SEI 新宿英会話教室 BLOG

From Twitter:

Choose:

• 1. a
• 2. some
• 3. the

A: I’m going to supermarket.
B: What do you mean; how can you ”supermarket”?
A: I’m going shopping.
B: Oh, you mean you’re going “to __ supermarket”?
A. Of course! You’re silly!
B. And you speak incorrectly!
A: But you understand.
B. Not always.

The answer is: 3. — ‘the’ ; ‘I’m going to the supermarket.’

Of course, if one says ‘I’m going to’, if the next word is not the name of a place (a proper noun), and is instead a regular noun, it sounds like a verb– especially these days–when people are using non-gerund nouns as well as adjectives in the place verbs, as in, “Politic much?” People wouldn’t be faulted for joking, ‘I’m going to politic at the convention’, because it can be interpreted as trendy or cute–so, if you have ‘to’ before a noun and you are not trying to be cute or trendy, you need an article such as ‘a’ or ‘the’. Articles are necessary if we don’t use names when talking about countable things that are singular.

Articles cue the listener to understand what kind of word is coming next. They help identify things and people. Not using them causes confusion and can deconstruct the grammar–causing misinterpretation in the listener’s head.

Please use articles. If you don’t know how, come see us at SEI.

From Twitter:

Dr. Smith, an archaeologist, finds an ancient body in a tomb in Egypt. It is the body of a man. There is a knife in his chest, and the man is holding it. Dr. Smith thinks them man:

a. must kill himself.
b. must be kill himself.
c. must have killed himself.

— SEI 新宿英会話教室 (Shinjuku English Institute) (@sayinsei) November 30, 2019

The answer is C, because it makes use of the present perfect (It talks about the past leading up to the present);

> Option A refers to the future:
‘must’ + action as in: “I must go.”

>Option B makes no sense at all:
‘must’ + be requires an adjective or verbal, next, as in:
George must be sick.
I must be going.

From Twitter:

この文章を同じ時制で終わらせますか。A man grows evil. His wife sends their son and daughter to live with different families. Later, the son meets an old knight; they travel to save a princess. The son…

a. discovered she’s his sister.
b. finds she’s his sister.
c. marries her.

There are two possible answers here, if we want to satisfy the quiz guideline of remaining in the same tense, but one does not fit the story (and is also terrible).

When we tell a story, a joke, or what happened–we usually use the same tense (the time frame for the action and “be verbs”)–until we can’t any longer because, we must change it to express the past or future or the present continuous. This is especially true when telling the narrative of a novel, a movie or a proverb. I think the reason is–the story exists forever in our imagination, perhaps in our tradition; we will tell the story or joke or anecdote over and over. So in a sense, it doesn’t happen only once; it’s not “history”, exactly–and even if it is, when we retell it and retell it, it is timeless.

By the way, today’s tweet is a story most of us know–from a famous science fiction movie series. Do you recognize it?

CA

From Twitter:

A: Jan won’t brush.

B: __ her do it before TV. (1.)

A: She won’t.

B: And the new tooth paste?

A: She hates it, and she’s always on her phone.

B: Get her a new app; that’ll __ her to do it! (2.)

A: I tried.

B: __ her do it by saying no phone. (3.)

Choices:
a. make

b. get

c. have

The answers are:
1. have

2. get

3. make

EXPLANATION

Sometimes we need someone to do something. When we ask and that person does it, we say we have or had that person do it for us:

Example 1
Mary: Did you get your hair cut? (We don’t usually cut our own hair.)
Nancy: Yeah. I had Sweeney do it–at Super Kuts.
Mary: Sweeney did a good job. Maybe I should have my hair done there.

Example 2
Mom had the repairman fix the washing machine on Saturday.

In the above two examples we can use ‘have’ or ‘get’ interchangeably–but sometimes we have to persuade (convince) someone to do something. In this case we use “get” exclusively:

Example 3
I couldn’t get myself to quit smoking–even after I learned that there is nuclear radiation in cigarettes. Well–it was winter and very cold, so I started keeping my cigarettes in the garage! Eventually, I grew tired of putting on my shoes and coat just to have a smoke–and I got sick of the cold, outside; so I began smoking less and less, and finally I just quit! That’s how I got myself to do it!

