Be my teacher!

@FBM,

FBM wrote:

S. Korea (the good one). Yeah, your question is grammatically correct, but we've been given permission by the grammar gods in recent years to dangle our prepositions freely (as well as to split our infinitives as we see fit), so you could've written, "Which country are you teaching English in?" and still gotten a green light.

Ok. Now this scary. You crawled into my brain and picked the exact wording I first thought of.

1 Reply

@Wilso,

I'm a professional. *whistles, shuffles feet, wanders off*

0 Replies

@FBM,

Hi my dear teacher,
Thank you for your guidance. I exactly want you to show me any of my mistakes, and I am grateful for all your help.
Please keep helping me :-)

1 Reply

Hi everybody
Let me tell my story from the beginning.
In April 2004, I was 20 years old and a first-year student in food-industry engineering. My college was situated in a small town almost 125 kilometers far from the town I lived. I was going to the college when the accident happened. The bus I was on crashed into a trailer standing beside the road. Nobody injured in the accident but me, because I was sitting in the front seat of the bus.
I broke my right femur (the thigh bone) and my neck from fourth and fifth cervical vertebras. I also broke my chin and my cheek flesh was torn and my facial nerve was cut.
In the emergency operation room they fixed my fractures in femur and chin, but my doctor could not diagnose the fracture in my cervical vertebras and when I complained about the pain in my neck, he scolded me and said: “you are pretending! Don’t be such spoiled!”
Anyway, I was being hospitalized for ten days. I was apparently getting better and except for the pain in my neck, I didn’t have any special problem to be the sign of spinal cord injury.
After ten days, my parents decided to transfer me to a private hospital. But on the day of hospital discharge, something happened!
To be continued…

1 Reply

@ida2,

ida2 wrote:

Hi my dear teacher,
Thank you for your guidance. I exactly want you to show me any of my mistakes, and I am grateful for all your help.
Please keep helping me :-)

I'll do what I can. =}

0 Replies

@ida2,

ida2 wrote:

Hi everybody
Let me tell my story from the beginning.
In April 2004, I was 20 years old and a first-year student in food-industry engineering. My college was situated in a small town almost 125 kilometers far from the town I lived. I was going to the college when the accident happened. The bus I was on crashed into a trailer standing beside the road. Nobody injured in the accident but me, because I was sitting in the front seat of the bus.
I broke my right femur (the thigh bone) and my neck from fourth and fifth cervical vertebras. I also broke my chin and my cheek flesh was torn and my facial nerve was cut.
In the emergency operation room they fixed my fractures in femur and chin, but my doctor could not diagnose the fracture in my cervical vertebras and when I complained about the pain in my neck, he scolded me and said: “you are pretending! Don’t be such spoiled!”
Anyway, I was being hospitalized for ten days. I was apparently getting better and except for the pain in my neck, I didn’t have any special problem to be the sign of spinal cord injury.
After ten days, my parents decided to transfer me to a private hospital. But on the day of hospital discharge, something happened!
To be continued…

Hi, everybody. Let me tell my story from the beginning. In April 2004, I was 20 years old and a first-year student in food-industry engineering. My college was situated in a small town almost 125 kilometers far from the town where I lived. I was going to the college when the accident happened. The bus I was on crashed into a trailer standing beside the road. Nobody was injured in the accident but me. But I was because I was sitting in the front seat of the bus. I broke my right femur (the thigh bone) and my neck at the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae. I also broke my chin, my cheek flesh was torn and one ofmy facial nerves was cut. In the emergency room they fixed my fractured femur and chin, but my doctor could not diagnose the fracture in my cervical vertebrae. When I complained about the pain in my neck, he scolded me and said, "You are pretending! Don’t be so spoiled!”
Anyway, I was hospitalized for ten days. I was apparently getting better and except for the pain in my neck, I didn’t have any special sign of spinal cord injury. After ten days, my parents decided to transfer me to a private hospital. But on the day I was discharged, something happened!
To be continued…

