English term
grammar/phrase
the narrator is telling us the story of a Yugoslav who joined his family. I would like to know what you feel about this sentence.
I don't know why but it sounds odd to me. Many thanks!!
| 4 +6 | passable but could be improved |
Jack Doughty
|
Non-PRO (1): Yvonne Gallagher
When entering new questions, KudoZ askers are given an opportunity* to classify the difficulty of their questions as 'easy' or 'pro'. If you feel a question marked 'easy' should actually be marked 'pro', and if you have earned more than 20 KudoZ points, you can click the "Vote PRO" button to recommend that change.
How to tell the difference between "easy" and "pro" questions:
An easy question is one that any bilingual person would be able to answer correctly. (Or in the case of monolingual questions, an easy question is one that any native speaker of the language would be able to answer correctly.)
A pro question is anything else... in other words, any question that requires knowledge or skills that are specialized (even slightly).
Another way to think of the difficulty levels is this: an easy question is one that deals with everyday conversation. A pro question is anything else.
When deciding between easy and pro, err on the side of pro. Most questions will be pro.
* Note: non-member askers are not given the option of entering 'pro' questions; the only way for their questions to be classified as 'pro' is for a ProZ.com member or members to re-classify it.
Responses
United Kingdom
Translator since 1953
Native in: English
Works in: Russian to English, German to English, English
passable but could be improved
"she couldn't help her poor English, full of grammatical mistakes, from having a humorous effect."
Or shorter and simpler: "She could not prevent her poor English, full of grammatical mistakes, having a humorous effect"
| agree |
Claire Nolan
: Your first suggestion (adding 2 commas) is good. In your second reformulation, I would add a "from" before "having". Is this a U.S./U.K. English difference?
21 mins
|
|
I believe it is, yes. I would not myself put "from" after prevent. Thank you anyway.
|
|
| agree |
B D Finch
: Or: She couldn't help the humorous effect of her poor English, full of grammatical mistakes. I also suggest that "help" shouldn't take "from", but "prevent" can but needn't take "from".//Had second thoughts about "prevent" taking "from": see amendment.
57 mins
|
|
Thank you. See reply to Claire.
|
|
| agree |
philgoddard
: Prevent from.
2 hrs
|
|
Thank you. That's the third "prevent from" but it still sounds wrong to my British ears.
|
|
| agree |
Robert Forstag
3 hrs
|
|
Thank you.
|
|
| agree |
MarinaM
4 hrs
|
|
Thank you.
|
|
| agree |
Yvonne Gallagher
: I don't agree it's "passable" without the commas. And another vote for using "from". But whole sentence remains awkward.
23 hrs
|
|
Thank you. Yes, I agree (with "awkward", not with "from").
|
Discussion
I think that the main problem in this sentence is “She could not prevent her poor English....” While correct, it is awkward, both stylistically and semantically. I also think that “poor English” (again, while technically correct) is awkward.
I realize that this is nothing more than a theoretical exercise, as we are dealing with a sentence in a published work.