English grammar query

[tokyo_girl 5]

Hello Skylee, honti ni hisashiburi desu.

People have already answered the tense issue, the decision has been made so past tense is fine.

I think it has another quirk though. They have been transferred (passive) but then the next part of the sentence says "they are planning to move" - it sounds like the subject is 'they' which to me is a bit strange as it suggests a collective decision of the workers about when they "plan" to go. As being transferred is likely a company decision, "planning" sounds too volitional if the subject is employees.

IMO

Hope you are doing well.

[roddy 4,662]

Always good to see tokyo girl in the house!

[tokyo_girl 5]

Thanks Roddy, it's been a long time between visits, but it's great to see how the forum is flourishing!

Kudos to you for all your effort.

Skylee I just reread my post, I made a mistake that makes it hard to follow.

.They have been transferred (passive) but then the next part of the sentence says " are planning to move" - it sounds like the subject is "they". But if the subject is "they" it suggests a collective decision of the workers about when they "plan" to move. But in real life it's unlikely workers would get together to make a decision about when they will be transferred. The decision would come from the company. "they" (the assumed subject meaning workers) and " are planning" sounds too volitional.

My classmates at Goodyear have all been transferred to Thailand and are planning to move within the next 2 weeks.

More natural / suitable / likely would be

My classmates at Goodyear have all been transferred to Thailand and will move within the next 2 weeks.

[skylee 1,910]

Hi tokyo_girl, welcome back. O hisashiburi desu.

The writer himself has said at #3 - "Probaby should say will be transfered". So I guess that is settled. Actually it was more like that this sentence had reminded me of my question about the usage of "scheduled for", which has also been answered.

[jbradfor 681]

Me: We need more crackers in the break room. Whom should I talk to?

[i wouldn't mention this normally, but since this is a grammar thread....]

In modern American English, starting a sentence with "Whom", rather than "Who", even when it is correct, sounds very weird, and you will hear even educated speakers say "Who". Yes, it's wrong, but....

If that bothers you, your other option is to change the order to "To/With whom should I talk?" In one fell swoop, you avoid the who/whom issue, and the (non-issue!!) of ending a sentence with a preposition.

[gato 916]

If that bothers you, your other option is to change the order to "To/With whom should I talk?"

That'll weird out even more people.

[tokyo_girl 5]

Gomen, I didn't read them all.

Glad it's all sorted anyway.

[Outofin 45]

"Many think the world is going to end in 2012, including myself."

Is the sentence okay? Should it be "including me"? What's the best way to tell the difference between "including me" and "including myself"?

[creamyhorror 215]

Is the sentence okay? Should it be "including me"? What's the best way to tell the difference between "including me" and "including myself"?

Rearrange the sentence:

"Many think the world is going to end in 2012, including myself."

--> "Many [people], including [myself/me], think the world is going to end in 2012."

[Myself/me] is clearly part of the subject, so "me" would not work. Therefore by exclusion I'd go with "myself". But I suspect most people wouldn't care either way.

[skylee 1,910]

[Myself/me] is clearly part of the subject, so "me" would not work.

Is this true?

PS - I have found this -> http://www.englishforums.com/English/IncludingIncludingMyself/dlhgq/post.htm

[anonymoose 1,456]

"Many think the world is going to end in 2012, including myself."

--> "Many [people], including [myself/me], think the world is going to end in 2012."

[Myself/me] is clearly part of the subject, so "me" would not work. Therefore by exclusion I'd go with "myself". But I suspect most people wouldn't care either way.

So if you changed it from first person to third person, what would you say?

[gato 916]

Should it be "including me"?

Either way is fine. Any word that can be used as an object can be used after "including" here.

[陳德聰 1,463]

#29 is incorrect.

Both are fine in this sentence, but for different reasons. "Me" is always fine in object position (here the object of "including"), and "myself" can be substituted for "me" in cases where there is an unspoken first person subject to draw from (I just made that up, but the cases where this happens are so few that it's really not a big deal).

The reason "including myself" probably sounds natural to many English speakers is that when you're the one talking, the act of including yourself is in fact a reflexive construction despite the fact that you may not be the subject of the main verb of the sentence in question. It's implied that you are including yourself in the group you're talking about.

[Outofin 45]

1. Say I'm going to get up 4am tomorrow. Is it correct to say "I'm going to get up very early"? Use "very" on "early"?

2.

The company has a dozen employees.

The company has dozens of employees.

In the 1st sentence, the number is between 10 and 20. In the 2nd, it's between 10 and 100. Is that correct?

Are they equivalent to 十几 and 几十 in Chinese?

[anonymoose 1,456]

1. Yes.

2. A dozen means 12. Of course, in practice some people might use it to mean approximately 12, but really it should mean exactly 12. Dozens you can understand as 几十 and it is non-specific, but I would say at a minimum it must be at least 2 dozen, so more than around 24.

[WangYuHong 14]

As a native english speaker (but not a an expert by any means), here's my thoughts:

1. Say I'm going to get up 4am tomorrow. Is it correct to say "I'm going to get up very early"? Use "very" on "early"?

"very early" is perfectly acceptable in this case

2.

The company has a dozen employees.

The company has dozens of employees.

In the 1st sentence, the number is between 10 and 20. In the 2nd, it's between 10 and 100. Is that correct?

Are they equivalent to 十几 and 几十 in Chinese?

A dozen is twelve (of something)

Being such a low number, I'd expect it to be almost exactly 12 employees (but anywhere between 11-15 would be close...) if you knew it's close to 12, you could say "around a dozen", less than twelve say "almost a dozen", more than twelve say "over a dozen", which gives you a little more leeway.

For "dozens", it means at least 2 dozen (so, at least 24), but not more than several (maybe 4-5 dozen at max), so that range is more like 20-50 employees. I'd say that generally people use measure words (a couple, several, tens of, dozens, etc.) when they're not sure about the exact amount, otherwise they'd simply say the exact amount. But I've also known people to adhere to the exact definition (couple = 2, several = 3, etc.) and get confused when it's not used in those exact terms...

[Outofin 45]

There is no perfect way to say an arbitrary number between 10 and 20, or between 20 and 100, like 十几 and 几十?

That works, too. But I need to change the way I estimate numbers. Languages seem to affect how people perceive numbers.

[陳德聰 1,463]

I can't think of any natural way to do so.

The closest I can think of is being able to do 15-24, 25-34, 35-44, etc.

"Around 20/30/40/etc"

But correct me if I'm wrong, I've only ever used 几十 to refer to the set of [10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90] but not any other numbers...

[Outofin 45]

I use 几十 for any number between 20 and 100.

班上有几十个学生。我去过青岛好几十次了。etc

[imron 4,915]

There is no perfect way to say an arbitrary number between 10 and 20

10 to 20 would be a perfect way to say an arbitrary number between 10 and 20.