Example 4

Little John John wouldn’t clean up his toys after playing, so his father, Jack, promised to read to John John a story if John John would clean up. John John loved stories, so he started to put away his toys after playing, and Jack kept his promise of reading to him. That is how Jack got Jon Jon to always clean up his toys.

Finally, we sometimes have to force people to do something; in this case we use the word make:

Example 5

The police made the bank robber give up by shooting the money bag out of his hand. The thief was so frightened that he dropped his gun, raised his hands and surrendered.

In the Twitter quiz from today, parents are discussing their daughter, Jan–who will not brush her teeth. One parent suggests, that the other parent have Jan do it before watching TV. This means he is saying ask or tell her expecting her to do it. There is no persuasion or force.

Then the other parent says Jan will not do it. So, persuasion is suggested: Get Jan to cooperate by promising she can have a new phone app. That won”t work. The other parent tried that.

Finally, force is suggested: Make Jan brush her teeth by saying ‘no TV if you don’t brush your teeth it.’ 

Usually ‘make’ is used in more forceful situations, perhaps violent ones, but I did not want to say the parents would hit Jan; violence is never a good motivator for raising healthy children.

From Twitter:

Choose:

1. One of the things that’s hard to get used to living in Japan is:

a. how close things are.

b. things how close.

c. things so close here.

The answer is ‘a,’ because it is a com construction best follows simple grammar: S + V + Complement (though this is reversed when using ‘how’ as a value reference to a quantity, in this case, in relation to distance):

Complement + S + V : How close (meaning “so close”) + things + are

Options ‘b’ and ‘c’ have no verbs, so cannot complete the sentence.

2. A thing that’s hard to get used to living in the US is:

a. no Family Mart close.

b. no Family Mart is close.

c. no near mart.

The answer is ‘b’ because it best follows simple grammar:

(no) family mart is close (S + V + Subject Complement)

From Twitter

Choose:

a. The first time, / b. At first, / c. For the first time, … when I came to Japan, I was lonely.

The best answer is ‘b.’, because this phrase means something experienced in an initial instance–the conditions around which continued for a time; or it means something was done that was not done before, and it was done additional times after.

‘C’ means something was done and/or experienced causing certain feelings and results, but that those feelings and/results changed thereafter–and that this difference will be explained shortly.

‘A’, though not wrong, represents a kind of phrase–because of the comma and the use of ‘when’ after it–that presents an unnatural (or non-fluid break in the ) flow of the sentence, specific to spoken English, which requires context and intonation to be fully understood without confusion; and this phrase is adverbial, however is followed by an adverb. Placing them side by side is a possible challenge to the non-contextual expression of this construction (say in written English)–unless understood as dialog, with quotation marks. So this (while often done) is not the best answer for a grammatically and style-correct version of the idea being expressed. Basically, it is only acceptable in spoken English or idiomatic/dialect–in dialog.

*Proximity means distance between or from.

From Twitter

I’_ _ student. I _ to _ my English. I _ you have _ teacher who_ , _ poems and essays and _ fun. He _ immersion _ conversation are _ important _ grammar.

• be
• was
• ‘m
• an
• came
• a
• shows
• more
• heard
• then
• who
• is
• than
• has
• draws
• improve
• and
• have
• the
• writes
• thinks

ANSWERS:

I’m a student. I came to improve my English. I heard you have a teacher who draws, writes poems and essays and is fun. He thinks immersion and conversation are more important than grammar.

From Twitter:

S: Why can’t I speak English?

T: Daily you need immersion–story, talk shows, native conversation and to stop focusing on grammar.

S: Why?

T: It’s peripheral, map learning, not language–which is intuitive, human.

Here ‘peripheral’ means:

a. wrong

b. extra

c. unimportant

The answer is ‘b’. The meaning of peripheral is actually on or at the limits of, on the edge of or just outside of

What is meant here is not that grammar is unimportant, but that it is a method of setting down or establishing rules for consistency in language. Grammar did not come first–language did. And so it is felt that language is natural and thus can be understood naturally. Indeed, the research of linguists shows that human beings have an innate and evolved ability to comprehend grammar. The point is students may need to understand grammar, but to become fluent they have to know when to depart from grammar and start trusting their brain and their daily use of the language. This is how to develop fluency. Not by turning every corner by looking at the map, but by trusting the instinct and exploring without it.