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#Post#: 17761--------------------------------------------------
Re: Writing Challenge: Day 3
By: Alharacas Date: July 10, 2019, 3:33 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Je te remercie pour avoir corrigé mon francais, Sofia! Ces faux
amis - grrr!
#Post#: 17762--------------------------------------------------
Re: Writing Challenge: Day 3
By: Nikola Date: July 10, 2019, 3:42 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I just want to say thank you to Alharacas, Sofia, SuKi, Steven,
Neal and Jerry for participating so far, by posting your
entries, providing feedback/corrections and keeping this
challenge not just alive but unexpectedly pleasant and fun. It's
nice seeing you all here.
#Post#: 17763--------------------------------------------------
Re: Writing Challenge: Day 3
By: Alharacas Date: July 10, 2019, 4:15 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=SHL link=topic=1212.msg17749#msg17749
date=1562770747]
[...] how English seems to prefer short nouns and often just
sticks one alongside another, like conference room as an example
(or like they used to say „court[ house“, then it transitioned
to „court-house“ and then finally was combined as one word). It
was one of the English teachers (I think we said we weren’t
going to name names) who called this a „phrasal noun“ or
something? I don’t know what the word for it would be actually.
But, in German it would be impossible to do this because of the
grammatical gender. Like in the example, if you just said
„Karamell Torte“, how could assign a gender to that? It’s der
Karamell and die Torte. So, which would it be? Der or die?
That’s the dilemma, so German opts to just combine them and
assign the gender based on the last noun in the combo. You can
get away with it in English due to the lack of gender in nouns.
I don’t know what other languages with grammatical do with this
problem, but it would be interesting to know.
[/quote]
Thanks for your kind words, Steven. :)
I guess you're only moderately interested in an answer, but
words consisting of 2 (or more) nouns, like Schokoladentorte,
Kindergarten or courthouse are called "compound nouns" in
English and "Komposita" (singular: Kompositum) in German.
A phrasal noun, on the other hand, is made up of a noun and a
preposition, e.g. handout, countdown or cutback - just like a
phrasal verb is made up of a verb and a preposition (to hand
out, to count down, to cut back).
I admit that knowing what phrasal verbs are is not as useful as
being able to use them correctly, but sometimes those terms do
come in handy, I find. ;)
As to your other question, I'm not really qualified to answer it
(my Polish being as rudimentary as it is), but Polish does have
both compound nouns and grammatical gender. And since in Polish,
grammatical gender (mostly) depends on the ending of a word,
you'd think it would work more or less the same as in German
(gender of last word = gender of whole word). However, there's
often an added twist - the ending of the compound noun may be
different from the ending of the last word if standing alone.
Therefore, the gender sometimes changes:
Hydrocephalus, Wasserkopf: woda (fem., water) + głowa
(fem., head) = wodogłowie (neuter)
#Post#: 17764--------------------------------------------------
Re: Writing Challenge: Day 3
By: Aliph Date: July 10, 2019, 4:21 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Thank you Steven for the detailed comments on my post in
English! I appreciate it.
And thank you to Nikola for having launched the idea. I am
looking forward to tomorrow’s challenge.
#Post#: 17766--------------------------------------------------
Re: Writing Challenge: Day 3
By: SHL Date: July 10, 2019, 5:11 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Alharacas link=topic=1212.msg17763#msg17763
date=1562793304]
[quote author=SHL link=topic=1212.msg17749#msg17749
date=1562770747]
[...] how English seems to prefer short nouns and often just
sticks one alongside another, like conference room as an example
(or like they used to say „court[ house“, then it transitioned
to „court-house“ and then finally was combined as one word). It
was one of the English teachers (I think we said we weren’t
going to name names) who called this a „phrasal noun“ or
something? I don’t know what the word for it would be actually.
But, in German it would be impossible to do this because of the
grammatical gender. Like in the example, if you just said
„Karamell Torte“, how could assign a gender to that? It’s der
Karamell and die Torte. So, which would it be? Der or die?
That’s the dilemma, so German opts to just combine them and
assign the gender based on the last noun in the combo. You can
get away with it in English due to the lack of gender in nouns.
I don’t know what other languages with grammatical do with this
problem, but it would be interesting to know.
