My grammar skills seem to be those of the innate, indescribable type - that is, I can usually be understood by my fellow native English speaking friends, but when it comes to people questioning or wanting explainations of the language I speak - I am usually lost for words.... like this example.
Here comes Tom - okay
Here come Tom - not okay
Here come the students - I think okay
Here comes the students - I think okay
Is one of the latter two sentences more correct? Are both okay? If so, what's the difference? If you could help (please) I'm sure my JTE would rather have you at my school than me.
thanks
belinda
hmmm from what I remember from school it's something along the lines of
I / You / We / You / They = come, do, sing, write etc.
He / She = comeS, doES, singS, writeS etc.
so Here come the students sounds better to me. Don't know the reason why it's that way though! So I'd like to now too :o)
also
"I can usually be understood by my fellow native (whatever language) speaking friends, but when it comes to people questioning or wanting explainations of the language I speak - I am usually lost for words...."
welcome to my world! :oD
I would say only "Here come the students" would be correct... Change the order around to see whether the verb still matches -- "Here comes Tom." to "Tom comes here."; "Here come the students." to "The students come here."; "This is he." to "He is this."; etc.
I think... (.^_^)
okay - thanks everyone.... 'come' seems to be the firm consensus..... although checking out that web reference - I still got lost in all the grammar jargon - so I'm not actually sure I understand (from a first principle's standpoint) exactly what's going on with all the different forms etc.... I knew I liked maths better at school for a reason....
Anyway - just a last bit - from a speaking perspective, I wouldn't really notice (or care - oops - the truth comes out) if someone used come or comes.... you know how some grammar mistakes are common and in a way accepted into daily usage.... is this one of those examples - or am I a really bad English speaking person example to have been put in Japan....?
If the 's' was really pronounced, I'm pretty sure I would notice the mistake, but if it was a barely noticeable 's' tacked on I doubt I would notice it. And if you wrote that in a paper for an English class back home, it would swiftly be attacked with red ink.
I just tried typing it in Word and it gave it an angry green squiggly faster than you can say grammar nazi.
I / You / We / You / They = come, do, sing, write etc.
He / She = comeS, doES, singS, writeS etc.
so Here come the students sounds better to me. Don't know the reason why it's that way though! So I'd like to now too :o)
also
"I can usually be understood by my fellow native (whatever language) speaking friends, but when it comes to people questioning or wanting explainations of the language I speak - I am usually lost for words...."
welcome to my world! :oD