I indicated my suggestions with bold font. Smile

1 Reply

@FBM,

That's great. Thank you very much :-)

0 Replies

Hi, everybody. Sorry for the delay… Here is the rest of the story…
On the day I was supposed to release from the hospital and go to a private hospital instead, an E.N.T doctor came to visit me for the last time. While he was looking at my X-Ray films, he saw one which was taken at the emergency room on the first day. That X-Ray film showed the fractured cervical vertebrae clearly, but my doctor didn’t pay enough attention to it, so he couldn’t diagnose the problem.
At last, the doctors found I was not pretending to have pain in my neck and there was a serious problem with my neck. So they immediately pierced the two sides of my head and screwed 15 Kilos weight to my temples as a treatment called traction. Traction helped my fractured vertebrae were taken apart from each other.
But they made another error. The traction should start with 2 kilos weight and then they should gradually add more weights. But they attached 15 kilos weight to my head at once, so there was lots of pressure on my spinal cord, as a result my spinal cord was bleeding. At last, my spinal cord was injured. In fact, it was crushed under the pressure of the accumulated blood and the fractured vertebrae. By reason of spinal cord injury, I was paralyzed for the entire of my body. They transferred me to the ICU and two days later I also lost my breathing and I was put on a ventilator to pump air into and out of my lungs.
There was no hope that I survived. Doctors said I would definitely die…

1 Reply

@ida2,

ida2 wrote:

Hi, everybody. Sorry for the delay… Here is the rest of the story…
On the day I was supposed to release from the hospital and go to a private hospital instead, an E.N.T doctor came to visit me for the last time. While he was looking at my X-Ray films, he saw one which was taken at the emergency room on the first day. That X-Ray film showed the fractured cervical vertebrae clearly, but my doctor didn’t pay enough attention to it, so he couldn’t diagnose the problem.
At last, the doctors found I was not pretending to have pain in my neck and there was a serious problem with my neck. So they immediately pierced the two sides of my head and screwed 15 Kilos weight to my temples as a treatment called traction. Traction helped my fractured vertebrae were taken apart from each other.
But they made another error. The traction should start with 2 kilos weight and then they should gradually add more weights. But they attached 15 kilos weight to my head at once, so there was lots of pressure on my spinal cord, as a result my spinal cord was bleeding. At last, my spinal cord was injured. In fact, it was crushed under the pressure of the accumulated blood and the fractured vertebrae. By reason of spinal cord injury, I was paralyzed for the entire of my body. They transferred me to the ICU and two days later I also lost my breathing and I was put on a ventilator to pump air into and out of my lungs.
There was no hope that I survived. Doctors said I would definitely die…

Hi, everybody. Sorry for the delay… Here is the rest of the story…

On the day I was supposed to be released from the hospital and go to a private hospital instead, an E.N.T doctor came to visit me for the last time. While he was looking at my X-rays, he saw one that was taken in the emergency room on the first day. It showed the fractured cervical vertebrae clearly, but my doctor had not paid enough attention to it, so he couldn’t diagnose the problem.

At last, the doctors found I was not pretending to have pain in my neck and fthat there really was a serious problem with it. So they immediately pierced the two sides of my head and screwed 15kg of weights to my temples as [...] traction. Traction helped my fractured vertebrae separate from each other.

But they made another error. The traction should have started at 2kg and then [...] gradually increase. However, they attached the 15kg weight to my head allat once, so there was lots of pressure on my spinal cord. As a result, my spinal cord started bleeding. In the end, my spinal cord was injured. In fact, it was crushed under the pressure of the accumulated blood and the fractured vertebrae. Because of the spinal cord injury, my entire body was paralyzed [...]. They transferred me to the ICU, and two days later I also lost the ability to breathe, and [...] was put on a respirator to pump air into and out of my lungs.

