Do they work?

One of my friends wrote those sentences, and I'm not sure if they work or not. Please take a moment and give me your opinions. Whatever your mother-tongue is, I'd appreciate your comments equally. Thank your very much! :-)

1. When I took the first comprehensive class, the teacher spoke a mouthful of English that I couldn’t understand at all.


Does "a mouthful of English" make sense to you?


2. From the book I know that: culture shock is caused by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse.


This is the beginning sentence of an article. It sounds quite unnatural to me, especially the underlined part. Any suggestion?


3. At oral classes, I couldn’t join in the teacher’s arrangement. When he asked someone to read a text or to play games, I never stood up and took the initiative(:?: ).


Does this one work to you? (Does the underlined part work?)

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mouthful

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...+of+English%22


1. It sounds ok to my ear as we have the same equivalent in Chinese! :-D
2. I'd omit colon. Or you can say I know from the book that....
3. "Took the initiatives" is correct, meaning taking the first step doing something.



Regards,
Black-no-mi :-D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by blacknomi

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mouthful

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...+of+English%22


1. It sounds ok to my ear as we have the same equivalent in Chinese! :-D
2. I'd omit colon. Or you can say I know from the book that....
3. "Took the initiatives" is correct, meaning taking the first step doing something.

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Thanks, Blacknomi. :-) The problem is that we have the same equivalents in Chinese. It makes me feel that they may be Chinglish. I'm not sure though.

Tdol, what do you think? :-)

Cas, could I have your opinions here? :-)

They can't hear your soft yelling, try to start a new thread! ;-)