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Kunsan Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

Unclear sentence structure: "before a week or so before I left"

Hello

This sentence is from an essay about foreign language learning. I hit upon the following sentence and got confused by the repetition of "before". Is this a typo or a grammatical construction? If grammatical, what does the writer precisely mean? When did he start learning the language (Turkish, for your information)? A week before he left Britain?

The sentence in question:

Knowing nothing of the language [Turkish], I studied it before a week or so before I left Britain, hoping then to pick it up when I got there.

Thanks a lot for shedding your light on this one!
  

Top answer

Hi Kunsan I'd say that's a typo -- perhaps the result of some careless cut and paste editing. You could simply eliminate the first usage of "before" and replace it with the word "for": I studied it for before a week or so before I left Britain

— Yankee

  • Hi Kunsan I'd say that's a typo -- perhaps the result of some careless cut and paste editing.
  • You could simply eliminate the first usage of "before" and replace it with the word "for": I studied it for before a week or so before I left Britain
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2 Answers
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Hi Kunsan

I'd say that's a typo -- perhaps the result of some careless cut and paste editing. You could simply eliminate the first usage of "before" and replace it with the word "for":

I studied it for before a week or so before I left Britain
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Hello Yankee

Thank you for your quick reply. This confirms my feeling.

Cheers.
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