There was no hope that I would survive. Doctors said I would definitely die…

Ida, I continue to be impressed by your fluency. I rarely get a chance to make such high-level suggestions as these, as few of my students write at this level. I indented where I thought you intended new paragraphs to start. The two most common formats are either to indent every paragraph or to put a blank line between paragraphs with no indentation. The other changes I suggested are intended to suggest more native speaker-like expressions and syntax.

One last thing I would suggest is that you reduce the number of times you start a sentence with a conjunction (and, but, so) instead of a transition (Also, However, Therefore). It's not technically incorrect to start a sentence with a conjunction, but native speakers do it relatively infrequently and then to create a certain effect (usually unexpected information) on the reader.

Your story is fascinating, Ida, and I'm already looking forward to the next installment. I hope I've been helpful.

Edit: Ah, I see that this forum's post formatting doesn't preserve indentations, so I went back and put blank lines between the paragraphs.

1 Reply

@FBM,

Hi, my dear teacher. Thank you for the good points that you suggest me any time. And also thank you for your compliment. You make me more self-confident :-)

From now on, I’ll apply the rule of indentation. Also, you are right. I have learned English bookishly. I’ll try to learn more about native-like language.

You are so helpful and you motivate me.

Thank you for everything.

1 Reply

One hundred days, in an uncertain and instable situation, while the doctors expected me to die, I would remain alive. I was completely conscious, however I was totally motionless and even I couldn’t breathe by my own. In fact, I lived like a plant. I was just able to shut and open my eyes. I was experiencing terrible times in ICU. Nobody cared for me, because they saw me as a dead person, therefore why should they waste their time and energy on me?!

Meanwhile, my parents were trying to rescue me from that hospital and transfer me to a better hospital in the capital of the country. They should take me somewhere where its doctors and medical staffs were more experienced and took care of the patients more.

Ultimately, my parents could get me permission from a private hospital in the capital. Now we were confronted with a challenge. We should travel almost 1000 kilometers overland to the capital. The doctors said that if I left ICU, I would definitely die in a couple of hours. However, my parents preferred that I would die in their hugs than lonely in ICU. Consequently, they hired an equipped ambulance and took me to the capital. Although the doctors thought I would die before arriving to the new hospital, I arrived in there alive and healthy.

That day, I was sure that God blessed my parents for their faith and courage.

To be continued...

1 Reply

@ida2,

You're very welcome, and you deserve the praise. Very Happy

As for the indentations, they won't work here, anyway. The block style will, though. It's just a blank line between paragraphs. I'm looking forward to your next section. I know it takes time to write, though, so don't hurry on my account. =}

Edit: Ah! You posted it while I was posting that. Laughing

1 Reply

@ida2,

ida2 wrote:

One hundred days, in an uncertain and instable situation, while the doctors expected me to die, I would remain alive. I was completely conscious, however I was totally motionless and even I couldn’t breathe by my own. In fact, I lived like a plant. I was just able to shut and open my eyes. I was experiencing terrible times in ICU. Nobody cared for me, because they saw me as a dead person, therefore why should they waste their time and energy on me?!

Meanwhile, my parents were trying to rescue me from that hospital and transfer me to a better hospital in the capital of the country. They should take me somewhere where its doctors and medical staffs were more experienced and took care of the patients more.

Ultimately, my parents could get me permission from a private hospital in the capital. Now we were confronted with a challenge. We should travel almost 1000 kilometers overland to the capital. The doctors said that if I left ICU, I would definitely die in a couple of hours. However, my parents preferred that I would die in their hugs than lonely in ICU. Consequently, they hired an equipped ambulance and took me to the capital. Although the doctors thought I would die before arriving to the new hospital, I arrived in there alive and healthy.

That day, I was sure that God blessed my parents for their faith and courage.

To be continued...

For one hundred days, in an uncertain and unstable situation, while the doctors expected me to die, I would remain alive. I was completely conscious; however I was totally motionless and [...] couldn’t even breathe by my own. In fact, I lived like a plant. I was just able to open my close eyes. I was experiencing terrible times in ICU. Nobody cared for me, because they saw me as a dead person. Therefore, why should they waste their time and energy on me?!

