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(1) One of my grammar books written by a Japanese teacher says that the sentence "He has gone to Kyoto twice" is correct in American English.

(2) One of my grammar books written by Japanese teachers says that the sentence "He has gone to Kyoto twice" is correct in American English.

Suppose that each of my grammar books is written by one Japanese teacher. Then which of (1) and (2) is correct?

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    The text is inherently ambiguous, so there's no "right" answer. Nothing in English dictates whether "written by a Japanese teacher" applies to "my grammar books" or the entirety of "One of my grammar books". If the difference was important, you'd just have to use more words.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Aug 19 at 1:38
  • Are these the facts on the ground? You have several grammar books about English. Each has one and only one author, a native speaker of Japanese, and the authors are not the same person. And you wish to convey those facts while also mentioning that one of those books makes that statement about visiting Kyoto twice. And you don't want to use coordination (with "and") but rely on a relative clause?
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 19 at 13:57
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    Are your grammar books all written by the same teacher?
    – Barmar
    Commented Aug 19 at 14:40
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    @Kaguyahime I think I understood what you want to imply in your sentence. Books having only one author are called solo-authored or single-authored.. You have to use adjectives with books. Japanese solo-authored English grammar books. I have edited and explained in my answer.
    – James Mathai
    Commented Aug 20 at 1:28
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    ‘Japanese teacher’ is also ambiguous, incidentally: is it someone (e.g., an American or French person) who teaches Japanese; or is it a Japanese person who teaches some subject or other (presumably English, since it’s apparently a book on English grammar)? Barring context, the first is the most likely meaning, but since the sentence deals with English grammar, and it would be unusual for a teacher of Japanese to write grammar books about English, it really becomes quite ambiguous and unclear.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Aug 20 at 10:11

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It's not entirely clear (but if you have to choose, I'd pick #1). To make it clear, you have to add punctuation in #1 and more words in #2 to clarify the meaning. For example:

#1: One of my grammar books, written by a Japanese teacher, says...

Now it is clear that the book you're referring to was written by a single Japanese teacher.

The problem with #2 is that you could interpret it this way:

#2: One of my [grammar books written by Japanese teachers] says ...

Each book could have been written by a single teacher or multiple teachers. It's not clear, so you have to add more words:

#2: One of my grammar books, which was written by Japanese teachers, says...

Now it is clear that the book was written by more than one teacher.

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  • Thank you, swmcdonnell. Is "One of my grammar books which are written by a Japanese teacher says ..." correct?
    – Kaguyahime
    Commented Aug 19 at 2:44
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    You wouldn't say that because it's not clear what you mean. "One of my grammar books that a Japanese teacher wrote says..."
    – swmcdonnell
    Commented Aug 19 at 2:56
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    Or, "One of my grammar books, which are all written by the same Japanese teacher, says..." (although that seems a little redundant because you would expect books written by the same person to say the same thing)
    – swmcdonnell
    Commented Aug 19 at 2:58
  • I want to mean "One of my grammar books each of which is written by a Japanese teacher says ...". What should I say?
    – Kaguyahime
    Commented Aug 19 at 9:26
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    @Kaguyahime Almost. You can say, "One of my grammar books, all of which were written by separate Japanese teachers" OR "each of which was written by a different Japanese teacher..."
    – swmcdonnell
    Commented Aug 20 at 1:09
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I don't think there's any natural-sounding way of conveying all the information you want to convey in a single sentence.

If I wanted to convey all the information you mention, I would probably say something like:

I have several grammar books, each written by a different Japanese teacher. One of those books says that...

If you really wanted to cram it into a single sentence, you could try:

One of my grammar books, each of which was written by a different Japanese teacher, says that...

The sentences in your original post don't necessarily say that all of your books were written by Japanese teacher(s) at all. They actually imply that you might have some grammar books that were not written by Japanese teacher(s), and that you are specifying specifically that the book that is written by Japanese teacher(s) is the one that makes the claim.

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In one of my books on English grammar, each of which is written by a different Japanese author, the following sentence is said to be correct American English: He has gone to Kyoto twice.

