Which Grammar Rules Apply to These Phrases?

[Saint]

Five thousand or Five thousands?
Five hundred or five hundreds ?

Gor s or not? Why?

 

[Zantra]

eh? you want to elaborate on that?[?]

 

[Saint]

please teach me grammar.
OK.
I am asian.

 

[Andy]

Both are correct, you can have 1 group of 5 thousand people, or you could have 5 groups of 1 thousand people.

 

[Zantra]

Originally posted by Zantra
eh? you want to elaborate on that?[?]

Sorry.. hehe- it was just very undescriptive;)


andy is correct.I have five thousand dollars. Or in the case of descibing it as a pronoun, say as describing a thousand dollar bill, it's "I have five thousands" In that case your describing the thousands as individual bills, versus the first sentence, where your describing it as a whole. In most cases the first example is used. I'm a better learner than a teacher

Ok now how do I saw "hi" in malay?

I am caucasian. ok? Please teach me your language
I already speak tagalog and cebuano- humor me

 

[spacemanspiff]

have you been posting this on other forums? cause I swear I just answered this.

I say "five thousand"

 

[Zantra]

How many thousand dollar bills do you have ? I have five thousands.

How much money do you have? I have five thousand

 

[Saint]

(1) Yesterday I go to market.
(2) Yesterday I went to market.

In chinese language, we use (1), yesterday means the past, we do not need modify the word 'go'.
But in English, you need to change it to 'went' , I think English can't be simplified as chinese.

 

[Saint]

1) I saw him walking across the road.
2) I saw him walk across the road.
3) I saw him walked across the road.

Which is correct ?

 

[Zantra]

Originally posted by Saint
(1) Yesterday I go to market.
(2) Yesterday I went to market.

In chinese language, we use (1), yesterday means the past, we do not need modify the word 'go'.
But in English, you need to change it to 'went' , I think English can't be simplified as chinese.

That's correct. Verb conjugation is
present- I go
past - I went
future- I am going (also can be present tense depending on the context-closer would be I will go)
present subjective- I would like to go

last one may be called something different-I tend to mix up my french and english conjugations nowadays

I saw him walking/walk across the road are both correct, but it depends on the context of the sentence. I believe both are acceptable.

"walked" is incorrect as it is past tense. always directly preceded by a pronoun.

I saw him, as he walked across the road.

Chinese? I'm sorry I thought you were malay. I know 2 madrin words- ni how, and shen shen

And hey, I don't want to hear about how complexed english is. I've SEEN the chinese character set. It's so large, and has so many double meanings that the japanese are confused by it, and their languages is based on Chinese.. lol. I could learn japanese relatively easy I think, and I will be taking a course on it. But chinese.. Speak it ? yes? read and write ? Not a chance!

 

[Saint]

there are simplified and traditional chinese characters.
now the popular one is Simplified.

the characters look awesome first for english learner, but they can be split into basic elements(like a,b,c...) , after getting familiar with those elements, you will feel that it is easy.

 

[Zantra]

Originally posted by Saint
there are simplified and traditional chinese characters.
now the popular one is Simplified.

the characters look awesome first for english learner, but they can be split into basic elements(like a,b,c...) , after getting familiar with those elements, you will feel that it is easy.

I have some chinese friends and aquaitances. They tell me they know approx. 800-2000 commonly used characters? At least I think that was the number. All I remember is it was some ungodly figure that would take 20 years to master.

Though in all fairness, I've been reminded that though english only has 26 letters, it has a ton of combinations, double meanings, and more complexed sentence structure.

 

[Saint]

Five fish or five fishes ? [?]
Most of the time it is written five fish.

And,

Sometime or sometimes, beside or besides ?

 

[Zantra]

Five fish- no such word as fishes


let's go to the mall sometime
I forget these things sometimes.

Clue is that sometime refers to one incident, while sometimes is plural.

beside is a place

besides is a pronoun

I lay beside you

Besides, I need to go

 

[Saint]

my oxford advanced learner's dictionary says fishes can be the plural of fish.

 

[Zantra]

Originally posted by Saint
my oxford advanced learner's dictionary says fishes can be the plural of fish.

Maybe.. I'm trying to think of an example though, and I can't

 

[Mistress Lilith]

Fish is the plural of fish.
I learned that fishes can be used when you're talking about many different types of fish.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Who you going to believe, some dictionary or a live speaker? Fishes sounds illiterate or dialectical. There was a song "Three little fishies and a mommy fishie too" that was supposed to be comical, like a little child would say. Some other animals that don't take "s" in the plural, sheep and deer.

There are three sheep in that field.
How many deer did you see on your hike?

 

[Zantra]

good point- you going to listen to the assuie, or the native?

 

[Andy]

Origionally posted by a fool!
Who you going to believe, some dictionary or a live speaker?

What! How dare you call the Oxford English dictionary wrong, being an Oxford dictionary about the English language i would have thought would have made it correct. We have had a thread before about the English language and it turned out that the English where the best at speaking the English language, so don't diss the English dictionary.

 

[Saint]

I help him to do homework.
OR
I help him doing homework.

 

[Lyuokdea]

I help him to do homework.
OR
I help him doing homework.


The first one is correct.

My grammar in english isn't that great, foreign language teachers always talk about that because you learn your native language way before you are old enough to memorize rules, and so you simply learn what sounds right, so I'm struggling to think about why the second example is wrong.

I believe, though that -ing verbs can only be used as the main verb of a subject.

 

[Mistress Lilith]

Originally posted by Zantra
good point- you going to listen to the assuie, or the native?

Well, ex-CUSE me!

 

[Zantra]

Originally posted by Mistress Lilith
Well, ex-CUSE me!

No worries mate, let me buy you a Fosters, throw some shrimp on the barbie, and we can talk about it while we're out for a walkabout

 

[Andy]

No worries mate, let me buy you a Fosters, throw some shrimp on the barbie, and we can talk about it while we're out for a walkabout

Dont be so stupid! Its throw ANOTHER shrimp on the barbie,

 

[Zantra]

Originally posted by Andy
Dont be so stupid! Its throw ANOTHER shrimp on the barbie,

Well EXCUsee MEe

 

[Saint]

1) Terms and conditions subject to change, OR
2) Terms and conditions subjected to change.

 

[Sunfist]

Okay, as a professional writer, a student of forestry, and a native speaker, (amongst other things), I feel I HAVE to say something here.

Fishes is most definitely a correct way to say more than one type of fish. It is also used quite frequently amongst people that deal with fishes.

Next, to Saint, if you are trying to learn English, I feel sorry for you. It is an abomination. Or rather, it is a conglomeration. We don't have the strict rules and history of most other languages. We are too new. We mix rules from multiple languages. We have more than one way to spell the same phonetic sounds. It is incredibly difficult to learn English because it's so non-rigid but there are many things which most definitely sound completely wrong and set you apart as someone who doesn't know the language. For example, a native speaker will never say, "Yesterday I go to market."

There is one good thing, though. English is sort of Zen. :-)

 

[Lyuokdea]

Originally posted by Saint
1) Terms and conditions subject to change, OR
2) Terms and conditions subjected to change.

Probably neither, almost any native speaker would say "Terms and conditions are subject to change." The first one is technically correct, but the form "are changing" shows that the phrase is passive, the terms and conditions are being changed, they are not changing themselves.

by the way, what language do you speak natively? I'm sure it must be especially hard to learn english if your native language is not latin based, because there is almost nothing similar in the languages then.