When Peter met

[Bassim]

Please, would you take a look at these sentences and correct my grammatical mistakes.

1. When Peter met his neighbours in the street, he was thinking, "I would invite them in for a coffee if his wife was not so chatty."
2. Before he turned eighteen, he had already written three novels, all of which were lavishly praised by the critics.

 

[Shoreditch]

Please, would you take a look at these sentences and correct my grammatical mistakes.

1. When Peter met his neighbours in the street, he was thinking, "I would invite them in for a coffee if his wife was not so chatty."
2. Before he turned eighteen, he had already written three novels, all of which were lavishly praised by the critics.

Not a teacher, not a native

1. It is grammar mistake and not grammatical mistake.
2. I would use "on the street".
3. "Invite" does not require an in: invite [STRIKE]in[/STRIKE].
4, The tenses are fine. was/were chatty: they both work. I agree with the punctuation.
5. The second sentence is perfect.

You may want to read this:

The use of past perfect in before-clauses is actually quite common. The use of the tenses in such patterns is perplexing because it appears to be a violation of what is normally advised, namely: The action which occurs previously in time is expressed in the past perfect tense, and the action which occurs later in time is expressed in the past tense. This normal situation is shown below. Note how both actions actually took place. The letter really was written and the letter really was mailed.

 

[emsr2d2]

"In the street" is fine in BrE.

 

[Rover_KE]

Not a teacher, not a native

1. It is 'grammar mistake' and not 'grammatical mistake'. No, it isn't. 'Grammatical mistake(s)' is preferable.
2. I would use "on the street". I wouldn't.
3. "Invite" does not require an in: invite [STRIKE]in[/STRIKE]. Its use is preferable in this context.

Rover

 

[Barb_D]

An American would say "on" the street. When I hear my colleagues say "in" it makes me think of the part where the cars go - hardly the place for a chat. The different prepositions is one thing that I hadn't known about before I started using the forums.