Dear Lear,
This is an interesting article.
My first is to break this big block of writing up into manageable paragraphs with a line of space between each one. It will look much more attractive and inviting to read, and will be easier to follow. You need also to study how to
understand what constitutes a sentence. You don't understand where to make
sentence breaks yet. The third thing to concentrate on now is that your tenses
are accurate and agree with each other within the same piece of information.
It took me about 1-1/2 hours to analyze this piece of writing so I won't do
it again soon soon for anybody else. I hope that others can learn from this analysis I've done for you. If they see that they make the same kinds of errors then the solution is to concentrate on learning how to overcome them.
I'll analyze your work again when you feel you have mastered sentences, and tenses. Just these things will make a huge difference in the quality of your English and I think you can see, too. I was pleased to see how well ordered your story was. Usually your choice of places to make a paragraph break was pretty good,
too.
Warmly, Mary
*********
I抦 a mother with an eight year[s not needed on year] old daughter. [
I am going to break this up into complete sentences. It is not a good idea to use run
on sentences with many commas instead of periods.] Now I抎 like to tell
you some [of the] experiences in my family. I believe that most families with little kids in China [removed the word 'should'] have similar experiences [with should changed to the word 'to' me. [leave one full line of space before you begin your
next paragraph. This is important.] Incidentally, I know a lot of the forum
writers call children 'kids.' This is an extremely informal word and should only be used in the most informal writing. I think in this little essay you should
refer to them as 'children.' :-)
My parents had been helping me [maybe helping both parents -- your husband and yourself?] take care of my daughter since the baby was born. At the beginning
of last year, my husband and I ['had the idea of looking' it would be better to
say decided to search for a nurse, both taking care of my baby and doing daily
housework for us, [better to say ...to search for a nurse both to take care of our daughter and to do daily housework for us. Note: she's not a baby any more at 7 and attending school. Note: don't use words that end in "ing" so often because they have become weak words and make the article tedious.] as my parent's
['bodies were not as good' better to say strength was not as good] as before so
it was time to release them [from the strain] and [furthermore] we all hoped to
live separately to give more freedom to each other ['in the future' is not needed. It is redundant.] [Now, as you are going to switch the subject somewhat to
describe how you heard about a nurse and hired her, it is time to begin a new paragraph.]
Then, via a classmate's recommendation, I got a nurse from ['one' better to say
a] homemaking company, and signed a contract ['with the company' is redundant as
understood without these words], ['the duration is' better just to say 'signed
a contract for half a year] half a year. [Period. New sentence begins because you have switched topic] At that time the ['price' is used when buying an item such as a sweater, or soap, not for a person's service so instead use 'cost of service' like this: the ['cost' not price] for the nurse's ['service' not working
] ['is' you must use the past tense 'was' because you have said 'at that time' which is in the past tense] 450RMB Yuan per month. [Period, new sentence. I think [not 'think', the word must be 'thought', past tense, as it happened before,
not now] thought that it's reasonable and worth it. [Here begin a new paragraph.
You are now going to describe the nurse and have finished with how you found her and the cost of services.]
The nurse was a 18 years old girl, who had ['a' is not required] completed junior high school and one year ['of' is needed here] technical secondary school ['educational experiences' is understood, and so not needed. It is redundant.]. In
general, she was smart, and [when listing qualities you may use and once, but if
there are more than two qualities it is better to leave the and for the last one and use commas in between the others] , learned new [new what? new 'information'] fast and had a good memory. Her daily housework ['is' is not correct because it is present tense. Since this happened at that time it needs to be the past
tense word 'was'- washing clothes, cleaning all rooms, buying food, picking up/
sending my baby [little girl to and from school, remember what I said before about not using too many ands but using commas instead] from/to school, [and] cooking, and so on. Labor ['works cost' should be labor costs are] lower in China. I
hated doing housework then, and was not good at cooking. [Period, new sentence.
I thought that I ['can' you still are talking about the past so you need to use
the past tense word could] take it easy and [we could] do anything we would like to do at anytime ['forever' is redundant because it is understood from the next words] as long as I had a nurse, but over time [no comma here] a series of problems ['came out' better to say developed.
First, ['salary for a nurse was' better to say 'salaries for nurse/housekeepers were'] sky rocketing in Beijing. [Period, new sentence.] When I signed the
third contract with the homemaking company this August, I was told that I would
['had' wrong tense. Say 'have'] to pay 800RMB per month. Period, new sentence
. Of course, the nurse ['cannot' words should be 'would not'] get as much as I
paid. [Period, new sentence.] The company took about 10% as overhead expenses.
Second, my daughter began to have lunch at school in this new term so that the nurse had more spare time. [Period, new sentence. ['The nurse' don't repeat
the same words to describe her used in the previous sentence. Too repetitive so just use 'she'] was bored ['to do such work, she' redundant so just link it with 'and'] became more and more careless. [Period, new sentence] She lost the mobile phone and the watch I lent her. [Period, new sentence. These short sentences are pithy and make your point. Don't run on with commas between.]
Most [of the] housework ['she's done' is the wrong tense, use 'she did'] was not
perfect, [and] I was getting more and more disatisfied with her ['performances'
the word should be singular, 'performance']. [Period, new sentence.] Sometimes I thought [I could have done the jobs myself during the time it took to take to explain them to her is better than 'them done during I was telling her something.'
Third, use 'and' instead of 'the' most important: [use a colon which means "
as follows" and more strongly makes the point that this is most important] gradually, [no comma needed after gradually] my husband and I realized that it's not
good for a child [to have a nurse at her beck and call is better than 'with a nurse on the neck of always'. [Period, new sentence. She orders the nurse to do things she can do herself at her age is better than 'always order the nurse to do
something she now can do in her age. Period, new sentence. She [is] imitating her daddy and I. [Period, new sentence.] It became harder [had become harder] for
the nurse to manage her as well, [and] she was becoming more and more unruly. We [wished to ['should' is not correct] have her [become] more independent instead of ['as a' instead use 'more' dependent and as well, ['as' use to] educate her
['by' is not needed] ourselves.
Fourth, since [we had] no housework to do [no comma here] my husband and I had got used to sitting at sofa to watch TV after supper. [Period, new sentence.]
['sometimes' is not needed] Doing nothing is boring. [Period, new sentence.] Why do we ['are looking on is poor wording, better is 'not look upon doing housework as a form of exercising [so as to' is awkward, just say] and save a lot of money?
Finally I made the decision to [quit the nurse' better to say 'let the nurse
go'] I ['would' better use 'could] have the mother of one [of the] classmate[s]
of my daughter pick up her after school. [Period new sentence.] I would pay her
10 RMB Yuan per day, [and that's much more'better to write] 'and that's much] cheaper!
Everything will ['restart' better: begin this way next week. Period, new sentence.] My husband and I have divided [the] housework [between us]. Period, new sentence.] It would be ['tired' better 'too tired] both psychologically and physically if [the] burden all housework [was] on [a] single person. Period, new
sentence.] I will tell you how ['are we going' better to write 'how we are doing
] in the future. Please ['pay attention to my new' better 'watch for future posts!
Thanks!
Lear
I believe there ['would be' is the wrong tense again, use 'are'[, as] errors in
grammar, please correct them for me if you find [any], [and] thank you very much
!
