Hi!
I found these words in one of the tests and I’m trying to use them :
Yesterday afternoon, a little boy strayed from his grandfather in the Central Park.
As he didn’t get scared, he strolled (or wandered) in the park for hours.
In the evening, he has been chased by a dog and when he got rid of it, he was so tired that he almost couldn’t pace anymore.
He was staggering and limping badly when somebody saw him; poor little boy had stumbled when striding over some big tree roots, and his leg was sore.
When asked, he couldn’t even speak, he stumbled something about his parents.
Please tell me if I used correctly the synonyms for “walk” because they are new words for me and sound a little strange. Do people use them?
“strayed”, “staggering”, “limping” and “stumbled” (first use) are OK. A stray little boy is more likely to “wander” than “stroll”. This use of “pace” is not natural. The use of “striding” also feels a bit odd to me.
It looks like the second use of “stumbled” should be “mumbled”.
There are a number of other small errors throughout the text.
Stroll is more of a slow walk for pleasure, with plenty of time to stop and smell the flowers. Similar to the wonderful term promenade. Most of the time “pace” is used to denote walking briskly back and forth in a small area to release nervous energy. Striding seems to me to be faster than a jog but slower than a sprint, maybe like a canter when talking about horses.