Part 1 is finished. Now I am working on part 2. This part focus on grammar things. Although we Chinese students/users are really good at grammar, I still think there are many tips needed to be careful. Please leave your trace to support me, thanks.
- correct usage about punctuation character
Typical wrong usages about punctuation character are summarized below:
- misuse Chinese full stop " 。" in English. There is no such character in English. We should use "." instead.
- casually use full stop character. Someone likes to put "." behind every word or their names. Please note that the "." is only for sentences or abbreviations, not for words or names.
- well-known abbreviations do not have to use "." in the middle. Like CCTV, not "C.C.T.V". Also UN, VOA, etc. There is no "." in the middle. But if we want to use "." in the middle, we should not neglect the last one. Like "U.S.A" is not correct, but "U.S.A." is correct.
- misuse Chinese character "《》" for publications, films or articles. In English, we do not have "《》", but we should use italic font, like China Daily, Avatar.
- Don't forget to use italic font or underline font for loan word (外来语). Like following (add bold to clear, not necessary when using officially):
example 1: The admission is only five yuan.
example 2: It is about 25 li from here.
But if the word is already accepted by foreign language, then we don't need to use italic or underline, like following:
example 3: The child kneeled down and kowtowed(叩头) three times to her grandfather.
example 4: He used to play mah-jong(麻将) late into the night.
example 5: The number of American boys who are interested in Chinese gongfu is increasing rapidly. - learn about punctuation character usage scenarios with parenthesis (插入语). For clearly describe it, I add bold and underline for the punctuation character.
Situation 1: the parenthesis is at the end of the oration part (引语部分). We should use "," or other character (?, -,!) at the end of the oration part. But we should never use "." for the sentence is never end by now.
example 1: "It was not my fault," said john.
example 2: "I...I...really...," she stammered.
Situation 2: 2 complete sentences are separated by parenthesis. We should use "." at the end of the parenthesis, and the first word after parenthesis should be uppercase (大写).
example 3: "I have always worked hard," he declared. "I was selling newspaper when I was ten years old."
example 4: "What am I to do?" Mary said anxiously. "When he learns about it he will kill me."
example 5: "I work as hard and as much as you do," he said angrily. "Unfortunately I get much less than you do."
Situation 3: 2 incomplete sentences are separated by parenthesis. We should use "," at the end of parenthesis, And the first word after the parenthesis use be lowercase (小写).
example 6: "I was not aware," she said in a trembling voice, "that someone was following me."
example 7: "To my knowledge," he answered, "there is no such democracy in any country in the world."
- 将来进行时: will be doing sth.
Let's compare the 2 sentences:
sentence 1: When will you come again?
sentence 2: When will you be coming again?
For sentence 1, native speakers loosely translate it into "Will you come again or not?". But for sentence 2, they will think you are sincerely inviting you to come to visit again. "will be doing sth." is describing something you are very eager to see in the future, or something definitely happens.