[Grammar] Are these sentences grammatically correct?

Status
Not open for further replies.

belarus

New member
Joined
Jul 24, 2011
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Russian
Home Country
Belarus
Current Location
Belarus
1. She is a better student than me.
2. You shouldn’t drive because you’ve drank too much.
3. I’m going to buy a car.
4. She said she won’t help me.
5. We’ve been owning this house for 10 years.
6. I have never been to the Lake Baikal.
7. I wish I knew about this yesterday.
8. By this time next year, I will have completed my dissertation.
9. How many money do you have?
10. Sometimes I get overwhelmed because I’m not used to live in a big city.
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
1. She is a better student than me.
2. You shouldn’t drive because you’ve drank too much.
3. I’m going to buy a car.
4. She said she won’t help me.
5. We’ve been owning this house for 10 years.
6. I have never been to the Lake Baikal.
7. I wish I knew about this yesterday.
8. By this time next year, I will have completed my dissertation.
9. How many money do you have?
10. Sometimes I get overwhelmed because I’m not used to live in a big city.

Do you think they're correct? If there are any that you have doubts about, please make it clear what you might be unsure about.

I can give you a clue. 3 are fine. 6 are not. 1 is acceptable but could be improved.
 

belarus

New member
Joined
Jul 24, 2011
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Russian
Home Country
Belarus
Current Location
Belarus
1. Incorrect- I think me should be I or I am because - In informal English, the objective case of a personal pronoun is often used after than.
2. Incorrect because - the past participle form of the verb in present perfect tense.
3. I am not sure about. Maybe correct?
4. Incorrect because- first verb of a sentence is in the past tense, all subsequent verbs must be in the past tense.
5. Incorrect- I think it should be - We have owned this house for 10 years.
6. Incorrect - Lake Baikal is a proper noun. No article precedes it – the should be removed.
7. Correct
8. Correct
9. Incorrect – many should be much - We use "How much" for questions using a non-countable or singular object
10. Incorrect – live should be living - After be used to, you need a gerund, that is the verb with –ing.

Am I close to being correct on all the sentences?
 

Nantes

Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2011
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Portuguese
Home Country
Brazil
Current Location
Brazil
1. She is a better student than me. Correct. I don't know if it's considered 100% correct in formal English, but people say this all the time, I assure you.
2. You shouldn’t drive because you’ve drank too much. Incorrect. "drank" should be "drunk" instead. Or if you wanna keep the "drank", remove the "you've".
3. I’m going to buy a car. Perfectly correct.
4. She said she won’t help me. Correct. The guy above me is wrong. Take the following dialogue: "Did Sally agree to help you with cheating in your test next week?" and you respond "No, she said she won't help me". You don't use "wouldn't" here because the event (the test) has not occured yet at the time of the dialogue. If you had responded "No, she said she wouldn't help me", it would give the idea the test has already happened and she didn't help him. But the test will only happen next week.
If the dialogue was instead "Did Sally help you with your test yesterday?", you would respond "No, she said she wouldn't help me, and she didn't".

5. We’ve been owning this house for 10 years. Incorrect. "We've owned this house" is the correct form.
6. I have never been to the Lake Baikal. Incorrect. The guy above already explained. You can't put a "the" in names of countries either, except for a few of them (The United States, the Arab Emirates, The People's Republic of China and possibly a few more), you can't say "The Peru", "The Italy", etc.
7. I wish I knew about this yesterday. Correct.
8. By this time next year, I will have completed my dissertation. Correct.
9. How many money do you have? Incorrect. "How much" is the correct form because "money" is uncountable. If you specify what kind of money it is (Dollars, Yen, Pesos etc.) it becomes countable and have to use "many".
10. Sometimes I get overwhelmed because I’m not used to live in a big city. Incorrect. "used to living" is correct.
 

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
4. She said she won’t help me. Correct. The guy above me is wrong.
emsr2dt wa not wrong. She said did not say that #3 was incorrect; she said that three sentences were incorrect
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
1. She is a better student than me.
This is the one that I said was acceptable but could be improved. You will hear your version a lot but some people will say "She is a better student than I".

2. You shouldn’t drive because you’ve drank too much.
You shouldn't drive because you've drunk too much. ("Drank" is the past simple.)

3. I’m going to buy a car.
Correct.

4. She said she won’t help me.
Correct.

5. We’ve been owning this house for 10 years.
We've owned this house for 10 years.

6. I have never been to the Lake Baikal.
I have never been to Lake Baikal.

7. I wish I knew about this yesterday.
I wish I had known about this yesterday.

8. By this time next year, I will have completed my dissertation.
Correct.

9. How many money do you have?
How much money do you have?

10. Sometimes I get overwhelmed because I’m not used to live in a big city.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed because I'm not used to living in a big city.



See above. You were quite close with your suggestions/versions once you looked at them closely.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top