Timeline for What should learners do when native speakers give contradictory advice?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 27 at 3:55 | comment | added | An IELTS Learner | I had time to look at James's and your messages today, but it seems that you have both left. | |
| Mar 25 at 15:13 | answer | added | Astralbee | timeline score: 1 | |
| Mar 25 at 14:35 | answer | added | YonKuma | timeline score: 0 | |
| Mar 25 at 14:04 | comment | added | YonKuma | Let us continue this discussion in chat. | |
| Mar 25 at 14:01 | comment | added | An IELTS Learner | So why did FF and James bother giving me answers when my sentence had already been ungrammatical and unnatural in the first place? Don't get me wrong I don't mind if my sentence is incorrect. I'm just trying to understand why native speakers answer questions in certain ways. | |
| Mar 25 at 13:31 | comment | added | YonKuma | @anIELTSlearner Your sentence allows two parsings: one of which is ungrammatical and one of which is extremely unusual in its wording. You can force the unusual reading to work by using "their", but the sentence is still confusing, and many native speakers would dismiss the unusual interpretation as impossible and assume you made a mistake. | |
| Mar 25 at 13:24 | history | edited | An IELTS Learner | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 5 characters in body
|
| Mar 25 at 13:22 | comment | added | An IELTS Learner | Tim said that using "counterparts", plural, was totally wrong, and that's in contradiction to the other two's answers. | |
| Mar 25 at 13:18 | comment | added | An IELTS Learner | To my mind, the fact that James and FF both gave me direct answers showed that the way "counterparts" was used wasn't wrong. Maybe it was not the best, but it was still acceptable. Am I mistaken here? | |
| Mar 25 at 13:08 | comment | added | YonKuma | @anIELTSlearner TimR's comment is not a direct answer to your question, but a frame-challenge that suggests a way to reword the sentence to avoid the issue. Because of that, it does not really contradict with James K's answer, which directly answers the question. When many people find your sentence confusing, you may get a wide variety of advice on how to reword it in addition to direct answers to your question. | |
| Mar 25 at 13:04 | comment | added | An IELTS Learner | As I understand, Fumble Fingers recommended removing the pronoun. James K said using "their" sounds better, and Tim wanted me to reword it. | |
| Mar 25 at 12:58 | comment | added | YonKuma | @anIELTSlearner For the particular case you cited, looking at the answers and comments overall, the general consensus seems to be that the highest upvoted answer is correct but that the sentence is confusing enough that you should probably reword it. Is your understanding of the situation different? | |
| Mar 25 at 12:48 | comment | added | An IELTS Learner | I have added a link to my post as an example. | |
| Mar 25 at 12:48 | history | edited | An IELTS Learner | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 246 characters in body
|
| Mar 25 at 11:15 | review | Close votes | |||
| Apr 11 at 3:08 | |||||
| Mar 25 at 10:55 | comment | added | Stuart F | Questions about how to get good answers or how to use the site belong on Meta. | |
| Mar 25 at 9:36 | comment | added | Kate Bunting | Unfortunately, this is difficult to answer without seeing an example of the kind of contradictory answers you mean. | |
| Mar 25 at 4:13 | comment | added | Jack O'Flaherty | The voting on answers may give a clue. | |
| Mar 25 at 2:11 | history | edited | An IELTS Learner | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 103 characters in body
|
| Mar 25 at 1:33 | answer | added | ghostarbeiter | timeline score: 2 | |
| Mar 25 at 1:07 | history | asked | An IELTS Learner | CC BY-SA 4.0 |