Recent content by Bluefields

"He sent me a message that said he wasn't coming" is OK without "said". I'm not sure about "The manager issued a bulletin that the trip was cancelled." Does it need "said" ? Maybe it depends on whether the bulletin also included other news.

Riverkid, nice to have you with me. Your examples are bang on, but it's not clear how many are convinced. Here are a few more comments. "Only" is necessary to express regret only where there's no question of obstinate refusal. Otherwise, "would/n't" achieves the function unaided, and...

If you have trouble pronouncing dark /l/, no examiner should mind, nor would you sound strange, if you pronounce them all clear. It's not so unusual among native speakers, maybe a bit upper class. I would say the /d/ in "kindness" and /t/ in "softness" are nearly always omitted in normal speech.

It works for the poll sentence. "Would" can disrupt the normal rules of the conditionals where it refers to obstinate refusal. "If you would lend me the money, I wouldn't have to walk home" similarly "would have lent" and "wouldn't have had to". "Would" is also related to...

The first thing must be to ask them why they are taking the course, and what they want to learn.

It's correct. Whether to use "a" or "an" depends on the following word and nothing else.

Satara, Don't take advice about grammar from anyone who says "more better". "That" isn't necessary. The simple past of "show" is "showed", and the past participle is "shown" (BE)

In the "Cambridge English Course" textbook there was a good song for the Present Perfect, which starts.. He's never been to Paris and he's never been to Rome, He's only seen the pyramids in picture books at home, Can anyone tell me the rest of the words ? While I'm here, can...

I don't agree with Sandhya that there's any such implication. "Was tasting" sounds right, I think because we use the progressive tense for an action that's in progress when something else happens. Here, the "something else" isn't stated, but is understood as A interrupting B eating. If A had...

Native speakers often use "and" in this context. The two things are so closely connected that we think of them as one. How likely is it that someone would be able to write but not read ?

By prescriptive grammar, the clause after "would be" should start "if there were (subjunctive)..." . Many native speakers don't know this, but you could still lose marks for it in an exam, depending on the examiner. The clause after "would have been" is "if there had been...".

Thanks, river. I've read the rules and example suggested by Casiopea, but still don't understand about new speech turns on new lines. In the example, why isn't "Oops !" on a new line ?

Hi Casiopea, Sorry to bother you again, but I have a technical problem when I click "here". Can you tell me the answer ?

1.minds 2.water 3.both 4.not sure, should be in dictionary 5.with 6.both 7.haven't a clue ! 8. sounds strange, but cant see why wrong. "..so I'd know where.." is normal 9.correct 10. of 11. let

a implies HK is a western country b is right only if you mean China is a foreign country c is right something that causes pain is painful, not the person who feels pain so a & b right, c wrong