Anna asked herself

Status
Not open for further replies.

Bassim

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2008
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Bosnian
Home Country
Bosnia Herzegovina
Current Location
Sweden
These three sentences popped up in my mind. I am not sure if they sound natural. Would you please correct my grammar and punctuation?

Anna asked herself why her neighbours never talked to her. Did they felt disturbed by her? If they did, why had they not told her so?
 
Last edited:

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
These three sentences popped up in my mind. I am not sure if they sound natural. Would you please correct my grammar and punctuation?

Anna asked herself why her neighbours never talked to her. Did they [STRIKE]felt[/STRIKE] feel disturbed by her? If they did, why had they not told her so?

See above. I have made the only necessary grammatical correction. However, I'm not sure I know what you mean by them feeling "disturbed by her". Do you mean that they might find her scary? Is she very noisy?

On a side note, I find it unlikely that these three sentences simply popped up in your mind. The kind of things that just "pop into your mind/head" are "Ooooh, I must buy teabags!" or "I wonder why giraffes are so tall". They're the kind of thoughts that pop in and pop out again - very fleeting. The sentences you came up with sound like you sat down and thought them up on purpose.
 

Bassim

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2008
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Bosnian
Home Country
Bosnia Herzegovina
Current Location
Sweden
I wanted to tell that her neighbours felt disturbed by the noise she was making.
I used the phrase "pop up" because I did not know what other phrase would be suitable to describe when a word comes up in your mind and the word leads to a sentence and even more sentences. These three sentences appeared in my mind like a stream of consciousness. I thought about them later when I started to write them and to concentrate not to make a mistake.
 
Last edited:

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Just say "I came up with these sentences when I was thinking about how to use [word/phrase]".

"Was she disturbing/annoying/irritating them with the noise from her house?"
"Were they disturbed/annoyed/irritated by the noise from her house?"
 

Bassim

VIP Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2008
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Bosnian
Home Country
Bosnia Herzegovina
Current Location
Sweden
I am wondering if my sentence would be grammatically correct if I write it like this?

Did they feel disturbed by the noise from her house?
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
That works too though I prefer "Were they disturbed ..." to "Did they feel disturbed ...".
 

Rover_KE

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jun 20, 2010
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
England
Current Location
England
I've only ever felt annoyed by noise from a neighbour's music/dog/partying.

I'd feel disturbed if I regularly saw suspicious behaviour taking place at a nearby house, such as a neighbour taking undue interest in local children or mysterious comings and goings during the hours of darkness.
 

Charlie Bernstein

VIP Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Member Type
Other
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
These three sentences popped up in my mind. I am not sure if they sound natural. Would you please correct my grammar and punctuation?

It's good that you're thinking in English paragraphs. Those lines aren't bad, but they're still slightly unnatural.

Anna wondered why her neighbours never talked to her. Did she disurb them? If she did, why hadn't they told her?

That's a little more like how we'd usually say it.

A point of logic: They probably hadn't told her BECAUSE she disturbed them. They were afraid of her reaction.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top