English 101

[The Virgin]

I'm a Filipino and I really have a lot of things to learn as far as correct usage of English vocabulary/grammar/pronounciation is concern. There are times I write a post that is long and i re-read them and say, I don't think ya'll will understand the content because of grammar error so I end up giving a very short comments or posts. I really would be glad if, thru this thread, you'd be able to help me with how my English is currently doing. Here are some of the problems I have issues with. Hope you can help me with them:

1) What's the difference between "Don't" and "Didn't"? It's a short term for "Do Not" and "Did Not", respectively right? But is it appropriate to say "I Don't know where he went" or "I Didn't know where he went"? Cause both of them have like the same usage. I really don't see any difference between the two.

2) Also, which of the two sentences are more appropriate? "She's better than Everyon else" or "She's better than Anyone else".....

3) Regarding the pronoun 'her' and 'she', what's more appropriate when referring to a picture of a girl? "This is she" or "This is her"?

I can think/enumerate a lot but decided to list down just three. If you have any other English grammar advise, please, feel free to post and educate me.. Thank you....

[colinmackay]

I'm a Filipino and I really have a lot of things to learn as far as correct usage of English vocabulary/grammar/pronounciation is concern. There are times I write a post that is long and i re-read them and say, I don't think ya'll will understand the content because of grammar error so I end up giving a very short comments or posts. I really would be glad if, thru this thread, you'd be able to help me with how my English is currently doing. Here are some of the problems I have issues with. Hope you can help me with them:

1) What's the difference between "Don't" and "Didn't"? It's a short term for "Do Not" and "Did Not", respectively right? But is it appropriate to say "I Don't know where he went" or "I Didn't know where he went"? Cause both of them have like the same usage. I really don't see any difference between the two.

2) Also, which of the two sentences are more appropriate? "She's better than Everyon else" or "She's better than Anyone else".....

3) Regarding the pronoun 'her' and 'she', what's more appropriate when referring to a picture of a girl? "This is she" or "This is her"?

I can think/enumerate a lot but decided to list down just three. If you have any other English grammar advise, please, feel free to post and educate me.. Thank you....

Don't is present tense. Didn't is past tense.

Everyone/anyone... that's a subtle one. I'd go for "everyone" in that context but I'll have to think about it to really explain the difference.

"this is her"... the difference is between the object and subject of the sentence. Which is which currently escapes me.



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[Robg]

the usage of too?

too is used when something is more than expected or excessive: 'He was too big'

too also means also: 'I'm going to the shop' 'I'm going to the shop too'


Most people give up and use 'to' for everything though xD

[The Virgin]

aw. ok..thanks.. so Don't is for "I Don't know where he go" while Didn't is for "I Din't know where he went", right?

about everyone else and anyone else, so when we use a comparative word like 'better' and your comparing it to a group of people, it's appropiriate to use everyone else? so it's ok to say like "I know better than everyone else"...rather than anyone else?...

ok, i think i have an idea with the she and her. thank you

by the way, regarding 'have', 'has', 'had', i really am confused which one is singular and which one is plural since there are three of them. also, is this sentence possible? "I have had dinner, last night"? can we consecutively use have/has/had in a sentence? like "Has it had been a week ago since you left"?

[marshlander]

aw. ok..thanks.. so Don't is for "I Don't know where he go" while Didn't is for "I Din't know where he went", right?

Not quite. "I don't know ..." is present tense, meaning you don't know at the moment. You could say "I don't know where he goes" suggesting he is continuing to go somewhere, but you don't know where. "I don't know where he went" means he went somewhere once (in the past), but you don't know where. "I didn't know ..." suggests that, in the past, you didn't know, but now you do know! "I didn't know where he went" means he went somewhere, but you didn't know where although you have since found out.

about everyone else and anyone else, so when we use a comparative word like 'better' and your comparing it to a group of people, it's appropiriate to use everyone else? so it's ok to say like "I know better than everyone else"...rather than anyone else?...

This one is more subtle. The terms as you want to use them are often interchangeable, but I would say "I know better than everyone else" is more emphatic.

by the way, regarding 'have', 'has', 'had', i really am confused which one is singular and which one is plural since there are three of them. also, is this sentence possible? "I have had dinner, last night"? can we consecutively use have/has/had in a sentence? like "Has it had been a week ago since you left"?

Simple non-durational tenses:
Present
I have
You have
He/she/it has
We have
You have
They have

Past
I had
You had
He/she/it had
We had
You had
They had

In this case has is only used in the third person singular in the present tense.

There are many constructions using compound tenses.

Have a look at Grammatical tense - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and see if any of it makes sense. These sentences would all be correct in English
I am having ...
He/she/it is having ...
We/you/they are having ...

I/he/she/it was having ...
We/you/they were having ...

"Did have ..." can be used for emphasis

He/she/it has had ...
I/We/you/they have had ...


To be honest your written English is pretty easy to understand. If you want to write a longer post, have a go. I'm sure it will be fine.

Good luck!!!

[The Virgin]

thank you so much....hehe.. i'll be studying the link you gave me from wikipedia.. thanks thanks!!!

[Cardiganwearer]

Reading this makes me so glad English is my first language, I'd hate to have to learn it.

I considered trying to help with that don't didn't thing but having seen the other replies I don't see how I could make it any clearer. So when you've got the hang of grammar you can make a study of our wayward pronunciation. This link won't help a bit but it is amusing.

The Chaos - Wikisource

Enjoy.

[The Virgin]

thank you... i swear the God english is the most complicated language of all. it's got all the rules about everything. good thing that here in our country, from gradeschool to college, all subjects are taught in English but we only use the said language during classes. but outside the class, we go back again to our native dialect. why do they make english so hard? i mean, it's too technical and the moment you switch a single word, the whole construction of a sentence becomes odd or has a different meaning than you intended...hehe

anyway, thank you all for the help. i wish i could befriend a native american like in person, say a dormmate, and i'd get to talk to someone in english for the whole 24 hours.