question

[Harue Izo]

It might be a silly question, but is it important to learn what is what?
Example: what is adjectve, adverb or direct and indirect speech, etc...

Should I learn it? Whould it make me speak better english? If yes, why?

I know I make mistakes when I write or speak, but I also know thats because I dont practice enough. But the fact is that I want to improve.

Give me a hand.

Thank you.

[seba_870701]

Originally Posted by Harue Izo

It might be a silly question, but is it important to learn what is what?
Example: what is adjectve, adverb or direct and indirect speech, etc...

Should I learn it? Whould it make me speak better english? If yes, why?

I know I make mistakes when I write or speak, but I also know thats because I dont practice enough. But the fact is that I want to improve.

Give me a hand.

Thank you.

Hi Harue Izo.
Well... yes. You should learn those if You want to improve Your Eng! It'll be usefull when You'll be learning at the intermediate level or higher. A numebr of expressions, tenses, structures etc are described with those notions so knowing them is useful and saves Your time while learning e.g.
"1st conditional:
conditional clause main clause
present tense future (shall/will + infinitive)
modal verb + infinitive
e.g. If I get some perple wool, I'll make you a pullover.
I can make you a pullover.
will you make me a pullover? (a request)"
ps
example is derived from my grammar book; it's authentic ;)

Regards.

[Zoey]

Hi!
It might not be the right topic for the question, but I'm new here, so sorry. My question is what does 'call the shots' means exactly? When do you use it?

[cclaff]

Originally Posted by Zoey

Hi!
It might not be the right topic for the question, but I'm new here, so sorry. My question is what does 'call the shots' means exactly? When do you use it?

To call the shots means to be in charge of something. For example, in Government, the Prime Minister or the President may call the shots. When you call the shots, then what you ask to be done gets done.

In football, the referee calls the shots about penalties.

If a couple can't decide where to go on a date, the man might say to the woman "You call the shots." That means they will go wherever she says.

[cclaff]

Originally Posted by Harue Izo

It might be a silly question, but is it important to learn what is what?
Example: what is adjectve, adverb or direct and indirect speech, etc...

Should I learn it? Whould it make me speak better english? If yes, why?

I know I make mistakes when I write or speak, but I also know thats because I dont practice enough. But the fact is that I want to improve.

Give me a hand.

Thank you.

It is extremely important when speaking or writing good English to know the "parts of speech" (adjective, adverb, verb, noun, preposition, article, etc.). Also difficult for a Japanese speaker to learn is when to use the articles "the, a, an" since Japanese does not have these. Also important is the use of the apostrophe ', since Japanese uses the word "no" to indicate possessive nouns. It must be very hard for you to learn proper English, as it would be impossible for me to learn proper Japanese.

In you sentence above, the word "thats" should read "that's" indicating a contraction of "that is". The word "dont" should be "don't", meaning "do not". Another example, "the girl's" could mean two things in English - either an adjectival phrase for something the girl owns, as in "the girl's book", or it could mean "the girl is", as in "the girl's going to Tokyo." If you just say "the girls" without the apostrophe, it means more than one girl, a plural noun.

Most adverbs in English end in -ly, but not all. The word "real" is an adjective, and "really" is an adverb.

It would be impossible here to give you a comprehensive course in English! But you wrote your question very well!

By the way, English should start with a capital E.

If you want to practice your English, please correspond with me. I spent a year in Japan long ago, and I know a little about your grammar.