My English skills suck terribly.
My English skills terribly suck.
Is the adverb terribly properly used in the above sentences? On top of it, can I ask what difference is there?
Thank you.
asked Feb 8 '18 at 12:36
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1What is idiomatic would really depend on the full sentence, so don't jump to any conclusions based on a single example sentence. Your sentence is quite different from, say, The gardener [slowly moved|moved slowly] from plant to plant. and either position is OK there. But She sings terribly is idiomatic and She terribly sings is not. The dog badly needs a bath and The dog needs a bath badly are both OK. – Tᴚoɯɐuo Feb 8 '18 at 15:06
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@Tᴚoɯɐuo Thank you very much for the sincere example sentences.:) Then, what do you think about the sentences I asked about? – Smart Humanism Feb 8 '18 at 18:34
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My skills of English terribly sucks imitates the fact it expresses :) – Tᴚoɯɐuo Feb 8 '18 at 18:39
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You don't need "terribly". The word "suck" already presupposes that they are terrible. "Suck terribly" would be a pleonasm (basically, you are saying the same thing twice).
So, use either
My English skills suck.
or
My English skills are terrible (or nonexistent).
If this is a question about how to place an adverb beside a verb, in English, it's better to place it after the verb.
answered Feb 8 '18 at 13:05
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1@SmartHumanism You can "accept" the answer if it has helped you. Accepting an answer will give you +5 reputation, and +15 reputation to the user whose answer you've accepted. – tenebris2020 Feb 8 '18 at 13:55
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Yes, I was going to do it of course.:) But may I ask you some more about that? What you mean in the answer is that the sentences sound weird and wrong or that they are not good enough to be neat? – Smart Humanism Feb 8 '18 at 13:59
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1@SmartHumanism The sentence "My English skills suck terribly" is grammatically correct. But from the point of view of meaning, as I explained, you used a double portion of the meaning "be bad". Both "suck" and "terrible" have a meaning of "be bad". You don't need to use that twice. So the sentence is weird semantically (from the point of view of meaning). – tenebris2020 Feb 8 '18 at 14:15
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Thank you very much for the reply. I think I have got the point.:) But I would like you ask more if I am not bothering you too much. I am not a native English speaker and I would like to know whether also many average native English speakers make the same mistakes I did. Would native English speakers feel something was wrong to some degree if I said those sentences in daily life? Or would only some educated people perceive those sentences as wrong? – Smart Humanism Feb 8 '18 at 15:20
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@SmartHumanism This particular case of "Something sucks terrible" is also a mistake that a native speaker could have made. People make mistakes in their native languages all the time. – tenebris2020 Feb 8 '18 at 19:23