[/quote]
Thanks for your kind words, Steven. :)
I guess you're only moderately interested in an answer, but
words consisting of 2 (or more) nouns, like Schokoladentorte,
Kindergarten or courthouse are called "compound nouns" in
English and "Komposita" (singular: Kompositum) in German.
A phrasal noun, on the other hand, is made up of a noun and a
preposition, e.g. handout, countdown or cutback - just like a
phrasal verb is made up of a verb and a preposition (to hand
out, to count down, to cut back).
I admit that knowing what a phrasal verb is, is not as useful as
being able to use it correctly, but sometimes those terms do
come in handy, I find. ;)
[/quote]
Yes, I had heard the word „compound nouns“ before, but never
really thought much of it.
Fortunately I always had really good German instructors and
professors, unlike a lot of people, and the one who taught us
German grammar the first two years really drilled into our
heads, and I‘ll never forget this, the importance of every noun
having a gender assigned to it, and knowing what the gender is.
As everyone knows, there is no grammatical gender of nouns in
English so there is really no comparable issue there.
I guess it was probably a year ago that it dawned on me why
German makes such free use of compound nouns, and English just
tosses nouns side-by-side without combining them. It’s all the
gender problem.
My hunch is other languages, like Spanish for instance, has the
same problem because it's got grammatical gender too, but I
think rather than making long compound words they use little
connectors like „de“ to accomplish the same thing. I don’t know
enough Spanish to comment, but I think they would do it this
way: say in English you’ve got the Emergency Exit on a plane.
German just combines the words to make der Notausgang, with it
being der because Gang is der, but Spanish may just say
something along the lines of „door of the emergency“ just
placing a de between the nouns. It would have to be a recurring
problem in all languages with grammatical gender, so I assume
there are various ways to work around the problem.
#Post#: 17767--------------------------------------------------
Re: Writing Challenge: Day 3
By: Alharacas Date: July 10, 2019, 6:12 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Interestingly, Spanish compound nouns are usually made up of
verb(stem) + noun, like el paraguas (umbrella, literally:
stops-water) or el sacacorchos (corkscrew, literally:
lifts-corks), with the noun in the plural. Therefore, they're
usually the same in plural and singular (3 corkscrews = 3
sacacorchos), and they're usually masculine.
If you wanted to combine several nouns, then, yes, you'd use
"de", as often as needed, as in "la puerta de la casa del
obispo" (the door to/of the bishop's house).
#Post#: 17770--------------------------------------------------
Re: Writing Challenge: Day 3
By: SuKi Date: July 11, 2019, 1:51 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Dear François,
I hope you didn’t forget that we invited Laura and Michel for
dinner next Saturday.
I'm coming back or I'll be back[sub]1[/sub] from my business
trip Saturday at noon. So it would be great if you could do the
shopping in the morning. I’ll do the cooking in the afternoon.
I'll make[sub]2[/sub] a light summer meal and we'll
[sub]3[/sub]eat in the garden, if the weather stays [sub]4[/sub]
warm until the end of the week.
Here's the shopping list:
Kalamata black olives
Pistachio nuts
A cucumber
1 kilo tomatatoes
Red radishes
A big Roman lettuce
A bunch of fresh coriander
1 kilo aubergines
1 kilo zucchini[sub]5[/sub]
1 kilo small potatoes
1 kilo onions
2 kilos sweet red[sub]6[/sub] peppers
Lamb chops
A big watermelon
Bread
Different kinds of cheese
White paper napkins
An anti-mosquito candle
Please phone the butcher [sub]7[/sub]in Vaison to ask if he has
some lamb chops from Sisteron. I know it’s expensive, but they
are better than [sub]8[/sub] the New Zealand ones[sub][/sub].
I think that there'll be the weekly street market in Vaison
[sub]9[/sub]on Saturday so you'll be able to buy the vegetables
there. No need to go downtown. I'm sure that there is also a
cheese vendor in the village[sub]10[/sub]. Buy three or four
sorts of cheese but no more! Otherwise we'll end up eating
cheese for ages.
We need a big watermelon for dessert[sub]11[/sub]. Go to the
Turkish grocer whose shop is near the Cluny
roundabout[sub]12[/sub] . His name is Alif. He is a nice guy but
check the price. He has some difficulties doing
[sub]13[/sub]multiplications.