Meanwhile, my parents were trying to rescue me from that hospital and transfer me to a better one in the capital [...]. They wanted to take me somewhere where the doctors and medical staff[...] were more experienced and took better care of the patients[...].

Ultimately, my parents could get me permission from a private hospital in the capital. Now we were confronted with a challenge. We should travel almost 1,000 kilometers overland to the capital. The doctors said that if I left ICU, I would definitely die in a couple of hours. However, my parents preferred that I [...] die in their hugs than lonely in ICU. Consequently, they hired an equipped ambulance and took me to the capital. Although the doctors thought I would die before arriving at the new hospital, I arrived [...] there alive and healthy.

That day, I was sure that God blessed my parents for their faith and courage.

If you have any questions about why I suggested any of those revisions, please don't hesitate to ask, Ida.

0 Replies

@ida2,

Quote:

I have begun to translate a book from English to Persian and I’ve done it well by now

should be...and I've done it well up to now
or
...and up to now I've done it well.

0 Replies

@FBM,

Thank you for everything, my dear teacher :-)

0 Replies

In the new hospital, nothing was better. Neither my situation was getting better, nor there was a better medical care in there. Doctors told my parents that they could not do anything for me and they urged them to take me home as soon as possible. They insisted seriously on their suggestion, because in the hospital the risk of infection threated me. However, all my body was attacked by dangerous infections before and I had a cardiac arrest once because of the intense infection. In this situation, the doctors wanted to release me from the hospital, in order that I was far from that infected surroundings. Only in this case it was possible that my infections were cured.

But my parents didn’t want to return me to our city. They wanted to stay in capital, because they believed that if there was a chance for me to get better, it was just possible there. Therefore, they rented a house, equipped there as an ICU, and then took me home after 123 days that I was hospitalized altogether in two hospitals.

I was still completely paralyzed. I didn’t know what really happened to me. Nobody told me why I couldn’t move. I thought I couldn’t move because I was put on a respirator! In fact, I thought that machine caused I couldn’t move.

Anyway, my mother began a fight against my intense infections. Could she succeed in that?

So, follow the story…

1 Reply

@ida2,

ida2 wrote:

In the new hospital, nothing was better. Neither my situation was getting better, nor there was a better medical care in there. Doctors told my parents that they could not do anything for me and they urged them to take me home as soon as possible. They insisted seriously on their suggestion, because in the hospital the risk of infection threated me. However, all my body was attacked by dangerous infections before and I had a cardiac arrest once because of the intense infection. In this situation, the doctors wanted to release me from the hospital, in order that I was far from that infected surroundings. Only in this case it was possible that my infections were cured.

But my parents didn’t want to return me to our city. They wanted to stay in capital, because they believed that if there was a chance for me to get better, it was just possible there. Therefore, they rented a house, equipped there as an ICU, and then took me home after 123 days that I was hospitalized altogether in two hospitals.

I was still completely paralyzed. I didn’t know what really happened to me. Nobody told me why I couldn’t move. I thought I couldn’t move because I was put on a respirator! In fact, I thought that machine caused I couldn’t move.

Anyway, my mother began a fight against my intense infections. Could she succeed in that?

So, follow the story…

In the new hospital, nothing was better. Neither my situation was getting better, nor was there [...] better medical care [...] there. Doctors told my parents that they could not do anything for me and [...] urged them to take me home as soon as possible. They strongly/vehemently insisted on their suggestion, because in the hospital the risk of infection threatened me. Indeed, all my body had been attacked by dangerous infections before, and I had a cardiac arrest once because of an intense infection. To avoid this situation, the doctors wanted to release me from the hospital in order to keep me far from those infected surroundings. Only in this way would it be possible for my infections to be cured.

