職場必備英文：實力、戰力，生存力

英文寫作、英文文法教學、校對、英文

職場必備英文：實力、戰力，生存力

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鄧海珠 知識長

2023/05/06

文字工匠小推敲: 選擇時態，單複數隨時注意

Wordsmith's note: 在網上看到某人回憶大學時的英文口語課，這樣回答老師:

When I was in senior high school, my teachers wanted us to be promising in the near future. So they just pushed us to study hard and hard and hard... They almost have no feelings in their mind…So, I have no favorite teacher. That’s all.

寫得蠻通順的，有三個地方可以加強一下：

1. My teachers wanted us to be promising in the near future. 關於promising, 可以說 my teachers hoped we had a promising future, 在此情況下，不需說near future, 反而把前途限制住了。

2, push us to study hard and hard and hard, 全部改成harder更好

3. They almost have no feelings in their mind. 呼應前句的過去時態，應寫成They almost had no feelings in their minds (mind要改成多數minds)，是的，英文校對就是如此麻煩，雖然現在各種AI都會幫你改過來，仍以知道原則為佳

關於時態選擇上，因是回憶「高中時期」，作者用過去式是對的，最後兩句為何又是現在式呢，因為可視為作者在做此口語對話時當時的結論，也就是說，用過去，現在都可以。

全文校對後如下：

When I was in senior high school, my teachers hoped that we had a promising future, so they just pushed us to study harder, harder and harder... They almost had no feelings in their minds…So, I have no favorite teacher. That’s all. (作者決定favorite teacher是一人還是多人，若只有一人，需寫成 I don't have a favorite teacher, 若多人，需寫成I have no favorite teachers.)