This clinic is really only for problems with English language. It is not for providing exam essays, exam answers or for correcting your work. (Proof-reading is charged for!)

Please limit your questions to one problem at a time and be patient, the reply may take a day or two to arrive.

Interesting questions and their answers will be posted here from time to time. (Click on the question to go to the response, to return click on the response.)

Hi Tim,

May I ask you if the following sentences correct?

1. How many people are in your family?

2. How many people are there in your family?

Regards, Claudia

Dear Tim,

I don't understand the difference in how to use the gerund, or the verb. Please can you tell me?

Thanks, Kate

Hi Tim,

It is difficult for me to use the word "the" correctly all the time. I make lots of mistakes. How to use it correctly. Jimmy

Hi Tim,

In the following sentence, is the word "speaking" a gerund or a present participle?

"It's hard to picture Peter speaking to an American."

Thanks, Rowena

Hi Tim,

"I have a wonderful family. I love ____ very much. (A) one (B) it (C) ones (D) them."

Would you please tell me which answer to choose, and why.

Thanks, Rowena

To improve your writing

There are several ways to improve your English writing ability. But they are all essentially the same - practice and more practice. So the next question is "What is the best practice?"

There are three things which are particularly useful, speaking, listening and reading.

Speaking is only really of any value if you are speaking to a native-level speaker, who will correct you.

Listening is good, but passive; unless you are reading and listening at the same time, and then speaking while you are listening. Which will drive your room-mates crazy. However there is a very good place on the internet for this type of practice, the BBC. For example, go here and then choose something from the centre column of the page, e.g. 2007 archive and then choose a news story to listen to and read at the same time.

There is also a lot of interesting and useful stuff about English skills here.

Reading is also a great way to improve your writing because you will see perfect English, and become used to seeing perfect English, so that when you are writing, if you make a mistake, you will easily recognize it.

Next time you are in Taichung, go to Caves book shop, top floor, next to the window. You will see many well-known English language story books. Some are written in very easy language, some are more difficult. Find something that is easy, then choose the next level, so it is a little more difficult. Read the book for fun/enjoyment. Then analyze it, look at the grammar and structure the author uses. Look at their choice of words.

For something more challenging, read an English language newspaper, such as Taipei Times. Here also you will see good use of the language. Choose an article, a short article, read it, several times if necessary, until you understand it. Then re-write it in your own words, as if you were explaining the article to a child. This is good practice at communicating well by writing.

Have a look at a practical grammar book, such as the Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy and Martin Hewings. This book has lots of examples and exercises, with explanations in Chinese. A Pratical English Grammar by Michael Swann, and Practical English Usage by A.J. Thomson and A.V. Marinet (both Oxford University Press) are also very good books. All these are available from Caves Books.

Both these sentences are commonly used, but (2) is the correct one.

'There is/there are' is used to indicate that something exists, or the question structure 'is there/are there' is used for questions about something existing. So if we are talking about your family, which exists, 'are there' is correct.

In sentence (1) I would expect 'are' to be followed by a present participle (verb + ing). For example: "How many people are watching television in your family." Or, I would expect 'are' to be followed by a 'quality'. For example, "How many people are able to speak Japanese in your family."

'-ise' or '-ize'

This can sometimes be a tricky problem because there are two different reasons why you may use one or the other of these suffixes

First, the suffix depends on the origin of the word. If the word comes to English from Greek, then it will probably use the Greek ending -ize (from -izein). If the word does not come from Greek then -ise is probably going to be the correct choice. Secondly, this situation is confused by differences in British and American English.

However, there are two groups of words which should not be confused.

The first group consists of words which are always spelled with -ise in all varieties of English. The most frequent verbs in this group are:

to which we may add the nouns:

some of which are occasionally used as verbs.

The following should be spelt -yse in British English, and -yze in American English:

The second, and much larger, group consists of verbs containing the Greek suffix -ize. Among these are:

These are the most common, in fact there are far too many to list here, and new ones are created almost daily, like:

These words above must be spelt with -ize in American English. In British English, the spelling with -ize is traditional, and is still preferred by many publisher, for example at the Oxford University Press. But the newer spelling of -ise is now widespread in Britain. British writers may use whichever spelling they prefer, unless they are writing for a publishing house which insists upon one or the other.

