Physical stores are faced with additional running costs. Different with online stores that can operate on a small budget.
The amount of time children spent watching TV remained stable, meanwhile the amount of time they spent using computers increased dramatically.
In this post we contrast while and meanwhile in terms of grammatical usage and their usefulness as contrast signals.
Although some experts say that public projects would be less attractive than private projects. However, the government can do something about this.
Euthanasia may be a good solution for both of patients and their families.
Both/both of follows the same rule as some/some of, all/all of, most/most of, etc. Elsewhere on GuruEAP you can listen to a song that includes examples of most of these (but not, I now realise, both/both of!), plus you can find another post showing how this kind of grammar can be useful in IELTS task 1 writing when describing statistical data.
As usual I suggest you approach this problem lexically – in other words pay close attention to the words (lexis) immediately following these signals. Here are some examples. Continue reading
Cities offer larger salaries to people rather than small towns.
Here the comparison is between ‘salaries’ and ‘small towns’. The writer is saying that cities offer people large salaries and do not offer them small towns. Hmm. I would be quite happy if someone gave me a small town!
If we want to compare the salaries offered by cities with the salaries offered by small towns, then we need:
And if you really must use rather than, then you could also write:
Most of the time instead of is synonymous with rather than:
However, instead of is quite often a replacement for something that came before:
Next time make sure you’re comparing what you mean to compare!
These days gadgets do not consume power as much as they used to.
This should read:
Actually there are three grammar issues we need to consider here:
Before we examine these separately, here is a text to illustrate all three:
Life is so unfair. My friend can eat and drink as much as he likes and not get fat. He eats as many Big Macs as I eat. He drinks as much beer as I drink. However, he does not have as large a stomach as I have!
You have seen phrases like as much as, as far as, as long as, as fast as, etc. These phrases are used when far, long, fast behave as adverbs:
When far, long, fast, etc. behave as adjectives, then you need to change the word order:
Notice that when you’re focusing on nouns, your only options are much (for uncountable nouns) and many (for plural countable nouns)!
Indonesians need to be careful here because in Bahasa Indonesia the uncountable noun is positioned before ‘as much as’, for example “Kalau anjing anda keracunan, kasih dia air kelapa sebanyak mungkin!”
This can be difficult to translate into English if your first language does not have countable and uncountable nouns.
Notice the singular countable noun always has the article ‘a‘! Notice also that you are no longer restricted to many and much. Any adjective can be used!
Again, Indonesians need to be careful because in Bahasa Indonesia the singular count noun is positioned before ‘as much as‘, for example “Nanti kalau saya punya uang saya mau bikin rumah sebesar mungkin!”
Despite of its lucrative potential, tourism causes many new social problems.
This error is easy to understand. Students see examples of in spite of, which contains spite, and they generalise the same structure to make despite of, perhaps because it also contains spite, has the same number of syllables, and even has the same syllable stress. However, as we all know, English is not always so predictable!
The two closest corrections are:
We could therefore write:
I experience the same problems with you.
This is direct translation from Bahasa Indonesia (sama dengan). It’s not incorrect but I’m fairly certain it’s not what you mean!
In English when you want to say that things are the same, the collocation is usually same as:
In this case you experience problem X, problem Y and problem Z, and I also experience problems X, Y and Z. We both experience the same problems, and we are sharing our problems with each other, as friends.
Same with communicates quite a different meaning:
In this case I experience problems with somebody else – for example someone lies to me and never helps me – and I experience the same problems with you – you also lie to me and never help me!
Very often this is expressed using ‘it‘:
Most of the time you mean same as, so think carefully next time you write same with!
Some Asians have less difficulty in intercultural communication.
If your reader speaks Indonesian he will understand that you’re translating kurang. Other readers, however, will begin to ask themselves:
Is he comparing Asians with some other group of people?
Which people?
Is he comparing difficulty in intercultural communication with some other kind of difficulty?
Which kind?
Is he comparing difficulty in intercultural communication with some other kind of communication?
Which kind?
What is he comparing?!
If you’re an Indonesian translating kurang then you’re probably not comparing anything. You’re simply saying:
As a general rule, when you use comparative adjectives, include the thing or things that you’re comparing in the same sentence. If you’re not comparing things, then don’t use a comparative adjective.
Research has shown that men have the same kind of emotional problems with women.
A collocation issue: same…as (not same…with):
(Notice the uncountable use of research).
Occasionally you will see same and with used together, for example “Women’s emotional problems are to some extent influenced by hormones, and it’s the same with men.” But this is a more sophisticated form of comparison requiring a particular structure for it to work properly:
For Indonesians translating sama dengan, start thinking same…as!