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Anonymous Posted 18 years ago
Vocabulary

Need native speaker judgement

Hi! I'm currently working on my M.A. thesis and I'm using a questionnaire in which native speakers of German have to judge the grammaticality of some German sentences. Due to what I want to find out with my experiment I had to include some English filler items.
I'd hoped I could get some input from native speakers here (please answer only if you're a native speaker of English. Thanks!) to see if the items I thought of are genuine/grammatical examples of spoken (that is to say at a medium level of formality) English.

The examples are:
Grammatical:
1)A: “She’s just so bossy.“
B.: “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
2)A: “I had to close the shop. I just couldn’t pay the rent anymore.”
3) A.: "He had to put his best race horse down after the accident.“
B.: “What happened? Did it break a leg?”
4) A: “All I wanted was to make some quick money.”
B. : “Yeah, well maybe poker wasn’t the way to go.”

Ungrammatical/Interference from German:
5) A: "I become a steak and a salad, please.“ (correct: I'll have)
B: “Me too."
6) A. : “My chef told me to get that report done as soon as possible.” (boss)
B: "He thinks you're a workaholic, doesn't he?"
7) A.: “The other day John started crying because his car got scratched.”
B.: “He’s really sensible sometimes, isn’t he?” (sensitive
8) A: “You must not wash your hands, but it is recommended.” (don't have to)

Please tell me if anything apart from the underlined words is ungrammatical/ sounds unnatural in English (or if one of the items 5-8 is grammatical with the underlined word still in place, which it shouldn't be)

Thanks for your time!
  

Top answer

It all sounds fine, Anon-- congratulations! A comma after well in 4B.

  • It all sounds fine, Anon-- congratulations!
  • A comma after well in 4B.
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4 Answers
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It all sounds fine, Anon-- congratulations! A comma after well in 4B.
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have to judge the grammaticality of some German" sentences

Wow, how about . . .

must judge the grammer in some German sentences

or

indicate the correct grammer usage in German sentences.
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It is grammar, not grammer.
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Anonymous
Ungrammatical/Interference from German:
5) A: "I become a steak and a salad, please.“ (correct: I'll have)
B: “Me too."
6) A. : “My chef told me to get that report done as soon as possible.” (boss)
B: "He thinks you're a workaholic, doesn't he?"
7) A.: “The other day John started crying because his car got scratched.”

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