Utku Hasbay
Quyen Tran
Our native language is not
English
Due to the same situation which is we are International students, today
we are going to talk about the problems we get when writing an essay, since our
native language is not English. If you are an international student, you might
get the same confused as we do. There are two aspects that we get trouble with
the most. The first one is the differences between count and noncount nouns, and
the second one is that all sentences sound the same in a paragraph.
First, we are going to distinguish
count and noncount nouns. After we had understood about these differences, we
will be able to use the
noun plural ending -s correctly and use words that express quantities,
such as little, much, . . . Knowing how to use count and noncount
nouns will make it sounds much better while speaking and make essays look
perfectly corrected.
What is the definition of count and noncount
nouns?
Count
nouns:
“count nouns use singular and plural verbs and
pronouns”. (1)
A count noun have the –s at the end if it’s
plural.
Example: car, table, orange,
television
-
The is a car in the garage./ There
are five cars on the road.
-
How many cars are
there?
Noncount
nouns:
“noncount nouns use only singular verbs and pronouns”.
(2)
Example: traffic, furniture, fruit, video
equipment
-
There is some fruit on the
table.
-
How much fruit do we
have?
Special
case: There
are some nouns which are used with both functions count and noncount: fruit(s),
wine(s), food(s), drink(s), coffee(s). Usually, it happens when using words with food
and beverages.
Example: Some types of Vietnamese fruits are
starting to be grown in America fields.
Second,
we will talk about the way to use transitions in an essay, so that the essay
will flow smoothly and all the sentences do not sound the same. As
an international student I have a hard time with writing fluent English papers.
When I review my papers and try to compare them with the “perfect” ones. I
realized that I don’t know how to use transition words such as furthermore, and,
so, because, but, nor, where, which. Lacking of using transition words my
sentences usually sound like, I am emphasizing same points. So this problem
bothers the reader and my papers are far from being fluent. Let me give some
examples that I took from Leo:
|
Original
|
The
two countries reached an agreement on trade policies. They then were able to
complete their peace treaty.
|
|
Revision
|
After
the two countries reached an agreement on trade policies, they were able to
complete their peace treaty.
|
EX 1* (3)
|
Original
|
The
program's format allows individual users to make changes. This can be done each
time users encounter problems in implementing the program.
|
|
Revision
|
The
program's format allows individual users to make changes whenever they
encounter problems implementing the program.
|
In conclusion, after taking a look from the resources we had read, we
have got to know how to fix those problems we have got. We know how to
distinguish count and noncount nouns, and know how to avoid making all sentences
looked the same. We hope you also figured it out with us, of course, if you are
an international student that has the same problem with
us.
References:
(1), (2): http://www.learnamericanenglishonline.com/Blue%20Level/B19%20Count%20and%20Noncount%20Nouns.html
(3), (4) http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/style/sentencev.html (9/17/2012)
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