"i was impressed at how skilled a negotiator he was"

[Hyouran]

I'm a spanish with a C1 level in english, and I've been taking a look at the Cambridge Proficiency exam and came across a weird sentence in the cheat sheet:


"i was impressed at how skilled a negotiator he was"


According to the cheat sheet, that's the only correct answer. But wouldn't it be also correct to say "how skilled of a negotiator he was"? And why is "how skilled a negotiator he was" correct? It just sounds kind of weird to me.


Thanks in advance.

 

[Rover_KE]

Welcome to the forum, Hyouran.

I'm [delete 'a'] Spanish with a C1 level in English, and I've been taking a look at the Cambridge Proficiency exam and came across a weird sentence in the cheat sheet:

"I was impressed at how skilled a negotiator he was."

According to the cheat sheet, that's the only correct answer. But wouldn't it be also correct to say "how skilled of a negotiator he was"? And why is "how skilled a negotiator he was" correct? It just sounds kind of weird to me.

There's nothing weird about the original sentence. It's just fine.

My corrections to your post should come as no surprise to you—the rules of capitalisation and punctuation are just the same as they are in Spanish.

 

[bubbha]

Off topic, but I believe the names of languages are not capitalized in Spanish. They are capitalized in English, though.

 

[jutfrank]

I'd be reluctant to call your suggestion (with of) incorrect. However, the Cambridge people would not consider it proper, despite the fact that millions of native speakers use it. As a teacher familiar with the Cambridge exams, I recommend using only the form as given on the cheat sheet.

 

[Rover_KE]

... I believe the names of languages are not capitalized in Spanish.

You may be right, but I checked with this site before writing the above.

 

[Hyouran]

My corrections to your post should come as no surprise to you—the rules of capitalisation and punctuation are just the same as they are in Spanish.

Thanks for the correction! It's true what they say below, though: we don't capitalise nationalities in Spanish, that's why I get confused about it in English.

I'll just stick to the cheat sheet answer for it. Thanks, everybody!