He had agreed to take English lessons from me ...

[Silverobama]

I wrote the following paragraph and I have some specific questions about its grammatical and a word.

He and his wife are the kind of people who often make promises they don’t intend to keep. He had agreed to take English lessons from me but, after I had spent time and money preparing a lesson plan for him, he ended up pulling out of the deal.

Context: Last year I met a couple. It was my friend Kevin who referred this tutoring job to me. The husband (Jasper) wanted to learn English from me. We first met at his home and talked about the details and the couple agreed to learn from me. Later I began to preparing a lesson plan for him. It took me around a month because he told me he was just a beginner and he was indeed (I tested him.) After I finished making the plan for him and he told me he didn’t want to learn from me.

a) Is the “they” in “they don’t intend to keep” good? I think it would be better if I said “..... make promises who don’t intend to keep”.
b) Are the two past perfect tenses (had agreed to, had spent time) here good? The storyline was “He agreed first, then I made the plan and later they said they didn’t want to learn”.
c) I wonder if the comma after “but” is good. Should it be before “but”?

​

 

[teechar]

I wrote the following paragraph, and I have some specific questions about it. its grammatical and a word.

He and his wife are the kind of people who often make promises they don’t intend to keep. He had agreed to take English lessons from me, but after I had spent time and money preparing a lesson plan for him, he ended up pulling out of the deal.

Context: Last year, I met a couple. It was my friend Kevin who referred this tutoring job to me. The husband (Jasper) wanted to learn English from me. We first met at his their home and talked about agreed the details. and the couple agreed to learn from me. Later, I began to preparing a lesson plan for them. him. It took me around a month because he told me he was just a beginner and he was indeed (I tested him). After I finished making the plan for him, and he told me he didn’t want to learn from me.

a) Is the “they” in “they don’t intend to keep” good? I think it would be better if I said “..... make promises who don’t intend to keep”.

"They" is correct. "Who" would be wrong; it refers to people, not things (promises).

b) Are the two past perfect tenses (had agreed to, had spent time) here good? The storyline was “He agreed first, then I made the plan and later they said they didn’t want to learn”.

OK.

c) I wonder if the comma after “but” is good. Should it be before “but”?

No. See above.