierarchy (階層) is important and useful. Google has 21,000,000 hits for Japanese hierarchy society.

In American society, the idea is less useful, and we usually don't bother to express it. You could fix the sentence like this:

Lots of employees left, and the number of applicants fell dramatically.

Or:

Lots of employees left, and it was difficult to replace them because no one wanted to work there.

I am not a sociologist, but it seems to me that several basic concepts of Japanese society, especially 内･外 (such as 外国人) and 階層 (such as 先輩･後輩、エリート、 and 新入社員) are concepts that you should try to avoid using if you want to write or speak English well. 

I changed my mind

The expression "I changed my mind" can be difficult to use. We had a mistake in class tonight like this:

I tried to study English as Starbucks, but it was too noisy. So I changed my mind and decided to study at home.

The difficulty of using "I changed my mind" is related to the listener's knowledge. It's fine to say:

I went to MacDonald's and ordered a cheeseburger. But then I changed my mind and ordered a Big Mac.

This is OK because the listener knows the menu items at MacDonald's. The listener knows what your options are at MacDonald's.

The original mistake in class tonight can be fixed by telling the listener the options at the start:

I wasn't sure if I should study at Starbucks or at home. I tried to study English as Starbucks, but it was too noisy. So I changed my mind and decided to study at home.

That's fine.

Please use English well!

 

Much and Many

We find a lot of mistakes with the use of much and many. Actually, the mistakes are mostly with much.

With countable nouns (可算名詞), we use many, regardless of whether the sentence is grammatically positive or negative, or a question:

• (+) She's got many friends.
• (-) She has not taken TOEFL many times.
• (Q) Will you apply to many schools this year?

You can substitute a lot of in any of the above sentences.

But with uncountable nouns (不可算名詞), we use a lot of in grammatically positive sentences:

• (+) I have a lot of time this week.
• (+) He made a lot of money last year.

However, we can use much or a lot of in grammatically negative sentences and questions:

• (-) I don't have much time this week.
• (-) I don't have a lot of time this week.
• (Q) Did he make much money last year?
• (Q) Did he make a lot of money last year?

Here's the British Council's page on this.

Please use English well!

False Cognates & False Friends (vocabulary building)

Today's post is a cautionary note about words that look similar, but have different meanings.

The first mistake we had several times in class last week was complex misunderstanding of a task 5 conversation between two students.

1. The woman planned to see her boyfriend's concert.
2. Some students translated plan to 予約.
3. They then translated 予約 to appointment.
4. They then tried to use the verb appoint instead of the noun appointment, like "The woman appointed her boyfriend to a concert."

So instead of 彼女は彼氏のコンサートに行く予定がある they said 彼女は彼氏をコンサートに指名しました。

How does this happen?

False friends is the term we use for words that started out as related words, but the meanings have diverged over time. Both appoint and appointment come from the Old French word apointier, which means "to arrange." However, the meanings in modern English have diverged:

• To appoint is 指名する.
• An appointment is a plan to meet someone, usually a professional, like a doctor, dentist, accountant, or CPA.

What these students should have said is: "She plans to see her boyfriend's concert."

The second mistake we had last week was with the noun present (a gift) and the verb to present (to put before someone). Someone said, "I presented my wife a pink bikini."

Both the noun and the verb come from the Medieval Latin praesentare, which means to show something to someone for approval. The meanings diverged in Old French, and are still separate in Modern English:

• The noun a present simply means "a gift." 
• The verb to present means "to show." 

The correct usage for the verb is a talk show host saying "I now present to you Lady Gaga!" Followed by Lady Gaga singing a song live on TV.

What the speaker meant was "I gave my wife a pink bikini."

The Importance of Syllables

One of the problems we hear in class is people eliminating syllables. For example, pronouncing the three syllable word "predator" [prƐ də tər] as the two syllable word “player” [ple: yər]. Here are some others we’ve heard in class:

• “squirrel” [skwIr əl] and “school” [sku:l] (2 syllables reduced to 1)
• “minimum” [mI nə məm] and “memo” [mƐ mo] (3 syllables reduced to 2)
• “exterior” [Ɛks ti:r i ər] and “extra” [Ɛks črə] (4 syllables reduced to 2)

This is a problem. If you have the wrong number of syllables, it will be difficult for the listener to understand what you’re trying to say.

The closest analogy I can think of offhand is the difference between 恵子、結構、and　傾向. Context can help the listener, so that 恵子です will seldom be misinterpreted as 結構です, but it’s still an obvious error that you want to avoid.

Please use English well!

Present!

We had an interesting mistake in tonight's class. Someone said:

I presented a Hawaiian shirt to my brother.

The problem is that the noun and verb forms of "present" have different meanings and usages.

We give a present:

I gave a Hawaiian shirt to my brother.

 I gave a present to my brother. It was a Hawaiian shirt.

The verb present is typically used for something you have made:

I presented my research to my boss.

Please use English well!

TOEFL WR Introduction

We're starting the TOEFL Writing Class and the first independent tasks are in. 