P.S. But I should add that there's no need to mention multiple books when speaking about what one particular book says, unless they disagree about something in particular, or concur on it. So the sentence is a bit odd, though it's grammatical. There's more to English than grammar :-)

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  • What I actually want to mean is something like "I own many books on English grammar each of which is written by a Japanese teacher or multiple teachers. Only one of these books says have gone to can be used to express experience". I think I am now prepared to make up a better sentence than (1)/(2) and have it proofread on another forum. Thank you, TimR.
    – Kaguyahime
    Commented Aug 20 at 0:22
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    @Kaguyahime There is no simple way to express all that in one sentence. It’s just too much detail and disambiguation. “One of my grammar books – which were all written by Japanese teachers – says that…” is about as detailed as you’d get in normal English. It doesn’t specify how many of your books were written by one teacher and how many by multiple teachers, nor whether any of the authors were involved in writing more than one of the books, but you would never specify that in normal English. Unless it’s crucial information, the remaining ambiguity is unimportant and not noticeable.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Aug 20 at 10:32
  • Have gone to Kyoto means to have traveled to Kyoto but it does not entail seeing the sights there. As for your sentence, if you begin with a partitive prepositional phrase it can be done: Of the many books on English grammar on my shelves, all of which were written by one or more Japanese authors, only one states that 'have gone to a place' in American English expresses the notion of visiting the place and seeing its sights.
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 20 at 11:16
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Suppose that each of my grammar books is written by one Japanese teacher. Then which of (1) and (2) is correct?

Books having only one author are called solo-authored or single-authored.
Now if you want to add the fact that all your English grammar books are written by Japanese authors, your full sentence with all' the adjectives becomes:
One of my English grammar books, solo-authored by Japanese teachers, says that the sentence "He has gone to Kyoto twice" is correct in American English..

"English grammar books, solo-authored by Japanese authors" is a clear and concise phrase that accurately describes the type of books you're referring to.

"English grammar books, solo-authored by Japanese teachers" is a more elegant and clear phrase. Now the phrase has a smooth flow because "solo-authored by Japanese teachers" is placed after the main subject "English grammar books",

The advantages of this phrase:

  • It puts the main topic ("English grammar books") first, making it clear what the phrase is about.
  • The phrase "solo-authored by Japanese teachers" provides additional information about the books, making it clear who wrote them and that it's a solo effort

So, the phrase effectively conveys that you're looking for English grammar books written by individual Japanese teachers.

Some additional suggestions for rephrasing the sentence.

  1. "Among my English grammar books, all solo-authored by Japanese teachers, one deems the sentence 'He has gone to Kyoto twice' acceptable in American English."
  2. "In my collection of English grammar books, written by individual Japanese teachers, one book considers the sentence 'He has gone to Kyoto twice' correct in American English."
  3. "My English grammar books, each solo-authored by a Japanese teacher, one book endorses the sentence 'He has gone to Kyoto twice' as correct in American English."

But the sentence, " He has gone to Kyoto twice " is incorrect.
The meaning is not clear as "has gone" is generally used when someone went and is still at that place. (didn't return back or hasn't moved from that place.).
The best way to express this is:
"He has been to Kyoto twice ".
"He went to Kyoto twice" is also correct.

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  • You should use a hyphen for "Japanese-authored" here. Since Japanese can be used as a noun for a Japanese person, the sentence could be misread as "(One of my [Japanese people]) authored grammar books..., which is how I initially read it. (Until, of course, I got to the word "says" and the sentence no longer parsed, so I started over and realized that Japanese was meant to be an adverb modifying "authored".)
    – GentlePurpleRain
    Commented Aug 19 at 18:55
  • Also, "Japanese-authored" is more awkward than the original sentence, and still doesn't convey what the OP wants: That they have multiple grammar books, each authored by a different Japanese teacher, and one of those books makes the claim stated.
    – GentlePurpleRain
    Commented Aug 19 at 18:57
  • @GentlePurpleRain As OP also wants to state that it's written by single author, I used hyphen solo-authored. The author is japanese and the books are English grammar. I edited and explained how the adjectives define the noun.
    – James Mathai
    Commented Aug 20 at 2:43
  • “Japanese solo-authored English grammar books” may be concise, but it is far from clear. For one thing, it says nothing about the nationality or language of the author – it describes the country where the book was published (Japanese modifies books). ‘English grammar books’ is ambiguous as to whether it’s books on English grammar or grammar books published in England, the latter of which clashes with ‘Japanese … books’. Your suggestion also completely leaves out that the author(s) is/are Japanese teachers (itself an ambiguous term), not just any random Japanese people.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Aug 20 at 10:20
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Upon your suggestion I made a change in the phrase. Now it is clear that the authors are Japanese. "English grammar books, solo-authored by Japanese teachers" is a more elegant and clear phrase. Now the phrase has a smooth flow because "solo-authored by Japanese teachers" is placed after the main subject "English grammar books",
    – James Mathai
    Commented Aug 20 at 11:14

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