Tips on Top

Let me tell you today about a few mistakes that I come across quite often (maybe a bit too often) in my students' writing assignments.

Well, first of all there are the articles. The Japanese language doesn't have them, while the English language gives you too many choices: definite article? indefinite? none at all? Again, here too there are rules, and exceptions, and you'll probably learn to get them all right only after reading/ listening to a lot of English. But just one tip: use a/an when you mention something in conversation the first time, and where you can replace it with one without changing the meaning of the sentence. The second time you mention the same thing, and if you can replace it with this/that/these/those, use the. Here's how it goes:

Once upon a time there was a man who lived by the sea. The man went fishing every day. One day he caught a golden fish. The fish told the man: "If you let me live, I'll make three of your wishes come true!" The man thought for a while, and then said: "I want a big house!" The fish wiggled his tail, and the house appeared right in front of them...

Also, don't forget that superlatives (most, best, longest) need the, as in He's the most interesting person I've ever met, with the best sense of humor; so does same: We both say the same things at the same time.

This doesn't solve all the possible problems with articles, but at least helps you avoid making basic mistakes.

Another tip: one of the is followed by the plural, because it means that you are referring to just one object out of many similar objects: One of my colleagues will make a presentation at the conference. I ate one of the peaches you bought yesterday.

Note one more thing: almost is an adverb, a modifier, normally to be used with adjectives, that's why we can't say almost people, but instead we have to say almost all (the) people, not almost results, but almost all (of) the results, etc.

That's all for today, hope it's helpful!