An Elementary Analysis on Errors in Sts’ English Writings

Wang Hua-lin

Abstract: There are several common errors often appearing in Chinese sts’ writings. The essay contributed some effective ways to avoid them on the basis of a further analysis.

Key words: common errors; English writing; effective techniques

As foreign language learners, they always have troubles in learning and using the language. What should we do to these as foreign language teachers? It’s a “ big” question. As we all know, English is quite different from our native language --- Chinese in vocabulary, structure and syntax besides its sound system. English, as a language to be learned, learners ought to grasp the four basic language skills--- listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening and reading are regarded as input process as well as speaking and writing as output process, and none of these should be neglected. What’re more difficult to learners? Generally speaking, they are speaking and writing --- known as output process, which has been proved by large amount of errors appearing in sts’ writings. Here are some common ones in sts’ writings:

He wishes that he could have the opportunity to receive a high education. (Wrong)

He wishes that he could have the opportunity to receive a higher education. (Right)

We can say higher education but we cannot say high education; there are no comparisons in Chinese but there is in English. Other examples:

Institution of higher learningthe younger generation

The older generation

Gradually the sound of footsteps disappeared. (Wrong)

Gradually the sound of footsteps died away. (Right)

“disappear” means “can not to be seen”; and we can’t use it to modify the sound.

It was a fine day. The spring breeze was blowing my face gently. (Wrong)

It was a fine day. The spring breeze was caressing (or brushing) my face gently. (Right)

“blow” means “ cause to move”, we can say “ blow one’s hair” but not “ blow one’s face”.

My father’ lifehas no law, he always eats whenever he likes. (Wrong)

My father doesn’t live a regular life (or is not a man of regular habits), he always eats whenever he likes. (Right)

“to have no law” would be very unidiomatic if it is used to describe a person’s daily life or habits, though the above Chinese expression can be used.

The weather forecaster told us that there would be a big snow in Lanzhou tomorrow. (Wrong)

The weather forecaster told us that there would be a heavy snow in Lanzhou tomorrow. (Right)

Collections in English are not often different from collections in Chinese. The word “snow” in English is modified not by big but by heavy.

Before him there seemed to be a dark deep lake.

Before him there seemed to be a dark deep gulf.

According to the context, there is not a real lake before him, it’s a figure of speech; we often use dark deep gulf to describe a person who felt depressed.

She has stagnant eyes. (Wrong)

She has dull eyes. (Right)

“stagnant” is used to modify water as well as “business”, but not be used to modify eyes.

I heaved a sign of relief when the bell for the break was heard. (Wrong)

I heaved a sign of relief when I heard the bell for the break ring. (Right)

It’s no need to change the subject of the clause because it’s the subject “I” who heard the bell ring.

But things have been changed greatly. (Wrong)

But things have changed greatly. (Right)

Students often use passive voice when the subject is “thing” because they think “things” can’t change actively; but in English, that’s different.

I almost got good marks in every subject. (Wrong)

I got good marks in almost every subject. (Right)

“almost” is to modify “every”, it should be put before ‘every”.

Gazing at the familiar landscape, the past came back to me. (Wrong)

Gazing at the familiar landscape, I recalled the past. (Right)

“The past” couldn’t be the subject of “gazing”, and the subject should be person “I”.

The United Statesonly has a history of 200 old years. (Wrong)

The United States has a history of only 200 old years. (Right)

“only” is to explain “200 old years”, therefore, it ought to be moved before “200 old years”.

V Unclear Semantic Expressions

The first thing I get up in the morning is to tidy up the room. (Wrong)

The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is to tidy up the room. (Right)

“do” can be left out in Chinese without causing semantic mistakes while in English it’s absence will cause unclear meaning.

Some people who had been on the top of the mountain Tai waved and shouted to us. (Wrong)

Some people on the top of the mountain Tai (or who had reached to the top of the mountain Tai) waved and shouted to us. (Right)

The attributive clause “who had been on the top of the mountain” means “who had been to the mountain but not on the mountain at the moment”, it has a different meaning from the original ones that the writer want to express.

I Good Dictionaries

It is a very good habit to have a dictionary (better more than one dictionary) handy when we write. We should refer to them whenever we are in doubt about the meaning, implication, use or collocation of a word or an expression. This will help us to improve not only our writing, but also our understanding of words and expressions. In writing, words are the smallest units, if we use the proper and correct words, we make a better expression.

II Making Correct and Effective Sentences

All kinds of writing are made up of sentences. If we want to write well, we should learn to write correct and good sentences. It’s the most important thing to keep these requirements for correct sentences:

It should be structurally complete;

It should begin with a capital letter;

It should end with a full stop, or a question mark, or an exclamation mark;

It should express a single complete idea.

Simple sentence does not mean that the sentence is simple in meaning; it means that the sentence contains a subjectand a verb. Please identify the subject and the verb in the following sentence:

The subject is the bird, and the verb is flies.

But the sentence above is too simple; it cannot fully convey the various thoughts the readers want to know. In actual writing the simple sentence has many modifiers. With the modifiers you will have many expanded sentences. Now take a close look at how modifier enrich the above simple sentence:

1. The bird fliesto the South of China.

2. In winter, the bird flies the South of China.

3.In winter, the birdwith gray feathers flies the South of China.

