New print

Check out this neat little print I made for my junior high students in Japan here.

How to pay off your 30 Year Mortgage in 10 without paying any extra, Part 1

My video on how to make an amortization schedule.

Have someone doing something

You can use "have" for many different kinds of sentences. One of the often used but not so often taught uses of "have" is to let someone know that someone or something is performing an action on your behalf or on your order.

David has Luke cleaning the table.

In this example, Luke is cleaning the table but he didn't just decide to do that. He likely is doing it because David told him to do it. There is an implied command originating with David. It doesn't always have to be a command however.

David has the computer compiling the code.

In a sense, David still commanded the computer to perform the action but another way to think of it is that the action is being performed for David's benefit.

The patient in the hospital has a nurse giving him medicine.

In the above example, it is very unlikely that the patient commanded the nurse to give him medication. What is much more likely is that the doctor ordered the medicine and this medicine has to be given to the patient at certain regular intervals and one of those occurrences just happens to be taking place at the moment it is being spoken of.

This brings us to another element of the three examples. They each use the ING infinitive which denotes that the action of the verb is happening at the same time as the main verb which happens to be present tense so meaning right now.  However, there is another way to use this meaning of "have" that does not have to include right now.

The company has someone to clean the offices.

In this example the cleaning of the offices does not have to be at the same time as the main verb.  In fact, it almost certainly is not.  By using the TO infinitive we let the listener know that the action is either in the future or, as in the example above, a repetitive action that will happen in the future but also happened in the past.

So, ...

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Making Professional looking Handouts for Students

Fewer VS Less

Use Fewer not Less with Countable Nouns

I hate to be the fuddy old guy who goes around telling people how they should talk.  Usually I'm the one defending people in the lower classes from the scorn of the elitists who try to proscribe how English should work.  After all, everyone's English is technically correct, right?  Who's to say that "I'm a go get some pizza" is any worse than "I will get some pizza"?

That as it may be, there is one new thing that is creeping into the language more and more that just drives me nuts.  Here's an example.

There are less people on the train today than yesterday.

Did you catch the mistake?  If not, then you need to stick around and read to the end of this post so you (English native speaker or no) can be corrected in how to use proper English.  First we have the idea that some nouns can be counted and some can not.

Countable:  flowers

Uncountable: flour

Words that are not countable don't necessarily have to go with objects that can not be physically counted.  You can, if you desire, count the hair on your head or the grains of sand on the beach but both hair and sand are usually uncountable for the simple reason that nobody every really wants to do that.  (save for some intern given busy work).

Other words can be counted and thus are used in a plural. You can have one flower and you can have two flowers.  You can have one child or two children.  Even if the word does not change in the plural such as one fish or two fish, the fact of the matter is that the word is still being used in the plural since it is used to denote more than one of something.

If we want to say that we had a certain amount in the past and that amount increased to a larger amount then it is very easy.  In English we used the same word.

There is more sand on the beach today than yesterday.

There are more flowers in the park today than yesterday. 

Of course you should be mindful to notice the verb switches from singular to plural as a big tip off that even though both examples use "more" there is still something different about them.

Now you might be tempted to think that if we use the same word for both countable and uncountable to talk about an increase then why can't we use the same word to talk about a decrease?  That is a good question and the answer is, we just don't.  From a purely objective point a view there is now reason why "There are fewer flowers in the park" should be any more or less correct than "There less flowers in the park".  I concede the point that if we had to explain why to aliens visiting us we would be hard pressed to do so.

However, this isn't just a grammar issue, it is a social issue.  This is not the case of new grammar or slightly different grammar happening at the lower levels of society or among people learning the language as a second language and the higher levels wanting to stamp it out.  This simple grammatical mistake is one that the rich and powerful have adopted to show inclusion in their own group and as a way to exclude other from that group.  Now, people have the right to speak the way they want to but replacing "Fewer" with "Less" can not be justified simply because rich people want to force the way of speaking on everyone else, or to allow snobs and elitists to put a fence around themselves.

