who was?

please check and correct the mistakes:

  1. I have gotten/got the letters, many thanks. I’m sorry, but I badly/poorly speak English. I write in English very bad. But (in) this year my son left for America, here his address.

  2. My son well speaks English.

3.I want to know/find out very much who was the father of my great-grandfather/who the father of my great-grandfather was.

thank you very much

Hi Saneta,

I know you have been a diligent contributor to these forums over the years and ask interesting questions but I am a little surprised that you are asking for something to be corrected. Could I ask you to make your corrections first and then they could be looked at.

Alan

I won’t jump in and make the corrections as you’ve asked this of Saneta, because I don’t want you to misread my intentions yet again, but I suspect that she has already tried her best to form those sentences without mistakes, which is why she is now asking for her sentences to be checked and corrected, not just corrected.

This remark is an unwarranted aside

  • that isn’t something I do. As in the case of the past simple/past perfect simple earlier today, I am commenting on your misinterpretation.

I can’t win. You still misread my intentions.
As for the other thread, resorting to personal abuse seems to be a strange way of commenting on my interpretation.

Sorry that my interruption led to this unfortunate aside, Saneta. If you can just confirm for Alan that you’ve already tried correcting this text then hopefully we can move on to provide an answer to your question.

here are my corrections and assumptions in bold. I’m waiting for your opinion,thanks:

  1. I have gotten/got the letters, many thanks. I’m sorry, but I badly/poorly speak English - ok or I speak english badly/poorly. I write in English very badly. But b- no![/b] this year my son left for America, here his address.

  2. My son well speaks English/better: My son speaks English well.

3.I want to know/find out very much who was the father of my great-grandfather/who the father of my great-grandfather was-better.
thanks

Here’s how I’d write those sentences:

  1. I have gotten/got (I’d use ‘received’, but these are okay informally) the letters, many thanks. I’m sorry, but I speak English badly. I write English poorly (I would use ‘I speak English poorly. I don’t write English well’ instead), but this year my son left for America. Here is/ Here’s his address:

  2. My son speaks English well.

3.I very much want to know/find out who my great-grandfather’s father was.

By the way, your English isn’t that poor at all. :slight_smile:

Oh, don’t you just love the way that teacher apologises to Saneta and then asks her to confirm for me what she has already decided Saneta wanted to do. This is described as ‘an unfortunate aside’. I do believe you think you are on playground duty. Actually seeing Saneta’s picture reminds me of the old days as she can probably attest when this was a friendly site and there was humour about and fun. That was before you breezed in and starting throwing your weight around and blowing the whistle as if you owned the place.

Alan

Well done, that’s another thread you’ve turned into personal abuse.

Glad you got the point. You have this thing about ‘personal abuse’. Do you live in some kind of refuge?

he he he, Do you everybody want to annoy me? No way!
please explain:
1.what she has already decided Saneta wanted to do = what she-saneta? but I don’t see the connection in this construction (but of course know all the words) between:
‘what she has already decided’ and ‘Saneta wanted to do’
2.this was a friendly site= this website and people working on is really friendly and ok! why then: ‘‘this was’’?
3. to breeze in=?

many thanks and best regards to all the treachers!!!:):slight_smile:

Hi Saneta,

No criticism of you, I assure you. What I meant in 1 was that Bev was trying to interpret what you intended when you first posted your message and then asking that you should confirm to me that this was the case. In 2 I was making a comment on the way the atmosphere on the site had changed from what it had been. ‘Breeze in’ suggests to enter with a sense of self importance. Hope that clarifies.

Dear Mr Alan, I’m not too familiar with the expressions with ,case’, so I assume that:
that this was the case- means- That was the point/it came to it?

God Bless You.
s

Hi Saneta,

‘That was the case’ means that was true/correct.

Alan

Beeesneees,

  1. I write/read English poorly.
  2. I write/read English badly.
    Are these two sentence OK and accepted?

They are fine but I’m not too happy about ‘read poorlly’. I suggest: I am a poor reader.

Alan

Could any body help me?
Thanks.

Hi Allifathima,

Please see answer #16 above. It refers to your message #15.