Such and such a(n)

Question

I am currently an EFL teacher in France, and I saw that one of my students was having a problem knowing when to use so, and when to use such.  I found a sheet from the Net explaining the difference, then we got to doing the exercises, the choice was"so, such or such a(n)".  I've looked high and low, but I can't seem to find any rules on when you use such and when you use such a(n).  Please help!

Bratannia · Accepted Answer

Strikes me that such is probably for plural items and 'such a' for singular: such a bird can be very noisy; such birds can be very noisy.

Milky · Answer

Here's one for "such" and "so":

http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/grammar/archive/such01.html

If you want examples, you could try using a concordancer. Copy some of the resulting sentences and ask your students, if adveanced enough, to discover the rule. Here's a few examples from a very useful concordancer:

1 ully "-- yours truly 'as not done such a bad job after all!" "As it happe
2 ence establishment which supports such a ban, on the grounds that the US Nav
3 common criminals who proved to be such a bane for Siberian society, the nine
4 " he breathed, " why you're making such a big thing of this. It's just one o
5 t brewer. I make no apologies for such a bold statement. Guinness operates i
6 led and inaccurate descriptions: " Such a bore, he wrote to his wife. By Aug
7 Unity and Fathers Faul and Murray. Such a boycott might reasonably have been
8 retical results, and also because such a case by case approach is never capa
9 lometric evidence was admitted in such a case in 1974. The Californian court
10 which might be of some interest"). Such a catalogue would "know" a large num
11 of a tortiously inflicted death. Such a cause of action was first introduce
12 s, should have been cast aside in such a cause. "It is another example of

http://132.208.224.131/Concord.htm

Such and such a(n)

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