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Hello. I am learning English. Please do correct my sentence! Thank you.

I have two balls, one of which is red, the other green. With my friends, we will play with these balls in the park. Yesterday, I had played ball with, not only my friends, but my parents too. Together, we had a great time. I am looking forward to playing ball again, but I must remember to not kick the ball so hard!

Deadrat · Accepted Answer

You have a sophisticated grasp of English cadence and grammar. How long have you been studying the language?

I have a number of quibbles:

1. In the contrasting construction "one ... the other," use the following standard punctuation:

"I have two *****, one of which is red; the other, green.

2. The "we" in the second sentence seems to be the speaker and his friends, thus the plural pronoun would already include the friends, making the initial prepositional phrase redundant:

"My friends and I will play with these ***** in the park."

3. The word "play" has a strong affinity for a trailing preposition "with" to indicate who was playing, what equipment was involved, and even the manner of play. Don't fight it:

"I will play with these ***** in the park with my friends with great enthusiasm."

OK, I added the enthusiasm to make the point.

4. The past perfect tense ("had played") requires a reference point in the past and an indication of the time before the reference point during which the action was complete:

"Before yesterday, I had played ball ...."

5. Keep the "not only but [also] construction in two parallel parts:

"... not only with my friends, but with my parents too."

This is a stylistic consideration as no native speaker of American English would fail to understand "with not only my friends but my parents too."

6. The following is a semantic consideration. Since you make a point about completed past action ("had played"), a reader might wonder whether you meant to contrast that past action with your current habits and be slightly puzzled why you didn't mention a change. But this could just be me.

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