[Grammar] Which sounds more natural?

[syu-sumi]

Will you help me with these sentences? 1. This car is washed by Dave every day. 2. This car is washed every day by Dave. Orders of adverbs are very difficult to us Japanese... Which sounds more natural to native speakers?

 

[Route21]

As an NES but not a teacher, both work for me but, to make it simpler and more natural, I would have said that Dave washes the/this car every day.

Regards
R21

 

[Rover_KE]

Welcome to the forums, syu-sumi.:-D

The difference is minimal, but #1 puts Dave first, so that could emphasise that he is the one who washes it and not somebody else.

#2 puts every day first, so that could emphasise that he does it every day and not every week.

* * *

Please note that a better title would have been 'This car is washed....'

Extract from the Posting Guidelines:

'Thread titles should include all or part of the word/phrase being discussed.'

Rover

 

[syu-sumi]

Thank you for your answer! Use of the passive voice (when or why) is also hard for us...

 

[syu-sumi]

Thank you very much for your answer. I understand it is a matter of emphasis. And I would like to thank you for telling me about titles. I am sorry that I failed to notice the guideline. My PC is new and I have not learned how to use it well. So, as you have noticed, I can't start a new line...

 

[probus]

If your keyboard has Latin alphabet characters on it, there should be a large key marked "Enter" to jump to a new line.

 

[5jj]

Thank you for your answer! Use of the passive voice (when or why) is also hard for us...

The passive voice is used (;-)) much less in ordinary conversation and informal writing than some teachers and course books seem to suggest. It is becoming less common even in more formal writing. A rough guide is simply that we do not use the passive unless we do not wish to place emphasis on the performer of the action, or if we do not know who or what the performer is.

Because of my age, I use the passive more than many people. Most people today would have begun this response with the active "We/people/ native speakers/ etc use the passive ...".