help me please!

[chibi]

Could you please edit and correct mistakes in my writing ? Thank you in advance.

[FONT=.VnTime]Mai is my neighbor. She turned 16 recently and her parents held a birthday party for her, I was one of those invited. The party began at about three in the afternoon. There were about twenty of us gathering in Mai's house. She didn’t like having the party at a restaurant because it is noisy and expensive. We gave present to Mai and she happily opened them. It must really be exciting to receive all those presents. After that Mai's mother served us soft drinks and biscuits. We then listened to music and played cards. The winners were given prizes. At about four thirty, Mai's mother brought out the birthday cake. I was beautifully decorated with pink and white icing. Sixteen colorful candles sat in the middle of the cake. We all clapped our hands eagerly and sang "Happy Birthday" as she blew out the candles and cut the cake. We helped ourselves to slices of the delicious cake and sang all the songs that we knew. Finally at about sex in the evening the party came to an end. We were all tired but happy.[/FONT]

 

[David L.]

Could you please edit and correct any mistakes in my writing? Thanking you in advance.

Mai is my neighbor. She turned 16 recently and her parents held a birthday party for her, and I was one of those invited. The party began at about three in the afternoon. There were about twenty of us gathering in Mai's house. She didn’t
fancy having
or
want to have
the party at a restaurant because it would be noisy and expensive. We gave presents to Mai and she

happily : this sounds like she wasn't annoyed or irritated about having to open so many presents, which is not your meaning, so...

eagerly opened them.

It must really be exciting to receive so many presents.
After that, Mai's mother served us soft drinks and biscuits. We then listened to music and played cards. The winners were given prizes. At about four-thirty, Mai's mother brought out the birthday cake. It was beautifully decorated with pink and white icing. Sixteen coloured candles sat in the middle of the cake. We all clapped our hands

eagerly
now, I've caused you to use 'eagerly' again, as in 'eagerly opened them' above. So what about..

with delight

and sang "Happy Birthday" as she blew out the candles and

cut the cake. We helped ourselves to slices of the delicious cake
this repeats 'cake', so what about...

cut the cake. We helped ourselves to slices - it was delicious -
and sang all the songs that we knew. Finally at about six in the evening, the party came to an end. We were all tired but happy.

This is really good English. When you read it out loud, do you notice that the sentences are quite short? This gives your story a start-stop-start-stop rhythm, instead of 'flowing', which would capture the excitement of a party.
Maybe you might like to see if you could combine some of the short sentences to make longer ones, to give it that sense of 'flow'?

 

[chibi]

Thank you very much for your help. Truthfully speaking, It is not my writing; my friend asked me to post it here.

by the way, Could you please tell me the difference between Thanking you in advance and thank you in advance? This is the first time I see Thanking. ^_^

 

[namthao]

Hello Chibi,

Actually, when people read my assay, they may know and understand what levels I learn in English, and when people correct or revise my writing, other people may know how much English that people know. When I study ESL, I study with more teachers. One teacher teaches me this way, but others teach me in different ways. I totally got lost between right or wrong, but I had to accept the levels of knowledge and styles of teachers because the knowledge of people in the world always have differrent levels. Let go back to your assay about "Thanking you in advance", personally, I read the news, books, work and live with foreigners everyday, but I have never read or heard "Thanking you in advance". I don't mean "Thanking you in advance" is wrong, but it is not common use. Therefore, in ESL learning, we should use whatever most people usually speak and write daily.

Please look at this sentence:
"We all clapped our hands eagerly and sang . . ." In technical writing and part of speech, there is nothing wrong with this because "Adverb modifies adjective and verb", so "eagerly modified clapped", but it is so hard for readers to understand it. How is "eagerly clapped"? It would be better if "you were eager to clap and sing . . "
I hope my opinion is another option for you in learning English. Remember! whatever it is, you judege it yourself.

Good Luck

Nam Thao