8/30/2016

Launching a rocket

My 7-year-old son made a rocket which they launched into space at the children's house yesterday.

He said all children made a rocket with paper cups first, then he thought he wanted to make a rocket which was more cool and looked more real.

When I went to the children's house to pick him up last evening, the teacher praised him saying:

"Wow! You made an amazing rocket! You are really good at making thing."

He broke into a sheepish grin to hear that.

I thought he remembered that we visited Uchinoura Space Center last December and saw the launch pad of the rocket.

I always look forward to see what kind of works he will make next.


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3 comments:

  1. Hello Kumi-san,

    First let me say sorry for not being able to catch up with checking your posts recently, I have been a little busy.

    With regard to your son's rocketry endeavours I am sure Elon Musk could do with his input right about now, as Mr Musk seems to be having a shortage of rockets, as one recently exploded on the launch pad while it was being fuelled! :)

    Here is a list of some of the other issues found in the rest of the post:

    This line:
    My 7-year-old son made a rocket which are launching to the space at the children's house yesterday.

    Should be:
    My 7-year-old son made a rocket which they launched into space at the children's house yesterday.

    Reason: Changed "are launching" to "they launched" as it sounds from your sentence that this is something that already happened. Also changed "to the space" to "into space".

    This line:
    He said all children made a rocket with paper cups first, then he thought he wanted to make the rocket which was more cool and looked like real.

    Should be:
    He said all children made a rocket with paper cups first, then he thought he wanted to make a rocket which was more cool and looked (more real/more realistic/more rocket-like).

    Reason: Changed "make the rocket" to "make a rocket". Also changed "like real" to "more real/more realistic/more rocket-like"

    When I went to the children's house to pick him up last evening, the teacher praised him saying:

    This line:
    "Wow! You made an amazing rocket! You are really good at making something."

    Reason: It's not grammatically wrong as far as I am able to determine, but it would almost always be said as:

    "Wow! You made an amazing rocket! You are really good at making things."

    Note: Things in this case is a substitute for words such as "items/objects" and other similar meaning words.

    Note: Things in this case is not short for something/somethings. In fact if you had written:

    "Wow! You made an amazing rocket! You are really good at making somethings."

    This sentence has a completely different implied meaning specifically:

    "Wow! You made an amazing rocket! You are really good at making some things but not others."

    My Japanese is limited but I think this is similar to the way は can be used to express a contrast.

    This line:
    I always look forward that what kind of works he will make next.

    Should be:
    I always look forward to (seeing/see) what he will make next.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Terry.
      I could understand the difference of "somethings" and "things" in my sentence.
      The cause of my error was that maybe I transfered the sentence from Japanese to English too directly.

      "You are really good at making something."
      → It is writtten in Japanese like this:
      "あなたは何か物を作るのが上手だね。"

      "何か" means "something".
      He is good at making "things", but the things is not specified.
      I didn't know that my sentence implied "You are really good at making some things but not others."
      It is quite difficult but interesting for me.

      Thank you so much!

      Delete
    2. And please don't apologize to me.
      I alyways appreciate you and I am often late for reviewing your corrections.
      いつもありがとう!

      Delete