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Tell me please the following sentences are correct and natural.

To do a proper handstand, first you have to be able to stand on your hand against the wall.

To do a proper handstand, first you have to be able to lean against the wall standing on your hands.

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  • Neither sentence is natural or even necessarily meaningful. You don't stand on your hands against the wall. Dec 6, 2018 at 20:30
  • @JasonBassford — I think that idea works okay, given that the action is a "hand stand". It's pretty clear that you're leaning against a wall while standing on your hands.
    – ralph.m
    Dec 6, 2018 at 21:49
  • You need the "lean" to differentiate between what you hands and your body are doing. In the first example, only your hands are specified (without reading in a lot of context)..
    – user3169
    Dec 7, 2018 at 0:30
  • What do I say when I want someone not to lean against the wall when they are doing a handstand near a wall? Is "don't lean against the wall" ok? Dec 7, 2018 at 9:23
  • Maybe "stay clear of the wall", "don't touch the wall", but "don't lean against the wall" is okay too.
    – ralph.m
    Dec 7, 2018 at 12:17

2 Answers 2

0

The second is better than the first. I might modify 1. like so:

  1. Before being ready to do a proper handstand, you first have to be able to stand on your hands while leaning against the wall.

I would tweak 2. just a little:

To do a proper handstand, you first have to be able to lean against a wall while standing on your hands.

2

I will not attempt to answer your specific question, instead suggest a technique for constructing quality sentences.

I presume the sentence you are asking about comes with a context and a lot of words in your draft have already been used in the preceding sentences.

As your first cut for the next idea you want to explain, try writing down just words you will need for this idea - but which you have not yet used. In this case, you might get something like this:

proper handstand learn against a wall.

Now try filling out those words until you get a grammatically complete sentence. You might then get to this:

To do a proper handstand, learn how to do it leaning against a wall.

In my opinion, that sounds much better than either of your examples because it focuses on the new concept you are attempting to explain.

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