ELL's Cabin

Damkerng T.

06:48

0

A: "Had been checked and then" vs "Had been checked before"

Please find the below which had been checked all things located in board room 6th floor B wing

Huh?

Anonymous

I agree with "huh?"

M.A.Ramezani

Huh?

CopperKettle

07:47

"How can I improve my vocabulary? - You can watch any English movies and you can read any English books." - the sentence looks strange but I am not able to explain why.

I would substitute it with "all kinds of English movies".

But in Russian (the language of the author) any would be a-okay.

Damkerng T.

I would delete both anys.

('anys' looks funny!)

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. But the author wants to stress that you can watch just any English movie you want and this will improve your vocabulary

Damkerng T.

nods -- Another way I think possible is "You can watch any English movies you like. You can read any English books you want to read."

user62015

@CopperKettle Hi!

CopperKettle

@user62015 HI!

user62015

07:55

And thanks for corrections.

CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. Thanks!

user62015

I want to ask you something, if you don't mind?

CopperKettle

@user62015 You're welcome!

@user62015 Fire away!

user62015

Sounds good.

Damkerng T.

Welcome! I think the problem was that the writer wanted to emphasize any X you want but used only any.

CopperKettle

07:58

@DamkerngT. Because in Russian any suffices on its own

Damkerng T.

Ahh

I think it's sort of okayish in English, too.

CopperKettle

@user62015 What did you want (have you wanted?) to ask?

user62015

Let me ask you. The corrections you made, did you find any grammar mistake there? I am asking because the way I write the sentences it comes from Indian English. And it (Indian English) has a little bit touch of Hindi, I meant to say the way we make sentences those are not natural sometimes compare to native-English speakers, because we think differently than native-English speakers.

@CopperKettle Please correct me here as well. -:)

I want to make my written English strong becasue I want to do writing for some time.

CopperKettle

@user62015 Yes I did find some grammar mistakes, but generally the texts are great. I myself make grammar mistakes left and right - only it's not Hindi but Russian that warps my grammar circuitry

@user62015 some minor mistakes, like "play a football match" instead of "play in a football match"

@user62015 And probably Indians use the word as in lieu of because very often

user62015

"Play a football match" Sounds fine to me. Could you we ask @DamkerngT. this question?

CopperKettle

08:06

"One day he got home late as he went to play a football match. " - seemed strange to me..

Damkerng T.

I think I may say "play football with friends".

Calling it a match sounds strange to me.

user62015

@CopperKettle I read novels and all are the American writers. I think, I learnt this word from there.

CopperKettle

If that was an official event, we Russians would say "He participated in a football match"

@user62015 To my mind, only a whole team (or two teams even) can "play a football match"

user62015

@DamkerngT. @CopperKettle Normally, I would say "went to play football". It sounds more natural.

@CopperKettle When I wrote I had the same thing in mind.

CopperKettle

There was a great writer named Joseph Conrad who whote beautifully but still made grammatic and stylistic mistakes because he was a Pole

(off to make some tea)

user62015

08:09

I agree.

Damkerng T.

@user62015 "Went to play" is okay.

user62015

@DamkerngT. @CopperKettle "Went to play football?"

Damkerng T.

Yes. Went to play football is okay, too.

user62015

Thanks.

Damkerng T.

No problem.

user62015

08:13

@DamkerngT. Would you like to have some lunch?

Damkerng T.

Eh? No, not yet, but maybe soon. :D

13 hours ago, by CopperKettle

@DamkerngT. The writer wrote as follows: "John was eleven. He lived with his family. One day he got home late as he went to play a football match. When he came back home his father was very angry with him because he had gone without informing his dad."

13 hours ago, by Tiny Giant

An eleven-year-old John, who lived with his family, came home late one day because he played a football match, his father was very angry with him for going out without asking.

Man_From_India

Hi @DamkerngT.

Damkerng T.

13 hours ago, by Catija

I think this is how I'd say it: One day he got home late because he'd been playing in a football match.

Hi @Man_From_India!

M.A.Ramezani

I would like to have some lunch.

But I'm fasting. I can't. :(

Man_From_India

The importance of postdeterminer is understood in this expressions - no less than, I think :-)

M.A.Ramezani

08:15

o/ @Man!

user62015

@M.A.Ramezani Please wait, I am sending you the ticket in a few seconds for India.

Man_From_India

Hi @M.A.Ramezani...

M.A.Ramezani

@Man_From_India That didn't ping me.

Damkerng T.

Me: One day, John, an eleven-year-old boy who lived with his family, came home late because he had so much fun playing football with his friends that he lost track of time.

user62015

@M.A.Ramezani Sounds great. I am sure, you will the Indian food.

@DamkerngT. Sounds good.

Damkerng T.

08:17

Yes, but it's not you. I mean, it sounds more like me than you.

user62015

@DamkerngT. I agree.

@DamkerngT. I think, it depends how we think. What we think we write that.

Damkerng T.

nods -- Yes.

user62015

@DamkerngT. That's why I ask them to give me grammar mistakes because thinking can't be the same for all of us.

Damkerng T.

One problem for me to proofread a piece of writing is that I'm not 100% sure about some marginal sentences.

I mean, I can rephrase it into something I'm more sure that it'd be safer.

user62015

@DamkerngT. I agree.

Damkerng T.

08:20

But it will change the structure of the sentence.

For example, this is grammatical: "Tom played football with his friends. He won a gold medal."

But if I read it, I will ask myself, how could he win a medal by just playing football with his friends?

And I may do one of a few possible things.

I may try to repair the missing context by adding a sentence (which may change the story!)

I may try to invent a context in my mind that makes the story make sense to me (but it may be yet another story!)

Or I may ignore the story completely, and try to focus only on the grammar stuff. (But for the reader, the story may not make much sense!)

M.A.Ramezani

08:42

0

Q: What does" economic drive" means here?

These systems are not typically designed to protect individual privacy, but since these services are typically free there is a strong economic drive for the service providers to harvest at least some information about their user's activities on the site in order to sell that information to advert...

vocabulary

I'm getting sick of Nima putting those enter your link description heres there.

Oh \o/ @Oer!

OMG look at my rep. . .

I have to downvote an answer somewhere.

oerkelens

Hullo @M.A.Ramezani :)

M.A.Ramezani

Hullo!

How you be?

user62015

@DamkerngT. I am back.

oerkelens

More or less rested, and sampling my extract of Coffea arabica.

M.A.Ramezani

What time is it there?

@user62015 Hullo back! I'm M.A.

oerkelens

08:58

It's almost 11 am here

user62015

@M.A.Ramezani Hi! It's 2:28 pm.

oerkelens

Which translates to "bloody early for a Saturday"

M.A.Ramezani

@oerkelens Oh, so you're currently in Europe?

oerkelens

@M.A.Ramezani I live here, and the holidays are over, so, yes. :P

M.A.Ramezani

Our holidays have just BEGUN.

MWAHHHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA cough cough cough

I'm getting old.

oerkelens

09:00

Well, holidays have just begun here, but I went on a trip just before the season.

Which has its advantages :)

It's kinda fun to be the only two guests in a hotel :)

M.A.Ramezani

Hah!

chat.stackexchange.com/search?q=hah&room=22937

user62015

@CopperKettle @DamkerngT. Match is a countable noun. Please check this link macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/match_1 So, I think "went to play a football match" makes sense.

M.A.Ramezani