Tricky grammar -- In fall, this season is harvests of fruit and rice

Question

Hi, everyone. I'm a long time reader of these forums, but this is my first post.

I'm a FLT in Japan, and I'm having trouble helping a student. In an essay about Japan my student wrote:

"In fall, this season is harvests of fruit and rice." and "In Tokyo it is few times to snow."

I think the problem with these sentence is the verb complement of "is". I know about simple sentence complements, where the word after the "be verb" either redefines or describes the object, but I'm having trouble finding a rule to help my students.

Actually, I see this mistake quite a lot in Japan, so I'd be very grateful for any help.

Thanks very much :-)

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

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There are several problems with these sentences, Richard, and I am unsure which one(s) you are speaking of.

If we correct the sentences like this--

In fall, we harvest fruit and rice.
In Tokyo it seldom snows.

-- then which part have we corrected?
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Richard99uk · Answer

Thanks for your help Mister Micawber.

Okay, if we correct "In fall, this season is harvests fruit and rice" with your correction:

We've corrected the object "season" by removing it, and the demonstrative noun.
We've corrected the noun after "is", which is now a verb. The original plural noun also didn't agree with "is".
We've also added a pronoun to agree with the verb, which is now transitive.

This sentence is the same I gave my student as a correction, but I'm unable to explain why I should change it so drastically.

In the sentence, "In Tokyo it is few times to snow":

We've corrected the complement of the sentence.
"few times", which is an adjective and a noun have been replaced with an adverb.
The new adverb agrees with the verb "snow".
the verb "to snow" has been changed from potential to present tense.

So in the original sentence, the noun was modifying the verb, which nouns cannot do. And the verb "snow" wasn't in third person.

Is that right?

Thanks again.

Mister Micawber · Answer

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I'm sorry, Richard-- I did not mean for this to be an exercise for you (though your exegesis is impressive!). My question was more rhetorical: I meant to make it clear that the students have produced a complex web of errors which is indeed difficult to disentangle and explain to them. The moral being that unless you are willing and able to go through all of that with them-- and I don't think it is worth such a massive effort at one sitting-- then you can do what may be better in simply revising the sentence and let them thrash through the grammar/structure themselves (and you are aware, I'm sure, that most of your Japanese students have an awesome grounding in English grammar)-- then have them build some new sentences on the pattern you have given them.
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Richard99uk · Answer

Sorry for the late reply -- FLTs' Saturday.

Thanks for your support, Mister Micawber. I appreciate your experience as someone who has been doing this much longer than I have. Certainly, Japanese people have an excellent grounding in grammar, and giving them new patterns to work with is simpler and one would think more productive. However, either through habit or memory, I have found quite a lot of students don't stick to those patterns. Some of my students are very poor at grammar -- one of them has a BA in English -- and many want me to explain all the grammatical corrections. As I'm sure you know Japanese people sometimes worry endlessly about grammar. Not being able to tell a student their mistake and saying "this is more natural" is very embarrassing for me, and I don't feel it instills a lot of confidence.

Intended or not, I think it was a good exercise me. Thank you very much.[Y]

Tricky grammar -- In fall, this season is harvests of fruit and rice

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