prepositions

[Gorkem Atay]

1. I have lots of book in my house.
2. She will take me to the movies by her car.
3. My friend had worked in the city bank for ten years.
4. She complained about the food at the hospital
5. I will be home from five o'clock to seven o'clock so call me through that time.
6. Insomniacs have a lot of problems falling to sleep during night.
7. Until tomorrow, the worst of the storm should be over.
8. By the storm, all the lights were out for several hours.

I have done these but I am not sure whether they are correct. Are they okay?

Thanks,

 

[Rover_KE]

Let your teacher correct them first, Gorkem Atay.

 

[Gorkem Atay]

I have no teacher, Rover_KE.

 

[Rover_KE]

1, 3 and 4 are correct.

Try the others again.

 

[Gorkem Atay]

2. She will take me to the movies by her car. (Still I have no idea about this)
3. I will be home from five o'clock to seven o'clock so call me at that time.
6. Insomniacs have a lot of problems falling to sleep at night.
7. By tomorrow, the worst of the storm should be over.
8. During the storm, all the lights were out for several hours.

 

[Rover_KE]

2. '...in her car.'

3. This is a bad question. It ought to be '...so call me between those times'.

The rest are correct.

 

[Gorkem Atay]

1. I have lots of book in my house.
2. She will take me to the movies by her car.
3. My friend had worked in the city bank for ten years.
4. She complained about the food at the hospital
5. I will be home from five o'clock to seven o'clock so call me through that time.
6. Insomniacs have a lot of problems falling to sleep during night.
7. Until tomorrow, the worst of the storm should be over.
8. By the storm, all the lights were out for several hours.

I have done these but I am not sure whether they are correct. Are they okay?

Thanks,

I understand all off them but 6 and 8. Are they illogical? Could you explain me please...?

 

[Rover_KE]

You got 6 and 8 right in post #5. They are logical.

6 is badly phrased. We say 'falling asleep' or 'getting to sleep' — not 'falling to sleep'. We sleep at night — during night is ungrammatical...it would have to be during the night.

8 means 'When the storm was raging, all the lights were out....'

 

[SoothingDave]

I think "after the storm" makes more sense.

 

[Gorkem Atay]

The last thing I want to ask is that, for example I can use ''by'' like: ''By using this type of engine, we have gotten better performance in our aircraft.''

8. ''By the storm, all the lights were out....''

I think both have the same construction before comma. Why the 8 is not correct? Is it ungrammatical or something else?

 

[MikeNewYork]

The construction in your new sentence and that in #8 are completely different.

 

[SoothingDave]

He's using "by the storm" to indicate causation. We might say "the lights were knocked out by the storm," so he has a point.

It's certainly unnatural to place the prepositional phrase first. The most natural utterance is one having to do with timing, since the duration of the outage is being talked about.

 

[TheParser]

3. My friend had worked in the city bank for ten years.

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Hello, Gorkem Atay:

I found your third sentence very interesting.

1. When you say "the city bank," are you referring to a particular bank that is named City Bank?

a. IF you are, then I believe that you sentence should read: My friend had worked at the City Bank for ten years.

i. When you refer to a particular bank, then the preposition "at" is required.

2. Were you, on the other hand, simply telling us that he was the employee of one of the many banks in the city?

a. In that case, I believe either preposition is used by native speakers:

i. My friend had worked in one of the city's banks for ten years.
ii. My friend had worked at one of the city's banks for ten years.

3. I have noticed that:

a. Many native speakers feel that there is no difference between 2ai and 2aii.
b. Some native speakers detect a difference. I have never found a good explanation of the difference. IF there is a difference, I hope that someone will explain it to us.

4. Personally, I prefer "at," but I cannot explain why.


James

 

[MikeNewYork]

If the person worked at a bank called "City Bank", I would drop the definite article before "City Bank".

 

[Gorkem Atay]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Hello, Gorkem Atay:

I found your third sentence very interesting.

1. When you say "the city bank," are you referring to a particular bank that is named City Bank?

a. IF you are, then I believe that you sentence should read: My friend had worked at the City Bank for ten years.

i. When you refer to a particular bank, then the preposition "at" is required.

2. Were you, on the other hand, simply telling us that he was the employee of one of the many banks in the city?

a. In that case, I believe either preposition is used by native speakers:

i. My friend had worked in one of the city's banks for ten years.
ii. My friend had worked at one of the city's banks for ten years.

3. I have noticed that:

a. Many native speakers feel that there is no difference between 2ai and 2aii.
b. Some native speakers detect a difference. I have never found a good explanation of the difference. IF there is a difference, I hope that someone will explain it to us.

4. Personally, I prefer "at," but I cannot explain why.


James

Both your and MikeNewYork's information is pretty enlightining for me, thanks. I will pay attention to these.

Another point I want to ask is, which is apart from the title, that you made a sentence like this:


1.a. ''My friend had worked at the City Bank for ten years.''

In here, If I were you, I would make this sentence like, ''My friend has worked at the City Bank for ten years.''
I would prefer to use your using in a sentence, for example, such as; '' My friend had worked at the City Bank for ten years before he got married.''

Acording to my knowledge, in general we use 'past perfect tense' when we try to tell the situation which actualize before the another situation in the past.

If I am wrong, please correct me...

 

[TheParser]

Acording to my knowledge, in general we use 'past perfect tense' when we try to tell the situation which actualize before the another situation in the past.

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Hello, Gorkem Atay:

Yes, I believe that you are 100% correct.

I wrote "had worked" because I had assumed the adverbial clause (such as "before he got married" or "before he retired in 2012") was in the speaker's mind.

Tom: Is Mr. Smith retired now?
Mona: Yes, he is.
Tom: When did he retire?
Mona: In 2012.
Tom: What was his profession?
Mona: Didn't you know? He had worked at / in a bank for ten years (before he retired in 2012).

I also believe that in regular conversational English, some native speakers would simply use the past tense ("worked") because the meaning is very clear.



James