Looking through our data sources, normal people are still using "fewer" perfectly correctly and most people who reach a certain level of competence with English as a second language do as well.  The places you see "Less" used incorrectly are Ted Talks where the rich and powerful give lectures to each other to reinforce their status with one another.  You also hear it from celebrities when they give interviews.  You can even note that certain celebrities used "Fewer" correctly in the past around when they first became famous but changed they way they talked after becoming very rich.  Twitter is a wonderful source of data for this where we still see most people correctly using "Fewer" but again we see wealthy or famous people forgetting the word exists.

So in conclusion, we can say that "less apples" is wrong because the vast majority of English speakers say it's wrong and if rich people want to introduce this deliberate and very ugly error into their speech then they need to keep it to themselves and learn that when you speak publicly you will be held to a higher standard and that standard is to at the minimum use correct grammar with countable and uncountable nouns.  If "less apples" is to be deemed correct because a movie star starts saying it then next we'll see them force us to say "fewer water" and at that point we might as all trade in our dollars for Dodge Coins.

There is less water in the pool today.

There are FEWER flowers in the garden today.  

Why we use past tense in reported speech

David said "I am eating pizza."
David said he was eating pizza. 

The sequence of tenses as it is known in Latin classes is a way of dealing with reported speech.  Hearsay may not be admissible in court but in everyday English usage, we use it all the time.

Now all of you probably know how this works.  Someone says something and then later you want to tell someone else (or the original speaker if they contradict themselves) what they said.

The tense of the main verb is absolute but the tense of the subordinate verb is not absolute but rather relative to the tense of the main verb.  

What does that mean?
It means what when we use "say" or "said" the tense is based on if someone is speaking now or already finished saying what they wanted to say.  In the example in the picture (sorry for bad handwriting) we see that David said he was eating pizza.  The original sentence has David using the present tense but the report of what he said changes it to the past.  This is because David has already finished speaking and we used "said" in the past tense.  Since BE is not in absolute tense but rather relative tense we do not report the exact tense that David used but rather we let the listener know if the action was happening at the same time as the speaking or if the action happened before the speaking.  In this example the speaking and the action were at the same time so we use the past tense in the of BE.

"I am eating pizza."

David said he was eating pizza.

English speakers have this grammar in their heads but usually never realize it.  If asked, most will not even know why they changed the tense and will have to think about it for a while, as is the case with all interesting grammar.  It should be noted that many languages don't work this way and our way of doing things might seem odd, or even a lie. This fact of English usage can also be used for comical effect.

Tibadeaux:  Ah, man look at that girl.

Boudeaux:  What girl?

Tibadeaux: Dat girl over dere.  She hot.  I'm gone go talk to her.

Boudeaux: Good luck man.

Tibadeaux walks over to the girl and talks for a bit.  Then comes back.

Boudeaux: So?  How'd it go?

Tibadeaux:  No go.  She said she was married.

Boudeaux: That would't stop me.  If she was married then she ain't married no more.

Obviously Boudeaux thinks the tense is absolute and that the lady in question is no longer married, taking Tibadeaux's words at face value but that is probably not what she said.  Tibadeaux meant to tell his friend that her being married and her telling him she was married were at the same time and it is unlikely her husband died in the short time it took Tibadeaux to report this to Boudeaux.

This joke is comical because when we see Tibadeaux's report, we immediately understand that the woman is still married but when Boudeaux acts like an idiot and assumes she is no longer married because a past tense verb was used we instantly understand that he is being stupid but also we notice that we had not noticed the switch in tenses before.

So we use the past tense to say that something is happening at the same time as "said" but what if something happened before it was said.  In this case we need to go more in the past than the past tense to let the listener know that it happened before it was talked about.

I ate the pizza.

David said he had eaten the pizza.

