Grammar Question

[kunnatee]

Fruit and fruits can be used both as countable and uncountable.

You can compare them to "fruit -> food" and "fruits -> dishes"

There is much fruit -> There is much food.

There are many (different) fruits -> There are many dishes.

Anyway, English is full of exceptions that don't especially make sense.

If you know some Thai, give examples in Thai so that your students will see that it's not specific to English and that it's not a reason to consider that it's a difficult language.

For instance, if we pronounced "khao" (he/she, with a high tone) like it is written (with a rising tone), it would mean 'mountain'.

Most exceptions don't have logical reasons to be, they have historical reasons.

The students must understand that even though there may be no convincing explanations for some rules or exceptions, if they don't use them correctly they may be misunderstood.

chiangrai, if you find a good grammar book, even better. But as English grammar is not especially difficult, when you get a question such as this one, you can simply sit down, write a dozen of sentences and try to find the similarities and patterns. You should be able to rediscover the rules by yourself.

[Richard W]

In the question: "Are you hungry?", hungry is an adjective not part of the verb. In the question: "Do you drive?" drive is an action verb and you are asking about an ability to perform an action. Hungry is a state of being, hence the use of the verb "to be". It also must be remembered that there are no 'answers' for some forms of spoken English. Idioms defy the rules.

I think this, one of the best answers in the thread, can be improved a bit.

The simple answer is that one uses 'are' with an adjective (Thai wiset) and 'do' with a verb (Thai kariya). The Royal Institute Dictionary (RID) clearly distinguishes adjectives and verbs, though I've yet to learn what the formal difference between them is in Thai.

The problem with this answer is that Thai hio 'hungry' is a verb! Now this is not totally unlike English, where there is a verb 'to hunger', except that the English verb normally has an object, while it's entirely optional with Thai hio. Another parallel is English 'to want to eat', which is the literal translation of the first meaning given for hio in the RID. The honest explanation is that the distinction between verbs and adjectives is sometimes a matter of syntax and inflection (a formal difference) rather than a matter of semantics, and different languages make different choices.

[kunnatee]

^^ adjective is "khunasap"

"wiset" on its own means "modifying/modifier"

coupled with "kariya", "kariyawiset" means "adverb"

[Scott]

The only place where another language is allowed is in the Thai language forum. If you wish to discuss Thai terms, then please do so in that forum.

[cgphuket]

O.k.........sorry.........

I'll try to be more specific.I'm teaching elementary school aged kids.

So sometimes when you ask a question you use to do as the auxiliary verb and sometimes to be....as in

DO you like English and ARE you hungry.

The Thai teacher asked me which is right....DO you hungry or

ARE you hungry.

I answered it's ARE you hungry and she said WHY.

What do I say next

Simplest way for a Thai to understand is DO refers to an action, while ARE refers to a condition. Not perfect but Thais should understand.

[Richard W]

I've started a discussion of the boundary between the Thai concepts of 'verb' and 'modifier' at Adjectives v. Verbs in the Thai Language forum.

[manarak]

The Thai teacher asked me which is right....DO you hungry or

ARE you hungry.

I answered it's ARE you hungry and she said WHY.

What do I say next

"Do you single?"-

In this example "are" is not an auxiliary verb, iy is a main verb. I think "do" can only be used in connection with another verb.

Sent from my i-mobile IQ 6 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

such as in "how do you do?"

or "how are you doing?"

[sirchai]

In partial reply to your mail, here's something I taught my students.

"The skies were cloudy, and in view of the weather, I didn't know whether to shear the wethers or not."

(wethers are ex-male sheep)

Wether may refer to:

• A castrated male goat
• A castrated male sheep
• A misspelling of weather
• A misspelling of whether Glad that I still got my balls to type....