His pistachios aren’t good. If you go downtown in the next few
days you could go to a new shop. There is an Iranian nut seller
near the Mega Department Store. It’s opposite the main entrance,
on the left side of the vegetarian coffee shop where we ate
lunch, last week. He imports high quality pistachios from
Rafsanjan.
You also should check if we still have some white paper napkins
and an anti-mosquito candle for the garden. They sell them in
any department store. As for the wine, I think that we have some
light red wine in the basement.
Don't forget to check [sub]14[/sub]if the gas cylinder of the
barbecue [s]grill[/s] [sub][/sub] is still full. If not, you'll
[sub]15[/sub] have to go to buy a new one at a gas station.
Thank you very much!
Love.
Sophie
P.S. can you check if the white linen tablecloth from aunt Lidia
has been washed? Otherwise you should wash it on Friday at 60
degrees. Don't forget to hang it up so that it dries.
Notes to follow!
1. We don’t use the ‘will’ future for fixed arrangements. The
most natural future form to use here is the present continuous,
‘I’m coming back’. This is the future form we use for schedules
and fixed arrangements, especially events that have been booked
and involve other people, like business trips.
You can use ‘will’ for fixed arrangements with stative verbs (
e.g. ‘I’ll be back’) but not dynamic verbs (like ‘come’).
2. ‘Prepare’ is something of a false friend here. ‘Prepare’
suggests that you’re just doing some preliminary tasks like
cutting vegetables in advance of making the actual meal. The
word you want here is ‘make’.
3. In informal contexts, we only use full forms of auxiliary
verbs (will,have,am etc) if we want to add special emphasis – to
insist or contradict, or show that you’re angry. Otherwise, you
should use contractions.
4. I’ve put this in red because it’s a really important grammar
point. Here’s the rule: When you’re talking about future time,
you need to use a present tense (not a future) after the
following words: if, when, unless, whether as soon as, as long
as, provided/providing.
It’s not, as Steven suggests, simply a case of it sounding
better if you omit an unnecessary word. Using ‘will’ here is a
grammatical error. It’s also the kind of mistake which will mark
down a learner as intermediate rather than advanced.
5. A minor point, but as you’re using the ‘European’ names for
your vegetables (aubergines and coriander, rather than the AmE
eggplants and cilantro), it would make sense to say ‘courgettes’
for consistency.
6. You don’t need to say ‘sweet’, as it goes without saying
that red peppers are sweet (as opposed to chilli peppers). But
if you do, it comes first. Qualities such as taste go before
colour in adjective order.
7. Another key grammar point that distinguishes an advanced
non-native speaker from an intermediate one. ‘Phone’ and its
synonyms is followed by an object without ‘to’.
8. Be careful about the difference between ‘then’ and ‘than’.
9. More natural phrasings. It sounds very odd to put the place
( in Vaison) in the initial position, unless you want to show
some kind of contrast.
10. ‘Village’ is correct. There’s nothing archaic about it.
Europe is full of villages!
11. ‘Dessert’ not ‘desert’, as in French. (A common mistake
even for native speakers).
12. I’d make this a compound noun.
13. You do multiplications, not make them. (As with most
phrases referring to studying, work, and other tasks, the usual
verb is ‘do’).
14. We don’t use ‘verify’ in this way. ‘Verify’ is quite a
formal word, used more in science, business and academia. We’d
just use ‘check’.
15. ‘Otherwise’ suggests an alternative. It would be more
natural to use a conditional here, with a ‘will’ future.
#Post#: 17771--------------------------------------------------
Re: Writing Challenge: Day 3
By: SHL Date: July 11, 2019, 2:24 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=SuKi link=topic=1212.msg17770#msg17770
date=1562827877]
Dear François,
I hope you didn’t forget that we invited Laura and Michel for
dinner next Saturday.
I'm coming back or I'll be back[sub]1[/sub] from my business
trip Saturday at noon. So it would be great if you could do the
shopping in the morning. I’ll do the cooking in the afternoon.
I'll prepare[sub]2[/sub] a light summer meal and we'll
[sub]3[/sub]eat in the garden, if the weather stays [sub]4[/sub]
warm until the end of the week.
