kongsmaster hat geschrieben:Hey guys,
During the last few days i thought of how to improve my vocabulary1 and my phrasing. I came up with this idea:
I am going to2 write texts about random topics and I3 would love to see you correct4 my grammar and especially give me examples of more sophisticated5 words.
Also your task would6 be to give me topics. It doesn't matter what they are about or7 whether I'm not familiar with the8 topic e.g. Basketball. I will inform myself about it9, so I can deal with it. I plan10 on writing 3-5 texts a week, but it will depend11 on how familiar I am with the topic and how much spare time I have. I'll start every new text with some organizational12 stuff like this, and you'll see the actual topic in bold13 letters. I hope for a lot of14 feedback and really want that you be as harsh as you can, so I can improve the most.
1 - A "pool" in the sense of "word pool" is more what you would call "Fundus" in German. A word pool is often a list of words from which you can pick the ones you need. The words a person knows are more commonly called "vocabulary".
2 - In today's English "going to" is used more frequently to describe what you plan to do.
3 - I would advise against dropping the subject of independent clauses. Even though it might not technically be wrong, it sure sounds odd most of the time.
4 - Well, you can't watch the process of the correction, therefore you cannot have the continuous aspect in this sentence.
5 - "Eloquent" is a property of the speaker (or the speech) but not of words.
6 - You cannot order any of us about, which is what "should" could imply here.
7 - "Or" is the logically correct operator here
8 - This has to be the definite article. The definite article is chosen if the object is identifiable as the one specific object. In this sentence the context makes the topic identifiable, it is
the topic chosen by the one giving you the task.
9 - You can hardly practise the topics. Practise means "doing things e.g. as a form of training". If I'd task you to write about suicide, I can hardly expect you to "practise" it.
10 - Using the past here would mean that you had considered doing that many texts a week but then decided not to do it after all.
11 - Generally, the present tense is fine here, but since you have not yet got a topic from anyone else but yourself, the actual plan is still something set in the future.
You might notice that I did not change the other two verbs in this sentence. The reason is that these verbs are part of subordinate clauses and subordinate clauses are usually perceived as having the same grammatical context (the will modality in this case).
12 - This is just a correction of the adjective. I'm not sure if you have choosen the right word here. This is not what I'd call "organizational".
13 - At least that's what you did in your message. The topic isn't any bigger then the rest of the text it's just bolder.
14 - I cannot really explain why I choose this, might be just my personal choice.
Introduction
My name is Leon and I'm 17 years old. I'm in 11th grade at a gymnasium and my
advanced1 courses are Physics, Biolog
y and Maths. My oral exam will be in
English
2. I am not the worst speaker, but still have a long way to go, especially when it comes to pronounciation and
diversity3 of vocabulary. Actually my
vocabulary is big, but it's only when I hear someone talk. When it comes to
remembering it myself I am
really cornered4.
My hobbies are: Sports, almost every kind of sport
s, rap
especially German, and computer games5, but I also love to watch a good
movie6 or
series7.
When it comes to sport
s I play tennis and
do athletics. A few years ago I played football too, but it
has become8 to dangerous, since I
have had8 a few injuries.
Rap will get
its own topic, so I wont say
any more about it
now .
I
play9 all kinds of computer games, so if you have questions or want me
to write a topic about that, just send me a personal message.
I really love to watch movies, but I do it rarely, the best movie I've
seen10 lately was Fight Club, it's awesome!
My favorite
series are Gossip Girl and Death Note, but I'm still watching Gossip Girl and I
have11 just finished the 5th season.
I think this is it so far and I'm looking forward to
getting12 as much feedback as possible.
Greetings Leon
1 - "Leistungskurs" is a difficult-to-translate term. I myself call them "majors", which is the most appropriate (IMO) term for them in American English.
2 - The names of languages are always capitalized, even if used like an adjective.
3 - Variety in your vocabulary can also mean (it doesn't have to, mind) that you forget as much as you learn. You can have a huge variety in your vocabulary if you just learn a new word each day and then forget it the next morning.
4 - I'm not quite sure I understand you here, please elaborate.
5 - Not sure, if I interpreted that correctly but I think you meant German rap and not the German language as a language. Note that in English the comma rules are not as strict as in German, a lot is left to the writer. However, I advocate the use of the comma in front of conjunctions (and, or) in enumerations unless the conjunction is part of a single item.
E.g.: I like cocoa, ice cream, and fish and chips. - There is a comma in front of the first and because it acts kind of like a separator. There is no comma in front of the second and because fish and chips form one single item.
6 - Some people make a difference between "movie" and "film" like this: A movie's main goal is to entertain, a film is a piece of art.
7 - As far as publishin is concerned a "serial" is anything that occurs regularly or is published in successive issues. It is thus a superordinate term for TV series but it also comprises serial novels, newspapers, magazines etc.
8 - Why the present perfect? The present perfect describes the state of the present as an immediate consequence of actions that have happened before the present time. This is exactly what's happening here, you're describing your current state - which is "football is too dangerous" - which has arisen from a past action "become dangerous". The same basically applies for the second part of the sentence. Your current state is "having had a few injuries".
9 - You are not playing them right now, I presume, so you're making a general claim here. Anything "general" is expressed with the "simple" forms of the tenses.
10 - Funny thing is that even though you "watch" a movie you still "have seen" it. The reason for that is buried deep in the history of the English language, too deep to elaborate right now.
11 - "Just" is one of the words that usually indicate a present perfect.
12 - "look(ing) forward to" must be followed by a noun (which may not ever be an infinitive)
You're never too old to learn something stupid.
Mistake – Suggestion – You sure that's right?