You wouldn’t imagine that a humble piece of punctuation like the apostrophe would be capable of causing so much confusion but all too often, and maybe understandably, its incorrect use is a source of annoying error. People feel so strongly about the apostrophe that it even has its own advocates » Read More
Numbers… I hear your groan! Often hard to learn in another language. I mean, look at the French, for 92 they say ‘four twenties twelve’ (quatre-vingt douze) whereas the Chinese confuse us by grouping tens of thousands together which makes 25,000 ‘two ten thousands five thousand’ (两万五千 – liang » Read More
I have that dastardly habit of correcting non-native English speakers. It just comes out. The correction, that is. Sometimes they thank me, sometimes they seem impervious to my help (interference) and sometimes they ask me to explain the rules. When it comes to countable and uncountable nouns, I always » Read More