A friend of mine...,

[Silverobama]

A friend of mine was eagerly looking forward to this Christmas and she has assembled the Christmas tree ten days ahead of Christmas!

Is my italic sentence natural? The context is: a friend of mine rushes the time and hope tomorrow is the Christmas. She even made up a Christmas tree ten days before the Christmas.

 

[tedmc]

A friend of mine was eagerly looking forward to this Christmas and she has assembled the her Christmas tree ten days ahead of Christmas!

 

[SoothingDave]

You "put up" your tree. "Assemble" makes it sound too much like work. And assemble only works for artificial trees.

And ten days is really nothing. We have people here who start decorating their houses once November comes.

 

[Silverobama]

You "put up" your tree. "Assemble" makes it sound too much like work. And assemble only works for artificial trees.

And ten days is really nothing. We have people here who start decorating their houses once November comes.

But people normally don't celebrate Christmas here. So, she's quite special.

Is this sentence natural now?

A friend of mine was eagerly looking forward to this Christmas and she has put up the Christmas tree ten days ahead of Christmas!

 

[Rover_KE]

Did you not gather from tedmc's post that you have too many Christmases in your sentence?

 

[tedmc]

Has "the Christmas tree" been mentioned earlier to justify using the definite article?

 

[Silverobama]

Did you not gather from tedmc's post that you have too many Christmases in your sentence?

Sorry, I don't read his posts. Among those reasons why I post here, the most important one is I can learn from professional teachers. I can't find professional English teachers in my city or even in my country even though I'd love to pay for their effort. I'm not saying that tedmc's English is NOT good. However, you can gather from my earlier posts that 9 out of 10 of those posts couldn't meet my needs.

I hope you can understand that I always write down sentences corrected by you and other teachers here and elsewhere in my notebooks. I read those notes in my notebooks every day to better understand this language. I ask questions if I think there are mistakes in my sentences. I just don't want to do this again and again. If you don't want to help, it's your choice. But please don't ask me to learn from non-native speakers of English, please!

In this one, he deleted the "Christmas tree" but he used "assembled" while SoothingDave didn't mention the Chrtistmas tree stuff at all. If I believe what ted is right, then SoothingDave is wrong.

Please delete this thread because teachers dont' want to help with the whole sentence.

 

[tedmc]

The word "assembled" was yours, not mine. I did not delete "Christmas tree". Feel free to point out things that you don't agree with, objectively but not with prejudice.

 

[Silverobama]

The word "assembled" was yours, not mine. I did not delete "Christmas tree".

Sorry, I was trying to say that if you were trying to make the sentence natural and grammatical, you would definitely correct the "assemble" because, as SoothingDave pointed out, it wasn't natural. And Soothing didn't strike out the "Christmas" at the end of the sentence but only pointed out "assembled" should be "put up", this meant that he doesn't think "Christmas" at the end of the sentence is wrong.

Feel free to point out things that you don't agree with

Sorry, I don't have enough time to argue with you about a foreign language. Or more precisely, I don't have time to argue with you about a language that is not our mother tongue. Why do I need to disagree with you? Feel free to reply to any threads you want. I am not biased against you, nor against anyone else. I've already told you that I write down the sentences in my notebooks. Let's say, you make a mistake (are you sure that all your mistakes are corrected by native speakers here?) and I write it down in the notebook, I'll ask again here to waste your time. I don't think this is what you want, right?

objectively but not with prejudice.

You're putting words into my mouth, ted. I don't know how you boiled down to that conclusion. Again, I'm not learning here with prejudice because I'm humble to learn from teachers here. Is that wrong?

 

[tedmc]

Sorry, I was trying to say that if you were trying to make the sentence natural and grammatical, you would definitely correct the "assemble" because, as SoothingDave pointed out, it wasn't natural. And Soothing didn't strike out the "Christmas" at the end of the sentence but only pointed out "assembled" should be "put up", this meant that he doesn't think "Christmas" at the end of the sentence is wrong.

I did not do that, and I would not have done that unless it is a natural tree.
"Christmas" is not wrong but is superfluous. There is no point in repeating the word three times.

Sorry, I don't have enough time to argue with you about a foreign language. Or more precisely, I don't have time to argue with you about a language that is not our mother tongue. Why do I need to disagree with you? Feel free to reply to any threads you want. I am not biased against you, nor against anyone else. I've already told you that I write down the sentences in my notebooks. Let's say, you make a mistake (are you sure that all your mistakes are corrected by native speakers here?) and I write it down in the notebook, I'll ask again here to waste your time. I don't think this is what you want, right?


You're putting words into my mouth, ted. I don't know how you boiled down to that conclusion. Again, I'm not learning here with prejudice because I'm humble to learn from teachers here. Is that wrong?

You are being prejudiced against non-native speakers. This is a forum for discussion about English, and there is no rule to say that non-native speakers are not allowed to give their opinions on postings by other members.

Sorry, what words did I put into your mouth (alleging things that you said which you didn't)? Disparaging posts by non-native speakers is far from being humble.

 

[emsr2d2]

@tedmc @Silverobama Please continue your discussion (if you wish to do so) by Private Message. Thank you.

 

[5jj]

emsr2d2 rightly put an end to an off-topic conversation.

I want here to clarify two points in case any members have doubts.

1. The forum guidelines state: You are welcome to answer questions posted in the Ask a Teacher forum as long as your suggestions, help, and advice reflect a good understanding of the English language.
This applies to ALL members, including members who are not native speakers of English and/or not teachers. The only restriction is `this:
If you are not a teacher, you will need to state that clearly in your post.

2. tedmc is not, and has never claimed to be, either a native speaker of English or a teacher. He has, however, in his nine and a half years on the forum, submitted over ten thousand posts, most of them very helpful. He has a reaction (likes and thanks) score of more than 12,000, the 16th highest score on the site.

 

[SoothingDave]

I'd like to clarify that I wasn't focusing on how many Christmases were in the sentence. It's definitely too many. Once you say "Christmas" you don't specify what type of tree.

 

[emsr2d2]

A friend of mine was has been eagerly looking forward to this Christmas and she has assembled put up the Christmas her tree ten days ahead of before Christmas!

To avoid the repetition of "Christmas", you could say "put up her tree on December 15th".

Is my italic sentence natural?

See above.

The context is: Context: a friend of mine rushes the time and hope wishes tomorrow is the were Christmas.

See above. I don't know what you mean by the underlined part. Do you mean she's impatient?

She even made put up a her Christmas tree ten days before the Christmas.

You need to stop writing "the Christmas"!

 

[tedmc]

I'd like to clarify that I wasn't focusing on how many Christmases were in the sentence. It's definitely too many. Once you say "Christmas" you don't specify what type of tree.

Should there be a "there" after "Christmases"?

 

[Skrej]

Not necessarily.