Here's the shopping list:
Kalamata black olives
Pistachio nuts
A cucumber
1 kilo tomatatoes
Red radishes
A big Roman lettuce
A bunch of fresh coriander
1 kilo aubergines
1 kilo zucchini[sub]5[/sub]
1 kilo small potatoes
1 kilo onions
2 kilos sweet red[sub]6[/sub] peppers
Lamb chops
A big watermelon
Bread
Different kinds of cheese
White paper napkins
An anti-mosquito candle
Please phone to the butcher [sub]7[/sub]in Vaison to ask if he
has some lamb chops from Sisteron. I know it’s expensive, but
they are better than [sub]8[/sub] the New Zealand
ones[sub]9[/sub].
I think that there'll be the weekly street market in Vaison
[sub]9[/sub]on Saturday so you'll be able to buy the vegetables
there. No need to go downtown. I'm sure that there is also a
cheese vendor in the village[sub]10[/sub]. Buy three or four
sorts of cheese but no more! Otherwise we'll end up eating
cheese for ages.
We need a big watermelon for dessert[sub]11[/sub]. Go to the
Turkish grocer whose shop is near the Cluny
roundabout[sub]11[/sub] . His name is Alif. He is a nice guy but
check the price. He has some difficulties doing
[sub]12[/sub]multiplications.
His pistachios aren’t good. If you go downtown in the next few
days [sub]13[/sub]you could go to a new shop. There is an
Iranian nut seller near the Mega Department Store. It’s opposite
the main entrance, on the left side of the vegetarian coffee
shop where we ate lunch, last week. He imports high quality
pistachios from Rafsanjan.
You also should check if we still have some white paper napkins
and an anti-mosquito candle for the garden. They sell them in
any department store. As for the wine, I think that we have some
light red wine in the basement.
Don't forget to check [sub]14[/sub]if the gas cylinder of the
barbecue [s]grill[/s] [sub]15[/sub] is still full. If not,
you'll [sub]15[/sub] have to go to buy a new one at a gas
station.
Thank you very much!
Love.
Sophie
P.S. can you check if the white linen tablecloth from aunt Lidia
has been washed? Otherwise you should wash it on Friday at 60
degrees. Don't forget to hang it up so that it dries
[/quote]
I‘m really glad SuKi chimed in to give her opinion, Sofia,
because she’s more the professional at English than I am, plus
she can give you more the British version. I‘m just going off
West Coast California speech and what sounds right to me. It
might sound slightly different, but at least you got both
versions.
I think we were in agreement on most things. I can go to the UK
and have no problem understanding people or them me. People
could think I speak a little different, but no one seems to
care. The only things Americans can‘t do is disguise the
American accent (a British accent is VERY difficult for an
American to fake- the Brits do better job at faking American
accents).
It was hard without two computers to go back and forth to see
where we agreed and disagreed. I wasn’t sure about the use of
the word village. It might be common in the UK, but it‘s archaic
in the US (and I always have to say „the US West Coast“,
California, because that is all I am used to- there always could
be some hick in Arkansas or someone in Rhode Island who’d say
„oh we say that all the time“, but I‘m not familiar with how
those people talk- they have all kinds of weird words, like they
call a freeway a „turnpike“- unheard of on the West Coast).
Having said that, there are a lot of towns with the word
„Village“ in them, like Westlake Village, California, outside
LA, but we don’t refer to a town as a village here. It’s
probably just a local thing). It’s probably okay in the UK.
#Post#: 17774--------------------------------------------------
Re: Writing Challenge: Day 3
By: SHL Date: July 11, 2019, 3:47 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Alharacas link=topic=1212.msg17767#msg17767
date=1562800337]
Interestingly, Spanish compound nouns are usually made up of
verb(stem) + noun, like el paraguas (umbrella, literally:
stops-water) or el sacacorchos (corkscrew, literally:
lifts-corks), with the noun in the plural. Therefore, they're
usually the same in plural and singular (3 corkscrews = 3
sacacorchos), and they're usually masculine.
If you wanted to combine several nouns, then, yes, you'd use
"de", as often as needed, as in "la puerta de la casa del
obispo" (the door to/of the bishop's house).
[/quote]
Thanks Alharacas for you comments on Spanish.
