travel over mountains

Question

Please help me correct the following paragraph. Thanks!

In one class, the teacher gave a lesson by playing a video clip for her students to watch. In the film, a little girl lived in a remote mountain village and her family couldn’t afford to buy a pair of shoes for her. One day, her mother was going to give birth, so the little girl had to travel over mountains and valleys to appeal to a midwife for help. The little, barefoot girl ran all the way from her home to another village along a long-suffering stony path which was a torture to walk on.

KrisBlueNZ · Accepted Answer

In one class, the teacher gave a lesson by playing a video clip for her students to watch.
This is grammatically correct, but "gave a lesson by playing ..." doesn't sound quite right to me. Perhaps you could say "... the teacher played a video clip ..." if it's clear that the video clip was intended to be a lesson. Since it's a class, that's a fair assumption I think. Your judgement call.

In the ~~film,~~ video was about or told the story of a little or young girl who lived in a remote mountain village . ~~and~~ her family couldn’t afford to buy ~~a pair of~~ (unnecessary) shoes for her or ... buy her shoes.

~~One day,~~ suggest When her mother was going suggest about to give birth, so the ~~little~~ girl had to travel over mountains and valleys to appeal to a midwife for help. The ~~little,~~ barefoot girl ran all the way from her home to another village suggest combining the two highlighted sections into a single sentence: "... the girl had to run barefoot over mountains and valleys to a distant village to fetch a midwife" along a ~~long-suffering~~ inappropriate; look up the dictionary definition of 'long-suffering'; it means something else stony path which was a torture for her to ~~walk~~ run on.

If possible you should combine the stony path and torture ideas into the previous sentence as well: "... had to run barefoot on a hard, stony path over mountains and valleys ..." ... "which caused her much pain" or "which was very painful for her".

Does the girl have a name? If so, state her name when you introduce her, since she's clearly the main character in the story, and refer to her by name from then onwards.

Contiluo · Answer

Thanks for your correction. I rewrote the paragraph as written; however, there are still some questions in the underlined part.

In one class, the teacher played a video clip for her students to watch. The video was about a young girl who lived in a remote mountain village her family couldn’t afford to buy shoes for her. When her mother was going about to give birth, the girl had to run barefoot on a hard, stony path over mountains and valleys to a distant village to fetch a midwife which caused her much pain.

1. Should it be put a common ',' between village and her?
2. The adjective phrase 'which caused her much pain' seems to be misplaced.

Therefore, I rewrote another paragraph as following.

In one class, the teacher played a video clip for her students to watch. The video was about a young girl who lived in a remote mountain village and her family couldn’t afford to buy her shoes. When her mother was going about to give birth, the girl had to run barefoot over mountains and valleys to a distant village to fetch a midwife along a hard, stony path which caused her much pain.

KrisBlueNZ · Answer

1. The "," symbol is a comma (not common) but it's not appropriate there, because the two sentences (the one ending with village and the one starting with her) are independent. You should use either a period, like I just did between independent and You, or a semicolon (";"). In this case a period is appropriate because the two sentences are unrelated; they do not "work together" to explain a common idea. The previous sentence shows an example of the appropriate use of a semicolon.

By the way, if you can master the appropriate use of the comma, period, and semicolon, you will be doing better than 99% of native English speakers. Or, viewed another way, you will have learnt about a punctuation symbol that is rapidly becoming obsolete. (The semicolon.)

and is not appropriate there either. Both of the sentences stand on their own. The second sentence seems a bit brief; you could change it to "She never wore shoes, because her family couldn't afford them."

2. Yes, "... to fetch a midwife which caused her much pain" sounds like it's the midwife that caused the pain! A comma after midwife would help, but it's best to rearrange the sentence so that the cause of the pain (running barefoot on a hard, stony path) is adjacent to "which caused her much pain", as you have done.

I suggest:

In one class, the teacher ~~played~~ showed her students a video clip ~~for~~ ~~her students~~ ~~to watch~~ ~~. The video was~~ about a young girl who lived in a remote mountain village. She never wore shoes, because her family couldn't afford them. When her mother was going about to give birth, the girl ~~had~~ went to fetch a midwife from a distant village. She had to run barefoot over mountains and valleys ~~to a distant village to fetch a midwife~~ along a hard, stony path, (comma here) which caused her much or a lot of pain.

travel over mountains

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