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Ask for help > 2nd Conditional Help needed please
2nd Conditional Help needed please
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Khadooy
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2nd Conditional Help needed please
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Hello guys,
I hope that life is treating you the way you like.
I need a favour from you please. I want you to check the grammar of this paragraph which I wrote to my students. Is it okay or are there some mistakes?
If we had our 2 way radio, we could call for help. Unfortunately, we don�t have it. We feel hungry. If we had our fishing rod, we could go fishing. But how can we cook our fish without our fishing rod? If we had our saucepan, we could cook the fish. But even if we have the saucepan, we don�t have wood to make fire. If we had an axe, we could cut some wood. But even if we have wood, we don�t have matches. If we had our matches, we could make fire or a torch to see at night. Oh, the night is coming and we feel tired. If we had our sleeping bag, we could sleep in it. Can we be rescued without our equipment?
I will be very appreciative of your help
Thanks in advance,
Khadooy |
23 Mar 2009
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freddie
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If we had our 2 way radio, we could call for help. Unfortunately, we don�t have it. We feel hungry. If we had our fishing rod, we could go fishing. But how can we catch fish without our fishing rod? If we had our saucepan, we could cook the fish. But even if we had the saucepan, we don�t have wood to make fire. If we had an axe, we could cut some wood. But even if we had wood, we don�t have matches. If we had our matches, we could make fire or a torch to see at night. Oh, night is coming and we feel tired. If we had our sleeping bags, we could sleep in them. Can we survive without our equipment?
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23 Mar 2009
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goodnesses
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Hi, Khadooy
There are some little mistake in your paragraph which I �ll try to correct. However, the little annoyance is that redundancy with "if". You can always interchange it with "I wish" or "If only" since most of your sentences are expressing regret.
You can use "cause and effect" unless you want to focus on the use of conditional.
Here is my correction:
...Give an introduction
If
we had our 2 way radio, we could call for help. Unfortunately, we don�t
have it. We feel hungry. If we had our fishing rod, we could go
fishing. But how can we cook the fish without our fishing rod? If we
had our saucepan, we could cook the fish. But even if we had (because you don �t have) the
saucepan, we don�t have wood to make fire. If we had an axe, we could
cut some wood. But even if we had (still you don �t have) wood, we don�t have matches. If we
had our matches, we could make fire or a torch to see at night. Oh, the
night is coming and we feel tired. If we had our sleeping bag, we could
sleep in it. Can we be rescued without our equipment?
Hope this could help!
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23 Mar 2009
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alien boy
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Hi Khadooy.
It �s pretty good. A couple of suggestions:
If
we had our 2 way radio, we could call for help. Unfortunately, we don�t
have it. We feel hungry. If we had our fishing rod, we could go
fishing. But how can we catch our fish (this is more appropriate than �how can we cook our fish � as a fishing rod is not used for cooking) without our fishing rod? If we
had our saucepan, we could cook the fish. But even if we have the
saucepan, we don�t have wood to make fire. If we had an axe, we could
cut some wood. But even if we have wood, we don�t have matches. If we
had our matches, we could make fire or a torch to see at night. Oh, the
night is coming and we feel tired. If we had our sleeping bag, we could
sleep in it. �Can we survive without our equipment � may also make more sense than �Can we be rescued without our equipment? � as the focus seems to be more on how you can attain the basics of life - food, shelter & warmth. Resue (via the non existent 2 way radio) may be the 2nd step.
Just a few thoughts.
Oh, traditionally, I was taught that sentences don �t begin with conjunctions - like �but � - however, it appears common that conjunctions are used in this manner today. Even Michael Swan (the �grammar guru �) uses �But � to start sentences in his �Practical English Usage �... so please ignore this comment... it must be ok to use it this way!
Cheers,
AB
P.S. gee, there are some fast guns around here... I think it�s time to hang up my 6 shooters...
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23 Mar 2009
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paula_esl
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Hi Khadooy!
I �m not a native speaker, but it seems to me that some expressions would go better this way:
Instead of "But even if we have the saucepan, we don�t have wood to make fire", it sounds better "But even if we had the saucepan, we don �t have wood to light a fire", because you mentioned in the previous sentence that you don �t have a saucepan (implicit in the 2nd conditional).
Instead of "But even if we have wood, we don�t have matches", it sounds better "But even if we had wood, we don �t have matches", because once again you said before that you don �t have wood.
Instead of "we could make fire or a torch", it sounds better "we could light a fire or make a torch".
Even though, the sentences that I changed aren �t in the 2nd conditional, because they should be "If + past simple + conditional".
Sorry if I can �t be more helpful.
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23 Mar 2009
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Khadooy
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WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW
THANKS A MILLION GUYS .....I am very appreciative of your help.... I hope that I pay you back......
By the way, I am not a teacher, but I am a student preparing to be a teacher....
Once again, many thanks for all of you,
Cheers,
Khadooy |
23 Mar 2009
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Khadooy
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By the way it was a mistake I made.
I meant to say: "how can we cook our fish without our saucepan." As I want to link this sentence to the next one which is "f we had our saucepan, we could cook the fish." so they are connected to each other.
But now I see that I should say: "how could we cook our fish without our saucepan." Is this correct???
Overall, you gave me a nice idea that I can say: "how can we catch the fish without our fishing rod." Very nice of you all
Thanks a lot
Khadooy |
23 Mar 2009
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