Starting sentences with and and then

[Tait-ka]

In a thread here a teacher has said we can't start sentences with "and" and "then".

Can I please ask what's wrong with starting sentences with "and" and "then"?

 

[Rover_KE]

Please reread my reply to Silverobama's thread and rephrase your opening sentence.

 

[jutfrank]

I'm not sure about which use of 'then' you're talking about but if you're talking about conjunctions such as 'and', 'but', 'so' and 'because', these words link clauses together within sentences.

I'm tired and I want to go home.
I'm tired. And I want to go home.

The second one is wrong because the whole utterance is one grammatical sentence, not two.

 

[Tait-ka]

Please reread my reply to Silverobama's thread and rephrase your opening sentence.

Sorry I don't understand what do you mean. In silverobama thread you ask him/her that he/she has been advised to not start sentences with "and" and "then". I just want to know why do we can't do that.

 

[emsr2d2]

Sorry I don't understand what do you mean. In Silverobama's thread, you ask reminded him/her that he/she has been advised not to not start sentences with "and" and "then". I just want to know why do we can't do that.

Note my corrections above. You used "do" incorrectly twice.
Post #3 explains clearly answers the question.

 

[Tarheel]

In a thread here a teacher has said we can't start sentences with "and" and "then".

If memory serves, the advice is that as an ESL learner you don't understand the language well enough to know when it is appropriate to start a sentence with "And" or "But". Your question indicates that. Nobody has said you can't do it. They said you shouldn't.

 

[Tait-ka]

If memory serves, the advice is that as an ESL learner you don't understand the language well enough to know when it is appropriate to start a sentence with "And" or "But". Your question indicates that. Nobody has said you can't do it. They said you shouldn't.

Please tell me when it is appropriate to start a sentence with "and"//"when" and when it is not.
My English is not bad. I have come to this forum to learn new things. Don't worry about teaching me advanced knowledge.

 

[tedmc]

As jutfrank pointed out, using "and" at the beginning of a sentence is a no-no. However, it is okay to start a sentence with "then" but I'd rather avoid it as I think it's not an elegant way of writing. You may run into the habit of repeating it in your writing. I would normally have "then" in the middle of a sentence.

 

[Tarheel]

Please tell me when it is appropriate to start a sentence with "and"//"when" and when it is not.
My English is not bad. I have come to this forum to learn new things. Don't worry about teaching me advanced knowledge.

It would be hard to explain. I would have to think about it first, and I haven't given it much thought. (Notice where "and" is in that sentence.)

I would say that most of the time I use "and" it's the way I did it in the previous paragraph. When would I start a sentence with "And"? I don't know. And I don't care.

What's did I start that sentence with "And"? Well, I know without knowing. What does that mean? I know implicitly when to do that, but the words don't come easily. In other words, there are no rules that I know of.

Native speakers know many things implicitly that they don't know explicitly.

 

[emsr2d2]

What's did I start that sentence with "And"?

@Tarheel What does the underlined part mean?

 

[Tarheel]

@Tarheel What does the underlined part mean?

That should be "Why did I ...?"