Does my correction sound natural to your native ears?
Dear teachers,
Right at noon today, my student texted me asking about how to improve her sentence, which she would like to use in her writing assignment. The sentence goes as follows:
I still remembered 2008, an eventful year, has witnessed life teemed with miracles that we could survive all disasters occurred frequently with powerful will and extraordinary courage.
The following is my revision:
I still remember 2008, an eventful year, which witnessed life teeming with miracles proving/demonstrating that we can survive all natural disasters occurring frequently with our powerful will and extraordinary courage.
I am sure that there is still lots of room for improvement regarding my revision, but I do not know how to further improve it except that I faintly sense that there is the redundancy problem with the part of "our powerful will and extraordinary courage". Would you please help me to make the sentence sound natural? Thanks a lot.
Richard
Re: Does my correction sound natural to your native ears?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ohmyrichard 
Dear teachers,
Right at noon today, my student texted me asking about how to improve her sentence, which she would like to use in her writing assignment. The sentence goes as follows:
I still remembered 2008, an eventful year, has witnessed life teemed with miracles that we could survive all disasters occurred frequently with powerful will and extraordinary courage.
The following is my revision:
I still remember 2008, an eventful year, which witnessed life teeming with miracles proving/demonstrating that we can survive all natural disasters occurring frequently with our powerful will and extraordinary courage.
I am sure that there is still lots of room for improvement regarding my revision, but I do not know how to further improve it except that I faintly sense that there is the redundancy problem with the part of "our powerful will and extraordinary courage". Would you please help me to make the sentence sound natural? Thanks a lot.
I have no problem with "powerful will" and "extraordinary courage". They are different facets of a person's character. The part about "occurring frequently" is out of place here.
Richard
Gil
Re: Does my correction sound natural to your native ears?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gillnetter Gil
Thank you, Gill. You are right. When I was revising the sentence, I also felt that the part of "occuring frequently" is quite clumsy.
A follow-up question for you is, Is it proper to use "teem" of things or events? My Oxford Advanced Learner's English-Chinese dictionary says that "teem with (usually 'be teeming with something')" means "to be full of people, animals, etc. moving around". It seems that we cannot have"teem with" followed by "miracles". I, as a non-native speaker, have no way to make a decision which requires linguistic intuition, which I haven't developed or, I think, may not be able to acquire although I have been working hard dreaming of someday being able to use English exactly the way you native speakers do.
Re: Does my correction sound natural to your native ears?
Although 'teeming' is commonly used to describe living things - its meaning can be extended to describe anything that is abundant e.g. teeming with ideas.
Therefore 'teeming with miracles' is appropriate in this context. But if you are uncomfortable with this expression use 'abounding with miracles'.
abounding (adj) -
1. To be great in number or amount
2. To be fully supplied or filled; teem
Re: Does my correction sound natural to your native ears?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TinaRyan Although 'teeming' is commonly used to describe living things - its meaning can be extended to describe anything that is abundant e.g. teeming with ideas.
Therefore 'teeming with miracles' is appropriate in this context. But if you are uncomfortable with this expression use 'abounding with miracles'.
abounding (adj) -
1. To be great in number or amount
2. To be fully supplied or filled; teem
Thank you, TinaRyan.
