19) The generous student

[Atchan]

19) The generous student​

The math’s teacher asked a polite and clever student a question.
He said: “divide nine apples between you and your brother”.
The student: “five apples for my brother and four for me”.
The teacher: “why you didn’t take five for yourself and let four for your brother.
The student: “I love my brother and I don’t want to be greedy too”.
The teacher: “Thank you for your answer. Really you are a generous student”.

 

[emsr2d2]

19) The generous student​

The maths teacher asked a polite and clever student a question.
He said, “Divide nine apples between you and your brother."
The student said, “Five apples for my brother and four for me."
The teacher said, “Why [STRIKE]you didn’t[/STRIKE] didn't you take five for yourself and [STRIKE]let[/STRIKE] give four [STRIKE]for[/STRIKE] to your brother?"
The student replied, “I love my brother and I don’t want to be greedy." [STRIKE]too[/STRIKE]
The teacher said, “Thank you for your answer. [STRIKE]Really[/STRIKE] You are a very generous student."

See above.

1) Remember that the first letter of a statement or question in quotes must start with a capital letter.
2) We don't put a colon before reported speech.
3) If the last word of the reported speech is also the end of the sentence, the full stop goes inside the quotation marks.
4) We rarely start a sentence with "Really" like this. This is a common error which we hear from many different nationalities. I can only assume it's a direct translation.

 

[Atchan]

I have one question. Which one of these is correct

The math's teacher
The maths' teacher
The maths teacher

 

[Nightmare85]

***Neither a teacher nor a native speaker.***

I have one question. Which one of these is correct

The math's teacher
The maths' teacher
The maths teacher

You never need to use an apostrophe here.
The English teacher.
The music teacher.
The math teacher.
(Or: The maths teacher.)

2) We don't put a colon before reported speech.

Agreed, but we can use a comma.
He said, “Divide nine apples between you and your brother."

Cheers!

 

[emsr2d2]

In the US we would write - the mathematics teacher. If was informal (friend to friend), the math teacher. I assume that there is another way to do this in British English.

Mathematics sounds very formal in BrE these days.

Yes: Math = Am E but Maths = BrE.

 

[e2e4]

I thought I should write the indirect speech as it is done below

He said, 'Divide nine apples between you and your brother.'

 

[emsr2d2]

I thought I should write the indirect speech as it is done below

He said, 'Divide nine apples between you and your brother.'

That's not indirect speech, that's direct speech. Indirect speech would be:

He told me that he wanted me to divide nine apples between myself and my brother.

 

[emsr2d2]

Agreed, but we can use a comma.
He said, “Divide nine apples between you and your brother."

Cheers!

Thanks. Apologies for that - I have no idea what happened to my use of commas when I amended the original post. I guess I was just too busy deleting colons! ;-)

 

[e2e4]

I thought I should write the direct speech as it is done below

He said, 'Divide nine apples between you and your brother.'

_

 

[Atchan]

Thank you guys I understand it well.