Now it would strictly speaking not be incorrect to say "David said he ate all the pizza" if it was a very recent thing or some other instances but usually we would want to change "ate" to "had eaten" to push the verb more in the past so that it precedes "said".  In this way we let the listener know in what order the actions happened.  Eating first, then talking about it.

Good Essay Topics

Good Essay Topics

English teachers tasked with teaching writing skills to learners who study English as their second language might find themselves searching for appropriate essay topics.  Is it possible to find a good topic that students can write about even with lower than usual vocabulary and grammar skills without sounding banal? How can teachers effectively use class time to discuss and give background information on a topic without using the entire class?

One huge thing to keep in mind is that as the teacher, you are teaching writing as part of teaching English as a second language.  As such, everything you do should be aimed at that end.  This will affect many different decisions a teacher will make that others may not understand.  The phrase "method to the madness" was clearly invented for English teachers.

Why make learners play cards?  
                 Duh, it helps them remember vocabulary.

Why make learners play monopoly (or other board game)?  
                 It lets them practice grammar structures.

It may seem unfortunate but learning a second language is as much about quantity as it is about quality.  Even more so than quantity is frequency.  Back in the day teachers used drills, lots and lots of endless, mindless drills.  Today, we still do but we have to address motivation so we dress up the drills to look like something else and call it a game.

So how does this apply to writing skills?  Writing being one of the harder (last in the hierarchy to be acquired) things to teach, we still have to remember that we are still teaching them a second language.  That means we need to actually tell students that the topic sentence goes at the beginning of a paragraph because they won't know to automatically do that.  We have to tell them that the thesis goes near the end of the opening paragraph because the grammar in their head from their L1 may not work that way and will be fighting against them.

Besides these considerations,  teachers must remember frequency.  One essay is never enough.  Get them to write another, and another, and another.  The amount of work they produce is as important as what they produce.  The more they produce, the better they will get.  It is like a hard stone that has to be slowly chipped away at until it yields the masterpiece underneath.

How can we get them to produce essentially the same essay over and over again until they internalize the process enough to have acquired it?

Most people think/believe  X  however  (I think)  Y is actually true.  

With this strategy, the learner can take a simple piece of information, such as any commonly held belief and then criticize that belief and offer an opposing proposition.  It could be a matter of offering a different opinion or correcting a factual mistake.  Lets look as some examples.

Most people believe Kennedy was assassinated by the US government but I think Lee Harvey Oswald really did it.

Most Americans even to this day believe that Oswald was innocent and that some shadowy secret organization like the CIA or the FBI or some other menacing group of letters like the IRS killed Kennedy.  This is very sad since we know almost with 100% certainty that Kennedy was killed by LHO, Lee Harvey Oswald.

If asked, most people will say that the Earth is a small planet but I think it is really big.

Here we have a difference of opinion.  A general poll of people might come back with the answer that the Earth is small but keep in mind, it represents nearly half of the solid matter in the solar system.  Jupiter may be big but it's just air.

Many people believe Edison invented the light bulb but I think he stole the idea from Tesla.  

This is an example of speculation.  It probably isn't true but that isn't the point of the essay.  The point of the essay is to get the student to write and write and write.  I even tell them to lie to me since I'll never know if they lied or not.  I'm just looking for good English usage not if they agree with me or not.

Now obviously these examples were meant for teachers to see and think about but not to be presented to students.  However, the simple disagree/controversy formula is a good one to use and students might just be able to run with it to come up with their own ideas.  Let them write about something important to them in their culture.  As long as it is good English, we don't care.

Sony vs Apple for best phone maker
PRC vs Taiwan for "real" China
J-pop vs K-pop
real pencils vs lead pens
blue vs sky blue
Home town vs nearby city

Where ever there can be a commonly held misconception or two opposing opinions then this formula for essays will enable your students to think about the topic, pick a side and get to the business of writing, which is why they came to your class to begin with.