Yes, I suspected Spanish had some way of getting around the
gender/compound word problem, or a number of them. Spanish is a
quasi-second language in California (if you make a phone call
you always hear „If you’d like English, hit 2, then in Spanish
it says „if you’d like Spanish hit 1). Contrary to popular
belief, the US has no official language of any kind. It’s not
English, or any other language, which surprises everyone. I
really should know some Spanish because it would come in useful
at work. I‘ve gotten at least 2 calls this year asking for
Spanish speakers and I just have to say sorry. (The lady I
sublease office space from, also an attorney, speaks Spanish,
having just growing up in the LA area and she’s not of Hispanic
background).
So, I‘ve noticed a lot of Spanish constructions with what look
like compound word attempts with the de, de la, del, joining the
words to convey one thought. For some reason, people are a
little shocked by words that seem to long.
Anyway, there was a learning technique in German I thought I‘d
share with you. Like I mentioned earlier, my first German
teacher at college was a young American lady who loved the
language and did speak fluently, having studied for a year in
Wien. One day she came in the classroom and wrote on the
chalkboard, „Bier“, without the article „das“. She asked, so,
what does this mean? Everyone was quick to say, „Oh that‘s
easy!“ She said, „no it is NOT. To a German, without the
definite article it means nothing!“
Now that was obviously an exaggeration not really true, and
every German would know what you were talking about, but she was
making a point in the extreme so we wouldn’t forget it. NEVER
forget the importance in German of identifying the gender of a
noun. So, I never forgot that. The she said „Ok, that was easy.
Now how about this: See und See- what’s the difference?“ I don’t
think anyone said anything. Then die wrote, „der See, und die
See and asked: now, what’s the difference?“ Oh one is lake and
one is the sea! „See why identifying gender matters in German?“
Again, she really drilled that into our heads. I always knew she
was exaggerating with the „Bier“ example leaving the „das“ out
but with „See“ it made an obvious difference. Same goes for der
Teil and das Teil. You have to see the nuance and know the
difference. But, the point was simply gender matters in German
and can screw up communication if you don’t get it right.
I later had a native speaker answer a question for me about a
word or verb (forgot which it was) and if they had that
particular word in German. She said, „Steven, we have all the
same words in German as you have in English.“ I was a bit
shocked to hear that, and really didn’t believe it at first,
thinking it was an exaggeration, but it stuck with me all these
years and it has helped. It turned out many of her words would
be rare to hear, or be considered Bildungssprache, but I would
have never thought 40 years ago that the word, „antizipieren“
even existed in German, but it does. Probably not heard much
(like her „zum Exempel“ instead of „zum Beispiel“) but it is
there.
So, it was a few little tips like these, though just
generalizations and not 100% true all the time, that were
helpful little tiggers along the way to not forget certain
things and served as good guides. It‘s funny how you remember
certain things from 4 decades ago.
Like you made a correction the other day about the word „der
Fakt“ (Duden says you can also say „das“) and said „die
Tatsache“ is probably more likely to be said (see, because of my
early learning, it seems strange to me to leave an article off a
German word). But, that’s another great example of what my
professor from Hamburg taught me too- „yes, we have these words
too in German“. Der Fakt is just like English fact.
So, as generalized learning techniques I found these little
lessons to be helpful in many ways, even if they were just
generalizations.
#Post#: 17782--------------------------------------------------
Re: Writing Challenge: Day 3
By: SuKi Date: July 11, 2019, 5:35 am
---------------------------------------------------------
New version with explanatory notes:
[quote author=SuKi link=topic=1212.msg17770#msg17770
date=1562827877]
Dear François,
I hope you didn’t forget that we invited Laura and Michel for
dinner next Saturday.
I'm coming back or I'll be back[sub]1[/sub] from my business
trip Saturday at noon. So it would be great if you could do the
shopping in the morning. I’ll do the cooking in the afternoon.
I'll make[sub]2[/sub] a light summer meal and we'll
[sub]3[/sub]eat in the garden, if the weather stays [sub]4[/sub]
warm until the end of the week.
Here's the shopping list:
Kalamata black olives
Pistachio nuts
A cucumber
1 kilo tomatatoes
Red radishes
A big Roman lettuce
A bunch of fresh coriander
1 kilo aubergines
1 kilo zucchini[sub]5[/sub]
1 kilo small potatoes
1 kilo onions
2 kilos sweet red[sub]6[/sub] peppers
Lamb chops
A big watermelon
Bread
Different kinds of cheese
White paper napkins
An anti-mosquito candle
Please phone the butcher [sub]7[/sub]in Vaison to ask if he has
some lamb chops from Sisteron. I know it’s expensive, but they
are better than [sub]8[/sub] the New Zealand ones[sub][/sub].
