Thread: Looking for language exchange

Originally Posted by Helenej

I remember bumping into both "a couple questions" and "a couple of questions". What's the difference?

Why did you say "I thought" instead of "I think"? I suppose it is your opinion now, too.

Well, in actual conversation it's not wrong to simply say "I have a couple questions...", but it's generally more proper and grammatically correct to include the preposition "of"...."I have a couple of questions." The more comfortable you become with English in speaking, you may use familiar ways of speaking that are foreshortened but still correct. That only comes with fluency, I think.

In the sentence you're referring to, I said "I thought" because I was referring to a thought I had in the past. The past tense of "think" is "thought"....so, "I thought you said...".

Originally Posted by kgcole

In the sentence you're referring to, I said "I thought" because I was referring to a thought I had in the past. The past tense of "think" is "thought"....so, "I thought you said...".

But I suppose you keep believing him to be a good artist even now. If so, you mislead me by saying "I thought", right?

Originally Posted by Helenej

But I suppose you keep believing him to be a good artist even now. If so, you mislead me by saying "I thought", right?

I can see what you're saying...though I'd say that generally the context dictates the clarity of the thought...that I think the artist was notable, and I'm expressing a past thought of mine. My use of "Another artist..." suggests that I'm making a solid comparison of the skill. Here is where I think English differs a lot from Russian. Russian does require clarification in the sentence....often English is implied or understood in context. Maybe that's what you meant by saying English is analytical, and Russian is synthetical.