4.In winter, the birdwith gray feather flies the South of China to enjoy the mild weather there.

In the first sentence a prepositional phrase the South of China is added to the original sentence to indicate place; in the second sentence, another prepositional phrase in winter is added to indicate time; in the third sentence, a third prepositional phrase with gray feathers is added to indicate  characteristics of the bird； in the fourth sentence, an infinitive phrase to enjoy the mild weather there is added to indicate purpose of the action.

And also we can enrich the sentences with phrases  with –ing and –ed verbs. These phrases beginning with –ing and –ed generally indicate when, why, how, for what purpose, etc and can be put either at the beginning or at the end of sentences. Such as:

Armed with a torch, the vicar went up into the clock tower to see what was going on.

The war went on for years, killing thousands of innocent people.

Ashamed of having acted so rashly, my brother apologized to my sister.

Fearing that she would get too fat, she refused to eat sweets.

Finding that he had no money on himself, he had to call his wife to come to pay the bill. 

The –ing and –ed phrases after nouns generally modify the nouns.  Such as:

1. The man carrying the big suitcase was my uncle.

2. For the men accustomed to eating seven-course dinners, village life seemed unbearable（无法忍受的）.

By moving her elbow on a picture, she was able to tell the figure and color printed on it.

Nearly all the sports practicednowadays are competitive.

The factory making fake products is located at the foot of the mountain. 

Because the phrases beginning with –ing and –ed verbs concern the questions of logical subject, which determines the form of the phrases, be careful when you use them in your writing.

If you write too many simple sentences, your writing will be monotonousand unlively. Besides, simple sentences cannot possibly convey the complicated things you want your reader to know. So you should turn to complex sentences for help. A complex sentence consists of one independent clause or main clause and one or more dependent clauses. Such as:

Relative clauses: they are clauses that serve as noun modifiers.

1. All that glitters is not gold.

2. Oxygen in which fires burn is a colorless gas.

3. The senator spoke strongly against the man who opposed his idea for a new law.

4. The sea was, unfortunately, very rough the day we crossed the channel. 

Adverbial clauses: they are clauses that serve as verb modifiers, answering the questions when, where, how, for what reason, under what condition, for what purpose, etc.

He has made a lot of friends since he came to Lanzhou university.

When he returned to his hometown, he found that it took on a new look.

The teacher started from where they stopped yesterday.

4. He will go wherever he can make a better living. 

These men will risk their lives in order that we may survive the fire.

The snow fell so fast that our footsteps were covered up in a few minutes.

Although money is not his sole concern, he does think he should make enough of it to guarantee a happy life.

You won’t get high grade unless you attend my class every time.

Just as you have probably found yourself that the writing is very tiring and tedious, using adverbial clauses, you may have a much better passage.

When I was seventeen years old, I had a crazy interest in the Beatles. But I had no money. My family was poor, because my parents earned only 500 RMB per month.SoI couldn’t ask them for money to buy the tape I longed for so much. Then I decided to do some odd jobsso that I could have money to buy the Beatles’ albums.

Now you find that adverbial clauses and relative clauses will make your writing much more complicated and thus make you a mature writer.

There is a little difficulty in distinguishing complex sentences from compound sentences, because they are both made up of at least two sentences. Our golden rule is that in complex sentences one clause is dependent on the other clause (the main clause), while both clauses in a compound sentence are independent. So we may define a compound sentence as: a compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses, usually joined by conjunctive words (and, or, nor, for, so, but) or conjunctive adverb (however, therefore, moreover, etc).

As its name implies, a compound - complex sentence has at least two independent clauses and one dependent clause. This type of sentence provides you with the greatest flexibility and helps you to express a very complicated meaning.

Look at the following passage:

People who live in cities today think that meat is something that comes wrapped in cellophane from the supermarket, potatoes come in paper bags, and feathers grow in hats.The city dwellers’ views are quite different from the views of their ancestors, who knew that meat is hunted down in the forest, potatoes are planted and weeded, and only birds can produce feathers. Yet, whether people today realize it or not, they are still as dependent on animals and plants for their existence as their ancestors were.

Sentence writing is the basis for composition. If the basis is weak, however hard you try; your writing is inevitably poor. Here is an example of poorly written paragraph:

When I was a student in university, there were only 4000 students. Chemistry Department was the largest department. The department had about 600 students. Physics Department was the second largest department. The department had about 500 students. Foreign Language Department had only 150 students. The department was the least department. 

The biggest problem shown in the paragraph above is that the sentences are too choppy, that is, too many short sentences. If we combine the related simple sentences into compound or complex sentences, we will have a far better paragraph as the following:

When I was a student in university, there were only around 4000 students. The chemistry department was the largest department, which had about 600 students. The second largest department was the physics department with around 500 students. The foreign language department, with only about 150 students, was the smallest one at that time. 

So remember, writing is like writing a piece of musical work. We must have a rhythm, meaning we have to vary sentence patterns. Otherwise, the one who reads your writing will be bored to death.

参考文献：

1. 丁往道主编《英语写作基础教程》高教社出版

2. 刘新慧等主编《成人英语》兰大出版社