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Seagull Posted 8 years ago
Grammar

Restrictive/nonrestrictive use of a relative pronoun

Hello everyone. I have a question.

Which sounds more natural of the two sentences below? --

(A) Many foreign people who have little knowledge about Russian mistakenly believe that the language is too difficult to learn.

(B) Many foreign people, who have little knowledge about Russian, mistakenly believe that the language is too difficult to learn.

  

Top answer

seagull Which sounds more natural the first one In the second one the relative clause seems to apply only to the 'foreign people' part, and not so much to 'many (but not all) foreign people'. Consequently, it seems to say that if you are foreign, you have little knowledge of Russian. That takes away from the idea that it is those foreign people who have little knowledge of Russian who are the same ones who have the mistaken beliefs about how difficult Russian is.

— CalifJim

  • seagull Which sounds more natural the first one In the second one the relative clause seems to apply only to the 'foreign people' part, and not so much to 'many (but not all) foreign people'.
  • Consequently, it seems to say that if you are foreign, you have little knowledge of Russian.
  • That takes away from the idea that it is those foreign people who have little knowledge of Russian who are the same ones who have the mistaken beliefs about how difficult Russian is.
  • CJ
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2 Answers
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seagullWhich sounds more natural

the first one

In the second one the relative clause seems to apply only to the 'foreign people' part, and not so much to 'many (but not all) foreign people'. Consequently, it seems to say that if you are foreign, you have little knowledge of Russian. That takes away from the idea that it is those foreign

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I think we need a restrictive clause because you refer to those foreign people who have little knowledge of Russian. It is because among the many, we concentrate on a particular section.

So, this sounds correct to me.

Many foreign people who have little knowledge of Russian believe that the language is too difficult to learn.


Cross-posted with CJ

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