Whichever spelling you prefer, you must, of course, be consistent, and use it exclusively, not only with the verbs but with their derived nouns like realization and civilization.

Note also the unusual word capsize, which not Greek in origin, yet is spelt -ize.

The '-ing' form of a verb is sometimes called the present participle and sometimes the gerund, depending on whether the word is used more like a verb or adjective (present participle) or more like a noun (gerund). E.g.

I sat eating fruit and watching the river. (present participle)

Eating fruit is good for you (gerund).

The gerund can be used as:

the subject of a sentence: Dancing bored him.

a complement of a verb: Her hoby is painting.

after prepositions: He was accused of stealing the watch.

in compound nouns: diving board, dining room, bird watching, waiting list.

after certain verbs: admit, anticipate, appreciate, avoid, consider, defer, delay, deny, detest, dislike, dread, enjoy, escape, excuse, fancy (= imagine), forgive, imagine, keep, mean (=intend), mind (object to), miss, pardon, postpone, practise, prevent, recollect, remember, resist, risk, stop, suggest, understand. There are others, but these are the most common. (= all I can think of at the moment).

Some examples: (gerund underlined)

He admitted taking the car

I appreciate you waiting for me.

If I were you I would avoid shopping there.

Fancy meeting you here!

I remember sleeping next to a camp fire on the beach.

He risks losing his job by arriving late so often.

THE DEFINITE ARTICLE

'The' is used:

1.           To refer to something which has already been mentioned.

              An elephant and a mouse fell in love. The mouse loved the elephant’s long trunk, and the elephant loved the mouse’s tiny nose.

2.           When both the speaker and listener know what is being talked about, even if it has not been mentioned before.

              ‘Where’s the bathroom?’  ‘It’s on the first floor.’

3.           In sentences or clauses where we define or identify a particular person or object:

              The man who wrote this book is famous.

              ‘Which car did you scratch?’ ‘The red one.

              My house is the one with a blue door.’

4.           To refer to objects we regard as unique:

              the sun, the moon, the world

5.           Before superlatives and ordinal numbers:

              The highest building, the first page, the last chapter.

6.           With adjectives, to refer to a whole group of people:

              The Japanese, the old.

7.           With names of geographical areas and oceans:

              the Caribbean, the Sahara, the Atlantic

8.           With decades, or groups of years:

              She grew up in the seventies

EXCEPTIONS TO USING THE DEFINITE ARTICLE

There is no article:

With names of countries (if singular): Germany is an important economic power. He’s just returned from Zimbabwe. (But: I’m visiting the United States next week.)

With the names of languages: French is spoken in Tahiti. English uses many words of Latin origin. Indonesian is a relatively new language.

With the names of meals: Lunch is at midday. Dinner is in the evening. Breakfast is the first meal of the day.

With people’s names (if singular): John’s coming to the party. George King is my uncle. (But: we’re having lunch with the Morgans tomorrow.)

With titles and names: Prince Charles is Queen Elizabeth’s son. President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Dr. Watson was Sherlock Holmes’ friend. (But: the Queen of England, the Pope.)

After the  ’s  possessive case: His brother’s car.  Peter’s house.

With professions: Engineering is a useful career. He’ll probably go into medicine.

With names of shops: I’ll get the card at Smith’s. Can you go to Wellcome for me?

With years: 1948 was a wonderful year. Do you remember 1995?

With uncountable nouns: Rice is the main food in Asia. Milk is often added to tea in England.

With the names of individual mountains, lakes and islands: Mount McKinley is the highest mountain in Alaska. She lives near Lake Windermere. Have you visited Long Island?

With most names of towns, streets, stations and airports: Victoria Station is in the centre of London. Can you direct me to Bond Street? She lives in Florence. They’re flying from Heathrow.

In some fixed expressions, for example: by car, by train, by air, on foot, on holiday, on air (in broadcasting), at school, at work, at University, in church, in prison, in bed.

