Originally Posted by erihime  Hello, riverkid.
Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate it.
Doitashimashite, Eri san.
Before I go into details, one question. How much time do we have to be logged in? I wrote a reply and when I tried to post it, the screen said that I didn't log in... So I am re-writing it.
You should always save a posting in a desktop word document just in case it doesn't go thru. After it's posted you can dump it. That'll save you a lot of time and effort.
When I went through your explanation, some questions popped up in my mind again. I hope you don't mind...
Not at all.
1) 'I go to the office in my car'
'I go to the office by car'
Now I know these two are correct. and
'I go to the office by my car' is not. Could you explain tome why?
Knowing the reason helps me understand it much better and the information I have been given tends to sink in faster.
I can't think of any grammatical reason, Eri. About all I can say at this time is that certain collocations just don't go together in some languages while they do in others. I suppose there may actually be a grammatical reason.
'by [mode of transportation]" is how we normally describe this but we just don't seem to combine it with possessive pronouns. 'by my/his/her car" seems to contain a meaning like 'near my/her/ytheir car".
"Yoi ichinichi wo" is grammatical Japanese but it just isn't something that is used, right?
Also. I was not [translation] translating] from Japanese directly. I knew the second sentence is correct, so I thought just adding 'my' would not hurt it. Articles always give me a headache. (I thought the word 'headache' is not countable...) I use determinants instead of articles...
(I thought the word 'headache' is not countable...) This too sounds like mother tongue interference. Is it?
"..., to omou."
While not impossible in English, the normal neutral is,
"I didn't think that ...".
2) 'Mrs. Hilary Clinton is a/the Senator from New York'
I need to choose either 'a' or 'the' depending on the circumstances, don't I? If I choose the wrong one, then does the sentence become incorrect?
As you well know, 'a/an' is used for a general situation. Using 'a' here could answer, "Who's Hilary Clinton??". It could also mean, "she's one of the senators from NY". Until we know the context of the situation it is hard to describe exactly what article/determiner to use.
Also, Anglika wrote
'Mrs. Hillary Clinton is a/the Senator for New York'
Does her sentence have different nuance, even very subtle one?
'from' more describes location while 'for' describes who she represents; "for the people of NY"..
By the way, 'Senate' and 'Senator', are they used in differenct context?
'Senate' describes the body which includes all 100 [??] senators. 'Senator' means one member of the Senate.
Prepositions and articles are my nemesis[enemy]. Try using 'nemesis', Eri; it sounds more natural.
I appreciate it when you corrected my sentences. It is very useful for me. I love to write, but unless somebody takes a look at it, how would I know if what I wrote was grammatically correct or not.
Again, I would like to express my gratefulness.
Thanks, riverkid.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Anata mo, shuumatsu wo motteimasu.
Is that commonly used in Japanese, Eri?
erihime |