But my parents didn’t want to return me to our city. They wanted to stay in the capital, because they believed that if there were a chance for me to get better, it would only be possible there. Therefore, they rented a house, equipped it as an ICU, and then took me home after the altogether 123 days that I had been hospitalized in the two hospitals.

I was still completely paralyzed. I didn’t know what had really happened to me. Nobody told me why I couldn’t move. I thought I couldn’t move because I was put on a respirator! In fact, I thought that machine kept me from moving.

Anyway, my mother began a fight against my intense infections. Could she succeed in that?

Excellent work, as always, Ida. If I misunderstood something that you intended to say, please ask me about it. Most of the changes I made were to help you gain native speaker-like fluency, not because your grammar or vocabulary was wrong. I did change a couple of verb tenses and articles (a, an, the), and in the second paragraph I demonstrated the subjunctive mood (if...were...would). I'm looking forward to your next installment! Take care... Very Happy

1 Reply

@FBM,

Thank you my dear teacher. You have understood everything as what it exactly is.
How can I acquaint more with native speaker-like expressions? Is there any textbooks or references?
And… could you please provide me some examples of all kinds of “Neither… nor, Either… or” sentences as samples?
Thank you so much.

1 Reply

As I said in the previous section, my mother began a fight against my intense infections. First of all, she concentrated on the matter of hygiene, the most important thing that was merely neglected in hospitals. She observed hygiene intensely, at the same time I was taking strong antibiotics. She kept everything sterile around me. Through such hygienic revolution, she succeeded in eradicating all kinds of infections in my body, and she did this incredible thing only in a couple of months. Although the doctors supposed that I would definitely die because of the infection, I would be cured perfectly.

But another challenge or could say the most difficult one was my respiratory problem. I was still put on the respirator. My diaphragm was paralyzed and my respiratory nerves were asleep! Besides, my lungs and other respiratory muscles were atrophied. Therefore, it seemed that there was no hope to restore my respiratory system.

But my parents were fighters. They didn’t give in any pessimistic situation. On the other hand, they had seen several times that the doctors’ unpromising opinions were not true. So, why they should be frustrated with these opinions?

Therefore, they began to find an anesthesiologist who would react optimistically to my complicated respiratory situation.

(I should remind you that removing the patients from respirators is generally the job of anesthesiologists.)

My parents began to look for an experienced doctor among the anesthesiologists in the capital. But, it seemed there was no one to accept the high risk work of removing me from respirator.

Everything was going such hopelessly, until one day…

To be continued…

2 Replies

@ida2,

ida2 wrote:

Thank you my dear teacher. You have understood everything as what it exactly is.
How can I acquaint more with native speaker-like expressions? Is there any textbooks or references?
And… could you please provide me some examples of all kinds of “Neither… nor, Either… or” sentences as samples?
Thank you so much.

Hi, and you're always very welcome, Ida! As for getting more natural-sounding expressions, I can suggest a couple of things.

First of all, realize that a good writer is first a good reader. Writing skill comes from doing lots and lots of reading. Over time, you will develop intuition, and unnatural expressions will become more obvious to you. Intuition is superior to memorization. Native speakers use mostly intuition. While you're reading, if you see an expression that you've never seen before, repeat it to yourself a few times and look for it again in other contexts. Of course, you want to read in the genre that you plan to write in, too.

Another suggestion would be to focus on learning groups of words together, instead of always focusion on single words. For example, if you learn a new verb, look for prepositions that go with it. One aspect of this is collocations: http://oxforddictionary.so8848.com/ I think you can download that dictionary for free. If not, let me know and I'll find another resource.

A couple of other tips:

Good writing is rewriting. Revise and edit as many times as you need, and be merciless about changing something.

Good writing is concise. Don't use 10 words if you can say the same thing with 5.

If I think of any other ideas, Ida, I'll let you know. I'm home today with a cold, so I don't think I'm 100% at the moment. Smile

1 Reply

Be my teacher!

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know