A student of mine referred me to this post after I corrected his work.Originally Posted by RonBee
The above is totally incorrect.
You cannot have "a drizzle" anymore than you can have "a rain". It is simply drizzle or rain.
Also The "it coming down " and "it pouring" is appalling English. It should "it is coming . . . " or "it is pouring . . . " or "it is raining . . . "
Simple English.
The comparative needs something to be compared with;
therefore "I am bigger than X!" and of course the conjunction than.
No sooner said than done (almost simultaneously do the cause and effect occur).
"Sooner you than me."
(In written formal English, "Sooner you than I").
Never confuse than with that.
Francophones this is your umpteenth warning (parce-que than se traduit en tant que que en français)!
I would call it UNREAL COMPARATIVE TEMPORAL CLAUSE.
No sooner had he come than he started to clean the apartment.
Paraphrase:
he has not come yet and he started...
non-sense, of course. In order to stress the fact that the cleaning began immediately after his arrival we use a reverse temporal clause. Why? Because a second is "a long time"
he came and started cleaning the very second
In my mother tongue I would say the paraphrastic, non-realistic but perfectly clear
he has not come yet and he has already started...
In order to stress the fact that the second activity (noticed) occurred immediately after the first (arrived) we say (not only in English) that both activities occurred at the same time
* my arriving was not later than my noticing
than
Re: No sooner
I've recently learnt that "no sooner" should be followed by "than"......
I guess the reason for this is that "no sooner (A) than (B)" compares the previous action (A) to the later one (B).
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