give birth to me

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ziawj2

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I ask my students to write a letter of congratulations on Mothers' Day. A setence is "You give birth to me and guide me how to become a good person".

I know it's kind of Chinglish.

Could I make the correction:

You give birth to me, guide me and have a far greater influence on me.

Do you have good suggestion?
 

jerry081958

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I ask my students to write a letter of congratulations on Mothers' Day. A setence is "You give birth to me and guide me how to become a good person".

I know it's kind of Chinglish.

Could I make the correction:

You give birth to me, guide me and have a far greater influence on me.

Do you have good suggestion?

Think about it; it needs to be in the past tense and present perfect. I think this would be more like a native speaker:

You gave birth to me, have guided me and have had a great influence on my life. :)
 

Tdol

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Jerry, does 'You gave birth to me' sound natural to you? It's not something I think many would say, in the UK anyway.
 

bhaisahab

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Jerry, does 'You gave birth to me' sound natural to you? It's not something I think many would say, in the UK anyway.
It might not be something we would say very often, but I think it's OK.
 

ziawj2

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Think about it; it needs to be in the past tense and present perfect. I think this would be more like a native speaker:

You gave birth to me, have guided me and have had a great influence on my life. :)
I've not think about the tense. An :oops: mistake.
 

ziawj2

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Jerry, does 'You gave birth to me' sound natural to you? It's not something I think many would say, in the UK anyway.

Could you give me any suggestion, making "give birth to me" more natural and expressing the same meaning meanwhile?
 

Barb_D

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You gave me life.

I don't see any reason to change the idea about becoming a better person. That was nice.

People can have a great influence on your life, but it doesn't have to be a positive one. Great = significant as well as very good.
 

Vidor

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not a teacher

"You gave birth to me" is a very common idiom in American English, I can tell you that.

I would write "You gave birth to me and you help me to become a better person."
 
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