English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
For example:
Task 1 needs object a.
Task 2 needs object b.
Task 3 needs object c.
If the robot could know the position of object a and c by method 1.
That means the robot use method 1 to prevent running object search module twice.
Therefore, I use times for object search module.
Which usage is correct, or totally not correct:
The robot saves two times of object search by using method 1.
The robot saves two object search times by using method 1.
Thank you~
With the additional information provided I would say that "two object search times" would be correct. It is still an awkwardly constructed sentence, better would be something along the lines of: "By using method 1, the robot saves the time it takes to run the object search module twice."
That is because time or times is not something with a specific value (unless you assign it one) when used in this context. Running the search module takes time (be it 1 second or 2 hours) but if the robot runs this module twice it still only takes time not two times. You can use the plural when you say: "the robot runs the object search module 2 times" because then the word time is not used with the meaning of seconds or hours, but rather meaning something like instances or occasions (sorry, I couldn't come up with better synonyms).
