in the forest

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Winwin2011

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Tigers are fierce animials.

1. We can find them in the forests.
2. We can find them in forests.
3. We can find them in the forest.
4. We can find them in a forest.

Is sentence 1 incorrect? Are sentence 2-4 all correct?

Thanks.
 
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Rover_KE

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Who or what are 'them'?
 

Raymott

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Tigers are fierce animials.

1. We can find them in the forests.
2. We can find them in forests.
3. We can find them in the forest.
4. We can find them in a forest.

Is sentence 1 incorrect? Are sentence 2-4 all correct?

Thanks.
"Tigers are fierce animals. They are found in forests."; "Tigers are fierce animals that are found in forests."
All of your sentences are grammatical. But going from declaring their ferocity to saying where you can find them looks like a non sequitur.

A: Tigers are ferocious animals. They'll rip your arm off as soon as look at you.
B: Wow, where can we find one?
 

Winwin2011

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"Tigers are fierce animals. They are found in forests."; "Tigers are fierce animals that are found in forests."
All of your sentences are grammatical. But going from declaring their ferocity to saying where you can find them looks like a non sequitur.

A: Tigers are ferocious animals. They'll rip your arm off as soon as look at you.
B: Wow, where can we find one?

Thanks, Raymott.

Do you mean sentences 2,3,4 are grammatical except sentence 1?

We do not use "the" with uncountable or plural nouns to talk about things in general. (Michael Swan)
 

Raymott

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Thanks, Raymott.

Do you mean sentences 2,3,4 are grammatical except sentence 1?
No, "All of your sentences are grammatical" can not be taken to mean that one or more of your sentences are ungrammatical. It means "Every one of your sentences, without exception, is grammatical." Also, "sentences 2, 3, 4 are grammatical except sentence 1" is not possible.

We do not use "the" with uncountable or plural nouns to talk about things in general. (Michael Swan)
I'm not sure what your point is about Swan. Is it about your sentence 1? " ... in the forests". I'd take this to mean "in the local/surrounding forests", not forests in general. So, if someone said sentence 1 in India, that doesn't imply that you can find tigers in the forests of North Queensland.
 

Winwin2011

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I'm not sure what your point is about Swan. Is it about your sentence 1? " ... in the forests". I'd take this to mean "in the local/surrounding forests", not forests in general. So, if someone said sentence 1 in India, that doesn't imply that you can find tigers in the forests of North Queensland.

Thanks, Raymott.

My kid wrote an essay based on the following instruction.

"Choose a kind of animal from below and write a paragraph with at least 50 words. The following questions may help you.
(Tigers, cows and horses)

1. What do you think about the animals?
2. Where can we find them?

My kids wrote " Tigers are fierce animials. We can find them in the forest."

The teacher corrected "We can find them in the forests"
 

5jj

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Is there any chance of you finding a different teacher for your children?
 

Winwin2011

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Is there any chance of you finding a different teacher for your children?

The teacher works for a small tuition centre. My child does test papers in Chinese, maths and English in there. We started the course 2 weeks ago. It's funny that I've found some mistakes as follows:

My kid: I don't like garlic. It smells bad.
Teacher: It should be "badly" instead of "bad".

My kid wrote: Tigers eat meats.
The teacher didn't notice that "meat" is an uncountable noun in the above context.
 

5jj

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I'm changing my mind. Having seen in China some examination answers and prescribed coursebooks with the prescribed answers to questions, your child probably has a safe teacher. This teacher may well not be teaching English as we native speakers know it, but it may be what is required to get through the examinations that are set.
 
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