Now listen to me!

Posted on March 25, 2018March 25, 2018 by Pak Guru

Listening modern music, such as Jazz, for instance, might be useful to warm up the emotion part of the brain which can induce relaxation and reduce anxiety.

There is some sophisticated language here – except for the first word! Unfortunately there’s a difference in meaning between listen (without to) and listen to. Take a look at this short dialogue:

Mother	(angry..) Johnny, are you listening?
Johnny	What?
Mother	Now listen to me. That’s very naughty. Don’t do it again!

Quite simply, if there’s an object – listen to me (‘me’, object) – then you need ‘to’:

Listening to modern music, such as Jazz, for instance, might be useful to warm up the emotion part of the brain which can induce relaxation and reduce anxiety.

With or without ‘with’

Posted on March 7, 2018March 13, 2018 by Pak Guru

It could be argued that a patient who doubts with modern medicines will take longer to heal.

Bahasa Indonesia often features with after certain verbs where it would not be used in English. In English the opening example would simply read:

It could be argued that a patient who doubts modern medicines will take longer to heal.

Other examples of the redundant with include:

In addition, patients do not fully believe with the capability of the doctor.
I like with dangdut music.
Please promise with your mother that you will meet her after work.

So that’s four verbs – doubt, believe, like, promise – that are not followed by with in English, but are followed by with in at least one other language. I’ll add more examples when I think of them. Meanwhile, if you can think of any other examples, please add comments below.

I will tag this post with the Indonesian word dengan – please come back another time and see if the list has grown!

It’s depend

Posted on November 1, 2017March 11, 2018 by Pak Guru

Happiness is depend on a person’s view of their life.

Students often mistakenly add to be to V1 to make present simple tense. It could be that they have seen other structures using to be and apply the same ‘rules’ to present simple verb forms.

Let’s take a look at some structures that use to be and think about those that do not.

‘to be’ + adjective

Roses are red.
I’m tired.
Isn’t it hot today? (Positive: It is hot today.)

In these examples, adjectives give information about nouns: ‘red‘ tells us about ‘Roses‘, ‘tired‘ tells us about ‘I‘, etc. Notice that the verb to be needs to ‘agree’ with the subject. ‘Are‘ agrees with ‘Roses‘ (3rd person plural ¹), ‘Am‘ agrees with ‘I‘ (1st person singular ¹), etc.

‘to be’ + noun

I’m a doctor.
These chairs are office chairs.
Indonesia is an Asian country.

In these examples, nouns give information about other nouns. ‘Doctor‘ gives information about ‘I‘, ‘office chairs‘ gives information about ‘these chairs‘, etc. Notice again that in each example the verb to be agrees with the subject. ‘Am‘ agrees with ‘I‘ (1st person singular ¹), etc.

‘to be’ + preposition phrase

He’s in his office.
The chairs are on the back of the truck.
Indonesia is in south-east Asia.

In these examples preposition phrases give information about nouns: ‘in his office‘ tells us about ‘He‘, ‘on the back of the truck‘ tells us about ‘The chairs‘, etc.

‘to be’ + verb

In our opening example, to be is put before the verb depend (V1).

This is incorrect! The only time to be appears before a verb is when the form of the verb is continuous:

My brother is preparing to sit the IELTS test.
This time next week I will be sitting on a beach sipping martinis.
In 2005 they were living in Australia.

Notice the tense may be past, present or future! Again, make sure that subjects ‘agree’ with verbs!

Note

If you are not familiar with the conjugation of verbs (1st person, 2nd person, etc.), see here.

Let’s get graduated!

Posted on December 19, 2016January 26, 2018 by Pak Guru

I was graduated from Hasannudin university in 2007.

Although it is occasionally appropriate to use ‘graduate’ + object, it is relatively uncommon. Usually the verb ‘graduate’ is intransitive:

I graduated from Hasanuddin university in 2007.

If you are the object of the graduation, it sounds as though you were not responsible for your learning – that you passed through some kind of machine, passively! In western countries graduates are usually quite proud of the effort they put into their studies and like to acknowledge themselves as the ‘agents’ of their struggle!