I think that there'll be the weekly street market in Vaison
[sub]9[/sub]on Saturday so you'll be able to buy the vegetables
there. No need to go downtown. I'm sure that there is also a
cheese vendor in the village[sub]10[/sub]. Buy three or four
sorts of cheese but no more! Otherwise we'll end up eating
cheese for ages.
We need a big watermelon for dessert[sub]11[/sub]. Go to the
Turkish grocer whose shop is near the Cluny
roundabout[sub]12[/sub] . His name is Alif. He is a nice guy but
check the price. He has some difficulties doing
[sub]13[/sub]multiplications.
His pistachios aren’t good. If you go downtown in the next few
days you could go to a new shop. There is an Iranian nut seller
near the Mega Department Store. It’s opposite the main entrance,
on the left side of the vegetarian coffee shop where we ate
lunch, last week. He imports high quality pistachios from
Rafsanjan.
You also should check if we still have some white paper napkins
and an anti-mosquito candle for the garden. They sell them in
any department store. As for the wine, I think that we have some
light red wine in the basement.
Don't forget to check [sub]14[/sub]if the gas cylinder of the
barbecue [s]grill[/s] [sub][/sub] is still full. If not, you'll
[sub]15[/sub] have to go to buy a new one at a gas station.
Thank you very much!
Love.
Sophie
P.S. can you check if the white linen tablecloth from aunt Lidia
has been washed? Otherwise you should wash it on Friday at 60
degrees. Don't forget to hang it up so that it dries.
Notes to follow!
1. We don’t use the ‘will’ future for fixed arrangements. The
most natural future form to use here is the present continuous,
‘I’m coming back’. This is the future form we use for schedules
and fixed arrangements, especially events that have been booked
and involve other people, like business trips.
You can use ‘will’ for fixed arrangements with stative verbs (
e.g. ‘I’ll be back’) but not dynamic verbs (like ‘come’).
2. ‘Prepare’ is something of a false friend here. ‘Prepare’
suggests that you’re just doing some preliminary tasks like
cutting vegetables in advance of making the actual meal. The
word you want here is ‘make’.
3. In informal contexts, we only use full forms of auxiliary
verbs (will,have,am etc) if we want to add special emphasis – to
insist or contradict, or show that you’re angry. Otherwise, you
should use contractions.
4. I’ve put this in red because it’s a really important grammar
point. Here’s the rule: When you’re talking about future time,
you need to use a present tense (not a future) after the
following words: if, when, unless, whether as soon as, as long
as, provided/providing.
It’s not, as Steven suggests, simply a case of it sounding
better if you omit an unnecessary word. Using ‘will’ here is a
grammatical error. It’s also the kind of mistake which will mark
down a learner as intermediate rather than advanced.
5. A minor point, but as you’re using the ‘European’ names for
your vegetables (aubergines and coriander, rather than the AmE
eggplants and cilantro), it would make sense to say ‘courgettes’
for consistency.
6. You don’t need to say ‘sweet’, as it goes without saying
that red peppers are sweet (as opposed to chilli peppers). But
if you do, it comes first. Qualities such as taste go before
colour in adjective order.
7. Another key grammar point that distinguishes an advanced
non-native speaker from an intermediate one. ‘Phone’ and its
synonyms is followed by an object without ‘to’.
8. Be careful about the difference between ‘then’ and ‘than’.
9. More natural phrasings. It sounds very odd to put the place
( in Vaison) in the initial position, unless you want to show
some kind of contrast.
10. ‘Village’ is correct. There’s nothing archaic about it.
Europe is full of villages!
11. ‘Dessert’ not ‘desert’, as in French. (A common mistake
even for native speakers).
12. I’d make this a compound noun.
13. You do multiplications, not make them. (As with most
phrases referring to studying, work, and other tasks, the usual
verb is ‘do’).
14. We don’t use ‘verify’ in this way. ‘Verify’ is quite a
formal word, used more in science, business and academia. We’d
just use ‘check’.
15. ‘Otherwise’ suggests an alternative. It would be more
natural to use a conditional here, with a ‘will’ future.
[/quote]
*****************************************************
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