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My dear friends! I decided to join my “star husband”, Danny  Clark,  and to teach you some English, too. As I have been teaching English grammar and training for TOEFL for many years, you will be getting mostly grammar-based tasks from me. So, let’s start!

To begin with, here are 10 sentences. There is at least one grammar mistake in each of them. So, your task is to find the mistakes, to correct them, to explain them (if you can) and to give your examples.

For example:

The given sentence:

He left before I returned.

Your answer:

He had left before I returned.

Your explanation:

We use The Past Perfect Tense in complex sentences if one or more actions preceded others in the past.

Your example:

She went to the Post Office to mail the letter she had written the day before.

I believe, your task is clear, isn’t it?

Doing my tests you shouldn’t use error correctors , but you can look up grammar books. You shouldn’t  replace any words with others or change the structure of the sentences, you should just correct the mistakes. I also ask you to set off your corrections in bold.  Please, take into account  there may be more than one mistake in each sentence.

I’d like to add that the first five sentences are rather easy (the Intermediate level), the rest are more complicated, but I advise you all to try all 10. The idea of English level is rather relative!

So, there we go!

1. My boss, together with his family are going on vacation to Europe.
2. After I had returned home, I was reading all night long.
3. It is nothing to talk about!
4. His voice sounded pleasantly and everybody were enjoying his singing.
5. She has felt herself badly during a few days.
6. I am used to spend a few hours a day in the swimming pool.
7. I’d like he doesn’t know my phone number.
8. If he were more attentive at class, he wouldn’t have made so many mistakes in his homework.
9. He has twice more books than I.
10. Neither Dan nor me are going to taunt or humble you, my dear friends!

Now, I am giving you a few days to leave your replies and, of course, you shouldn’t read others. So, let’s set a deadline! Let it be Thursday, for example.  We can change it for sure if you need more (or less) time. Of course, I will be reading all your comments and answering your questions, if they are not concerned with the corrections of the mistakes I’ve made on purpose.

When I see no new replies, I will give you correct answers with explanations and some more examples.

Do you think it will work? If you have some ideas about alteration of modification of my task, I will gladly listen to your ideas and take them into consideration.

And now, just enjoy!

Dear friends! Today is Thursday and I am posting the correct answers for this test.

Here they are:

1. My boss, together with his family is going for vacation to Europe.
2. After I had returned home, I read all night long.
3. There is nothing to talk about!
4. His voice sounded pleasant and everybody was enjoying his singing.
5. She has felt ___bad for a few days.
6. I am used to spending (or I used to spend) a few hours a day at the swimming pool.
7. I’d like him not to know my phone number.
8. If he had been more attentive at class, he wouldn’t have made so many mistakes in his homework.
9. He has twice as many books as me (or I do).
10. Neither Dan nor I am going to taunt or humble you, my dear friends!

Now, I will explain all the mistakes I made on purpose for you to find them.

1. A) The subject is “My boss”, a singular noun..

        B)  We say “I am on vacation” or “On my vacation I was in Europe”

              But we say “For my vacation I am going to Europe”

     2. In a complex sentence one of the predicates MUST be in the form of the Past Simple Tense. “After” must be followed  by a verb in the Past Perfect Tense. So, the predicate in the main clause must be in the Past Simple Tense.

     3. “Nothing” is a pronoun used as a noun. “It is” must be followed by an adjective (or a noun or a numeral describing some time/distance concept). For example:

It is April.

It is the beginning of the month.

It is 2016.

It is 10 miles from here to the airport.

It is within a walking distance.

It is cold now.

It is pleasant to rest at the sea.

        4. A) the verb “sound” must be followed by an adjective.

            B) “everybody” is singular.

       5.  A) In the given sentence “to feel” is an intransitive verb and shouldn’t be followed by an

                 object (in American, we say “complement” meaning an object).

           B) If “to feel” is used as an intransitive verb it must be followed by an adjective.

           C) If we want to say how long an action has been taking place, the right preposition is

               “for”.

         6. We should say “I used to swim” meaning our habits in the past, but “I am used to swimming” meaning our habits in the past and the present. And, of course, nobody spends a few hours in the water (Danny has already explained you this moment). So, the preposition should be either “at” or “by”.

          7. Many verbs being used as predicates must be followed by the construction “to+infinitive” or “bare infinitive”.

           8. It is the unreal condition in the past, i.e., the conditional sentence of the third type. So, the predicate in the subordinate clause must be in the form of the Subjunctive Perfect.

            9. It is a Multiple Number Comparative", i.e. a comparative containing a multiplier like "twice", "half", "three times", etc. In this case we should use such a construction.

           10. “Neither Dan nor I” is a subject and, of course any pronoun must be in the subject form, i.e., “I”. Besides, if we use “neither…nor….” as a subject, the predicate must be same person and number as the word after “nor”. Here are a few examples:

Neither he nor his friends know her.

Neither his friends nor he knows her.

Now, if you have any questions, just ask me, please. Besides, we (Dan and I) started a new group dedicated to grammar and there I am going to explain some grammar related to this test. Sure, I have read all your answers and now I see which sentences are the most problematic for you.

Here is the link to our new group:

http://www.myenglishclub.com/group/improving-grammar-with-tanya-and-dan

Welcome! And thank you all for your great efforts and your desire to learn!