Some Mistakes In Your Papers, With Corrections

"But people don't understand is that he used to be a strong and powerful soldier."
--"is" is unnecessary because the "that" clause makes "he used to be a strong and powerful soldier" into a dependent clause.



hided
--The past tense of "hide" is "hid"


"As this, maybe the the relationship between we and our grandparents will be more closer."
--"closer" means "more close"; we don't need to say "more closer"
--should be "us and our grandparents"
--'As this' does not work as an introductory phrase. "Given this" might work, and "If this happens," might be better because its meaning is more obvious.




"So you need to know when and why you're hungry, what your body really needs, and the best diet snacks for each situation."
--This is a parallelism problem. Everything listed has to have the same form, so "and the best diet snacks..." doesn't work. "why you're hungry, what your body really needs, and what the best snacks for each situation are" works.



advice, not advices: "advice" does not take a plural.


"In Taiwan, the old generation was living in turmoil. The only thing they could do is to keep themselves alive. They are usually frugal and pure. However, our generation is living in peace and safety....We don't believe their stories and follow their advices."
--other than "advice," we probably also need to say "lived in turmoil" to make the verb tense less confusing.
--We also should write, "Consequently, they are usually frugal and poor" to make it clear that the old generation's personality is the result of the difficult past.


touched/touching


"This episode is really touched."
--Should be "The episode is really touching."

Two correct examples:
--"The movie was touching."
--"I was touched by the movie."


frustrated/frustrating

"I was frustrated by the exam."

"The exam was frustrating."

"We can also learn some strengthens from other ages. Therefore, I think the gap between different ages, for example, the gap between Bart and Abe, is not too wide to cross."

--We need to use dashes: "--for example, the gap between Bart and Abe--" because of the introductory phrase "for example"

--use "strengths," noth "strengthens" (which is a verb). Also, the "therefore" doesn't seem necessary.

This week, the Simpson episode tells us about that Bart's grandfather and he went to find the treasure.
--We need to add a "how" or the sentence will be a run-on sentence. "and how he went to find the treasure."


As a result, we should not stay up late and take a nap in evening.
--This is a bad sentence because it's not clear what "take a nap in the evening" means. We shouldn't take naps? Or we should instead of staying up late?


I have read the new book a half already.
--Should be, "I have read half of the book already."


This episode uses a very motif ending!
--Should be, "This episode uses an interesting motif at the end."

The content at the back was not as funny as the front, however, it was much more dramatic!
--Should be, "The content at the end of the show was not as funny as the content at the beginning; however, the end was much more dramatic at the beginning." <--Notice how I explain everything to make sure the reader understands. I use 'end' and 'beginning' again.


I think that our health world is destroying by the large numbers of fast food shops, specialy the kids'.
--Should be, "I think that our health is being destroyed by the large number of fast food shops, especially the kids' health." ("numbers" is okay, but personally I prefer "number")
"health world" seems like a confusing metaphor to me; it's common practice to say "our health" to mean "everyone's health."

Common Mistakes and Some Sentence Corrections

embarrassed/embarrassing
--When my boyfriend came to the party drunk, I was embarrassed.

--During the performance, I fell down. It was embarrassing.


health/healthy

--Smoking is bad for your health.

--Communication is important to any healthy relationship.

brave/bravery

--It was brave of you to tell the boss that he was making us work too hard.

--Bravery is an important quality in every facet of life.

society/societal

--The police force is an important part of society. (Notice it isn't "the society")

--Traffic lights contribute to societal order.


A sentence with mistakes
"We can hear much news talking about old people died for many days, and their family don't care."

How to correct it: "We have heard many news stories about a family not caring that an older family member has been dead for many days." [If you want to stress both the elder and the family, you probably need to use more than one sentence because of how complicated the situation is.]

"Money can change one's attitude and causes jealousy and tragedy may occur."

How to correct it: "Money can change one's attitude and cause jealousy, and tragedy may occur." (We need the verb tense to stay the same.)

Problem:
"it caused the person who does it [to be] hurt. In my opinion every kinds of training, if did properly, should never cause you injury."

How to correct it:
--"it hurts the person who does it. In my opinion no kind of training, if done properly, should ever cause you injuy."

(Notice where to put the negative: "no kind" We use positive forms from then on: "ever cause you." Also, note the verb tense: "done correctly" instead of "did correctly".)

Still Some Trouble with Parts of Speech

Check your use of subject complements (adjectives or description words that follow a verb). Given your language background, you are prone to mistakes like, "I feel boring" when you mean "I feel bored."

Take the time to check for mistakes like this. If I circle a word on one of your papers, there's a good chance that you've used the wrong word form. I'll try to keep notes and include some popular word form mistakes.

On a related note (related to misused words), note that some concepts use "to be" verbs instead of "to have verbs." One concept that confuses ESL students is "fear." Fear takes a "to be" verb. "He is afraid." We don't say, "He has fear." We can use "to have" for specific fears, but we need to use "a".
"He has a fear of heights."

You'll occasionally make a mistake--I've heard this in speech--in which you say something like, "He doesn't afraid." You want to say, "He isn't afraid" or "He doesn't have fear of [anything or anybody]."

Conjunction "Despite"

"Despite" is an interesting dependent clause conjunction that roughly has the same meaning as "although". We often use it to describe a positive attribute that did not lead to success or a negative attribute that is overcome on the way to success.

Examples:

"Despite his hard work, he failed to gain admission to NTU."

"Despite his lack of athletic ability, he became an excellent basketball player."

--Notice that I use the possessive; with "although," I would have written "Although he worked hard..." and "Although he lacks athletic ability...."

Question Structures

I am still getting papers in which students forget to add the "do" to the question format.

Example: "Why do birds sing?"
I get a lot of "Why birds sing?"
Please be diligent about checking for this kind of mistake.