Here's the question:

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Two people can become good friends even if one has more money than the other.

Here's a kind of introduction which several people used. The grammar is not edited.

In discussion of friendship, a controversial issue is whether people can be friends with a person who has much more money than they have. Some people say that it is impossible, but others contend that how much money a person have does not affect on relationship with other people. If asked, both groups could present logical reasons to support each opinion. Considering my experiences, I disagree with the statement that two people, one of which has more money than the other, can be good friends.

I don't think this is a good introduction. Here's why:

In discussion of friendship, a (1) controversial issue is whether people can be friends with a person who has much more money than they have. (2) Some people say that (3) it is impossible, but others contend that (4) how much money a person have does not affect on relationship with other people. If asked, (5) both groups could present logical reasons to support each opinion. Considering my experiences, I disagree with the statement that two people, one of which has more money than the other, can be good friends.

1. Is this controversial? I don't think it's controversial. I have friends who have more money than I and friends who have less money than I have.
2. Who says this? Who are "people?" The question is about YOUR opinion, not other people's opinions.
3. It is certainly not impossible. This is factually wrong.
4. “It doesn't affect” is not the question. The Q is about making (becoming) friends.
5. How does the writer know that those "other people" would give logical reasons?

I think that there is a lot of irrelevant detail in this paragraph. I recommend that you just state your opinion directly in the introduction, like this:

I don't think it's difficult for two people with different levels of wealth to be friends.

That's all you need. A simple introduction saves time for you (1) to add more details or examples in the body paragraphs or (2) to check your essay for grammatical and word choice errors.

Please use English well!

environment

We had some problems with the word "environment" this week. The problem is that the middle part of the word doesn't sound like it's spelled. Specifically, the middle two syllables, "viron" looks like [vai ran], but it's actually [vai ərn].

The second vowel and the "r" switch places.

This is just like the word "iron," which is pronounced [ai ərn], not [ai ran].

Please use English well!

Word forms

We had some word form problems last week.

One was effectable. This is not a word. The word is effective. The problems in the sentence were deeper than the word choice. The full sentence was:  

The ticket is effectable only for tonight's performance.

 It doesn't make sense to talk about an effective ticket. Effective refers to how well a tool or method works, and it's not easy to imagine how a ticket is a tool. The word he should have used is valid:

The ticket is valid only for tonight's performance.

Another was challengeful. And this should be fixed as challenging.

 Please use English well!

Postrate and nutrial disturbulances

All of the words in the title are "words" students said in class last week:

• "postrate" instead of "posture"
• "nutrial" instead of "nutritious"
• "disturbulances" instead of "disturbance"

 A question I often get is "Should I say a word even if I'm not 100% sure of what it means?"

If you recognize it as a key word in the conversation or lecture, and if you can get reasonably close to the correct pronunciation, then YES, you should. The reason is that you want to demonstrate to the raters that you understood it to be an important detail. I think all of the above are close enough.

Please use English well!

She was what?

Here's the sentence we'll be fixing today:

 "She was complained about staying up late at night by her roommate."

 And here are two good fixes:

Her roommate complained that she stayed up late at night studying.
Her roommate complained about her staying up late at night studying.

The speaker is trying to use passive voice (受身), but to complain is 自動詞. Also the roommate is not complaining about the woman; the roommate is complaining about the action of staying up late. This next sentence might be grammatical, but it's stylistic awful:

The woman's staying up late studying was complained about by her roommate.

簡単な解答は: 受身を使わないでください!

Please use English well!

それで？

This week's Mistake of the Day is something I've heard quite a few times recently: sentences that use "then" instead of "so." I think it's a mis-translation of それで。

Here's the offending sentence:

I studied English by doing X, Y, and Z ... Then my English improved.

"Then" indicates that something follows something else in a SEQUENCE, and that's not wrong here. But "so" indicates that something is REASON or CAUSE of something else.

Most people would agree that studying is the cause of improved English skills, so "so" is more accurate here: "I did X, Y, and Z ... So my English improved."

********
I've got free time later this week, so I'll blog more mistakes. I will tell you the next blog topic in advance. See if you can straighten out this sentence: "She was complained about staying up late at night by her roommate."

Please use English well!

H and F

We had an interesting pronunciation problem last week: someone substituted an F for an H and said "fur" instead of "her." Jennifer Tarle has great videos on how to make the H sound and the F sound. Basically, if the air sound is audible, the listener will interpret it as an F.

Please use English well!

How old is she?

This past week, we've had a lot of people making the same basic mistake:

1. "a 7 years old girl"
2. "a 5 years boy"

In the first, "7 years old" looks like a noun phrase, but it is functioning as an adjective. It modifies "girl." In cases like this, "years" should be singular, not plural, so "a 7 year old girl" is correct.

The second has the same mistake plus an additional mistake. Since we are talking about age, we need to add "old," so it should be "a 5 year old boy."

However, if we're not talking about age, then "old" is incorrect. So when a professional athlete signs a new contract, then we say he signed "a 5 year contract."