Help with English

We see fewer bicycles than in the past. Many people say "less bicycles," but in proper speech and writing "less" should be used only for continuous variables: two and a half kilograms of meat, 3.1 liters of gasoline. Use "fewer" for countable variables: three bicycles, four bicycles, five bicycles.

We don't say "fond" very much in the USA. Remember to keep your singular and plural in agreement:

• Only a person who enjoys cycling will buy a bicycle.
• Only people who like cycling will buy bicycles.

Can I replace "could" with "can"? Don't forget your pronouns.

As you say, "could" is more polite. That's what you should practice. However, in casual situations you will hear people use "can."

• Can you refill my coffee? (At McDonalds, not a fancy restaurant)
• Can you tell me why my Chevrolet is making a funny noise? (But if it's a Ferrari mechanic you would probably be more polite to him.)

Or is "may" more polite? Word order is crucial in English, almost as much so as in Chinese.

"May" is what you use when you're talking about yourself, not the other person. It means "to be permitted" to do something, whereas "can," literally, means "to be physically able, logically possible," etc.

• Can I take you to the movies on Saturday? (To a girl you've been dating for a while.)
• May I take you to the movies on Saturday? (To a girl you just met.)

You can say "could" in these sentences and it is a little more polite. If you're giving an order (parent to child, boss to employee, police to citizen, etc.), you can say "would."

There are other ways of saying these things that are more formal. "Would you mind making a cup of coffee, please?" "Could I bother you to turn on the TV?" "Would you be so good/kind as to come here for a minute?" "I would very much appreciate it if you could try to be a little more quiet."

 

Not a common idiom in the USA, but idioms vary from one country to the next even if they use the same language. Perhaps British people talk that way. We would more likely say "go over to his/her/their home/office/place." Young people say, "hang out at her place, hang out with him."

... go over there, go over to her place, go over to see her.

But if you're not talking about a person, "go over" is then more common in American usage. "I haven't been to the gym since I was sick. I think I'll go over after work tonight." "There's a new club a few miles south of here that books hot rock and roll bands. Why don't we go over this Friday?"

No, that's wrong. I will come over to your house. I think it's the same in Chinese: Wo dao ni jia lai, not dao ni jia qu, right?

Only if you're talking to someone other than the person you plan to visit, would you then say, "I will go to Tom's house tomorrow." (The "over" is not necessary, although we used it more often when I was a kid 60 years ago, usually with "come over" rather than "go over.")

The same rule applies in both directions. "Can you come to my office tomorrow and help me set up my computer?" "Amanda came to my apartment last night after we went to a restaurant."

 

... in a general sense or the general sense.

This was common in previous eras. As one writer humorously put it, "We take 'man' as embracing 'woman'." Today, especially in America with our strong feminist movement, we try to say "person" instead, or rewrite the sentence to avoid the problem. You're lucky in Chinese with its lack of gender: ren means "person," so you have to say nan ren or niu ren if the gender is important.

We don't use that idiom very often in America today. Perhaps the British do.

"Check over" must be British usage. We say "audit," and the people who do it are auditors, not inspectors.

That's vulgar usage but in the USA vulgar usage has spread into what used to be called "polite conversation." But as I have said before, it is a bad idea for you to use profanity in someone else's language. You never know how the person you're speaking to will react. Not all of us are as comfortable with it.

I don't think that phrase is quite as acceptable in mixed company (men and women together) in England, so I'd be very careful about using it in your country, where Americans are not the only people you meet who speak English.

"Deep doo-doo" is a more polite and humorous way of saying it. "Doo-doo" is a baby word.

That sentence is a little too short to be clear. "He looks like his father did when he was young."

Resembles in what way? Although "resemble" is used primarily for appearance, it could still mean that they have the same style of speech, the same athletic skills, the same stubbornness, etc. It's better to be clear when you're speaking someone else's language. You never know when something you say could be misinterpreted. Always speak more carefully than we do.

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That means that they look alike today. Perhaps they're both fat, or bald, or have beards, or wear glasses, etc. If he looks like his father did thirty years ago, this is the wrong way to say it.

 

"To pretend" means to dishonestly present yourself as something or someone that you're not. To pretend to be a Christian means to tell people you're a Christian when you're not. Is that what you meant?

The shares retreated and the commodities nursed their losses in the past. This has already happened, so the past tense is appropriate. But the debt crisis is still worsening in the present. This is happening now, so the present tense is appropriate.

To dump and to huddle are infinitives. Whenever the word "to" comes before a verb, it's an infinitive. This is neither the present tense nor the past tense.

When I was little I liked to play in the snow. To love is the greatest feeling on earth. We have been warned not to drink the water here. You have to stop smoking.

The infinitive treats the verb as an abstraction, rather than an activity.

 

With #1 you're asking whether MS Office and Open Office are the same. With #2 you're asking for the specific differences.

Nonetheless, people won't always respond to the difference in the questions and they might give you the same answer to either one.

 

"worth," not "worths"

It is not something I would ordinarily recommend to a foreign student of English.

• You should use your time and energy to improve your grammar rather than learning words you will probably never encounter. Your vocabulary seems to be big enough. It's your grammar that needs a LOT of work. Please concentrate on that.
• It's quite possible that the person you're talking to won't know what the words mean.
• Worst of all, if you start using these words in conversation and writing, but continue to make grammatical errors in two sentences out of three, you'll just sound silly. If you don't learn those words, nobody will notice. But if you don't improve your grammar, everybody will notice! They will wonder why you're spending your time learning words they don't even know, when you can't always put a sentence together correctly!

That said... if you really enjoy reading about these unusual words, then go ahead and do it for fun. You will certainly learn a few things that will help you. But please don't sacrifice the time you need to work on grammar, in order to learn unusual words. That is a very bad exchange.

 

Not if you want your sister to continue inviting you over for dinner. It's not incorrect, but it's very rude. Cops, news reporters and anthropologists might call a baby "it" if they honestly don't know its sex, but even they will make an attempt to find out what it is. And if they can't figure it out, many will just say "he," which is old-fashioned and out of favor in the modern era of gender equality, but a little more polite than "it."

If you know that the baby is a boy or a girl, then always use the correct pronoun. If you don't know, then ask somebody. Nobody wants to hear a member of their family referred to as "it."

We don't even call dogs and cats "it"!