The words I mentioned are know as indicators, indicator clues, sign post words, or transtional tags. They are used to tell the reader what to expect next, and so make the reading a smoother experience. As you develop more complex writing, you will (I hope) use indicator words as clues to help the reader to identify the various parts of arguments: the position, reasons, and objections. Transitional tags are important when you are describing a sequence, or a process (your daily routine, how to make a rice and egg salad). A problem with these words is choosing the correct one, and not using too many of them, or repeating the same one too many times. A common problem is over-using the word 'besides' and using it wrongly!

Here is a table of the transitional tags (also called conjunctive adverbs or adverbial conjunctions) accompanied with a simplified definition of function (note that some words appear with more than one definition).

Meaning

Transitional Tag

also, in the same way, likewise, similarly

granted, naturally, of course

although, and yet, at the same time, but at the same time, despite that, even so, even though, for all that, however, in contrast, in spite of, instead, nevertheless, notwithstanding, on the contrary, on the other hand, otherwise, regardless, still, though, yet

emphasis

certainly, indeed, in fact, of course

after all, as an illustration, even, for example, for instance, in conclusion, indeed, in fact, in other words, in short, it is true, of course, namely, specifically, that is, to illustrate, thus, truly

all in all, altogether, as has been said, finally, in brief, in conclusion, in other words, in particular, in short, in simpler terms, in summary, on the whole, that is, therefore, to put it differently, to summarize

after a while, afterward, again, also, and then, as long as, at last, at length, at that time, before, besides, earlier, eventually, finally, formerly, further, furthermore, in addition, in the first place, in the past, last, lately, meanwhile, moreover, next, now, presently, second, shortly, simultaneously, since, so far, soon, still, subsequently, then, thereafter, too, until, until now, when

Present Participle or Gerund?

Let’s break the sentence down a little. It is hard to picture Peter …

If you are going to picture (imagine) something happening then the action of picturing (imagining) is happening as you speak; it is happening in real time. And, as you know, events that happen in real time (as we are speaking) are usually described using the present continuous tense, and so use the present participle. Even in the past, you were still doing something as you were speaking, so a past continuous would be used (It was hard to picture Peter speaking …) and in fact in any tense, the same structure would be used with the initial verb making the tense. E.g.:

It will be hard to hard to picture Peter speaking

It would have been hard to picture Peter speaking

and so on.

So, in your sentence “speaking” is a present participle.

A gerund is a verb used in the place of a noun. Have a look here

I love THEM very much.

What you are saying is: “I have a wonderful family and I love the wonderful family I have very much”. But of course we would never say that, we would use a referential pronoun to refer back to the previous subject (noun, or noun phrase). The previous subject is ‘family’, and refers to a group of people; the word is singular but the idea is plural (a family is always more than one person). So we need a plural referential pronoun – ‘them’.

You could also consider ‘them’ to be an object pronoun. In the phrase   I love them very much. ‘I’= subject, ‘love’= verb’, ‘them’ = object pronoun.

Let’s break the sentence down an little. “I have a family” ‘I’ = subject, ‘love’ = verb, ‘family’ = object. The object ‘receives the action of the subject (a better example may be: “I eat cake”, the cake ‘receives’ the action of ‘eat’ by ‘I’. Or maybe you could think of the cake as ‘experiencing’ the action of the subject.

So, ‘them’ is used to refer to the object of a clause. In other words, it usually represents the group of people or things that have ‘experienced’ the action described by the verb, and refers back to two or more people or things that were mentioned earlier.

E.g. 1:

“I’ve bought some apples. I’ll put them on the table.”

In this example ‘them’ is used as a direct object pronoun – it refers directly to the apples; the object of the previous clause.

E.g. 2:

The kids were really excited. Jack gave them presents.

In example 2, ‘Them’ is an indirect object pronoun. An indirect object refers to a third participant in the action described by the verb, often someone who receives something as a result of it. Presents is the direct object.

Like other indirect objects, them can be introduced by a preposition and placed after a direct object, e.g.:

Jack gave presents to them.

Them is also sometimes used instead of the object pronouns him or her to refer to an individual whose sex is not known or mentioned:

If someone phones, tell them I’m not here.