Saturday 23 November 2013

Helping with homework.

I think it exciting to fish.
I think it easy to ride a bike.
To know is quite different from to teach.
He is hungry to eat all the food.


What do these sentences have in common?
Being example sentences in Hiro's niece's government approved textbook...(publisher Sanseido)


The kids of Japan deserve much better


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

6 comments:

Rurousha said...

WHAT?! o.0

Cecilia said...

It's nuts.
The last one I am not sure about actually, the others were written as was, but the last one was

He was hungry ( ) ( ) all the food.

The grammar point was "to...".

Thinking about it last night, it could have been "to see".

He was hungry ENOUGH to eat all the food would be fine, but there weren't enough spaces.

I can't believe that they are still including such nonsense English in textbooks... sigh...

JaneH said...

There are two verbs in each sentence? I was always bad at grammar. Actually I don't think it was in any English curriculum I came across.

Cecilia said...

It was a section on infinitives. For some reason the powers that be think that throwing all the "to + verb" combinations they can muster up leads to learning rather than confusion. Naturally it's followed up with gerunds that take the same function.


Fishing is a boring way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

So the poor students are left to discern why they learn "To fish is exciting" but "Fishing is boring"...

It's such crappy nonsense. There is a great grammar reference - Practical English Usage - which comes in app form as well (and periodically comes on sale), which is the only things that saves me with grammar questions.

There should be a class action by the grammar free generation to sue the Board of Studies for negligence...

tvrossel said...

He must have been hungry to eat all the food.

While they did give me a chuckle, I know I should not have laughed!

Cecilia said...

It's so bad it's ... like seriously... I assume there is a native speaker proofreader too...