Is this sentence correct

Scrabble123

Tue, May 27 2014, 8:54 am

c.c.cookie wrote:

For those of you who say the sentence is incorrect, let me ask you:
"I asked my neighbor if he wanted help" - means at that time. How would you ask him hypothetically about the future?
Let me clarify my question more. This sentence is reported speech. So if this were the quote:
"Neighbor, will you want help building your succah?" How would you turn that into reported speech?
I asked my neighbor if... Please continue this for me.

I think that you are able to determine the answers to your questions in my previous posts. Let me know if you need clarification.

As for the future.

The verbs "want" and "would like" are acceptable again.

As I stated before, would want is improper grammar. Would want is when a person would like to do something but cannot due to other obstacles.

I would want to give the student a good grade, but he simply did not answer the questions accurately.

Future:

Would you like our help with the sukka tomorrow? (polite future)
I'd like to help you with your sukka next year. (Polite future)
Do you want our help next week with the sukka?)

Will you want our help next week? (Not proper because will refers to future events that are facts. Since you do not know what the response will be, it is inappropriate to use the word will). For example when sending your daughter to school on a rainy day you may say, "Sara, you will want an umbrella today." "You will want to fasten your seatbelt on a roller coaster." It is more difficult with the "want" because it is hard to say facts about what someone else does or does not want.

Reported Speech of your sentence (which btw, as I explained above was improper grammar as the word will is used inappropriately).

"I asked my neighbor if he would like our help in the future"
"I asked my neighbor if he wants our help in the future"

invisiblecircus

Tue, May 27 2014, 11:38 am

5*Mom wrote:

I maintain that it is a grammatically correct, hypothetical sentence.

"I would want strawberries if someone would be so kind as to wash and hull them for me.

"I would want their help building my succah if they were to offer it."

It does depend on context, which does not seem to have been provided on the test. So, correct is correct.

In all of your examples you are using a conditional. In the original example, there is no conditional, therefore the sentence is wrong.

5*Mom

Tue, May 27 2014, 12:04 pm

invisiblecircus wrote:

In all of your examples you are using a conditional. In the original example, there is no conditional, therefore the sentence is wrong.

The conditional can be implied, depending on the context, of which there is none given on the test.

"We pitched our succah-building business idea to our neighbor. I asked him if he would want our help building his succah."

It doesn't have to be in the actual sentence.

Fox

Tue, May 27 2014, 12:55 pm

Lacking a dependent conditional clause, the sentence with "would want" clearly isn't correct.

That said, most students have a difficult time divorcing written sentences from surrounding context as well as from less formal speech. As well they should, given that writing is supposed to communicate ideas. Most writing teachers would be thrilled if their students "would want" to write "a lot" as two separate words and "would want" to use "their"; "there"; and "they're" correctly.

So go ahead and give credit for the answer, but teach the class why it wasn't a good answer.

Hashem_Yaazor

Tue, May 27 2014, 1:16 pm

5*Mom wrote:

There is no such thing as a sentence, written or spoken, divorced from surrounding context. Except for those on tests. Teachers, don't teach to the test; teach for real life. Please.

I completely agree. I have had recent problems with some test mark-ups, and it makes me quite upset when teachers don't think if a student's answer is possibly correct. Good for c.c. cookie for trying to understand the student's response and not going by the handbook.

Some examples that come to mind where I believe credit should have been given:
A test question: "Predict what will happen next. The sky is getting dark and it starts to rumble." The correct answer was "It will rain." My son's choice (this was multiple choice)? "The power will go out." I asked him why he chose that, and he said because usually it's raining before it starts to thunder, and many times when a storm comes, the power goes out. I cannot argue with that. This was a reading test. Nothing was inherently wrong with his reading comprehension or logic to have that marked wrong.

Or this one (which was actually from a mind-teaser page and should not have been part of a test, IMO) -- write one word that shows what this group has in common: gaze, cross, stare, blink (or something like that). My son wrote "action". The only acceptable choice apparently was "eyes". He wasn't wrong, he just didn't know what the page wanted.

I took a test recently where the questions/scenarios were so ambiguous, and I stand behind my answers after much research and asking around, even if they were marked wrong. I applaud teachers for taking the time to grade in a way that reflects the student's abilities, and not just grading blindly based on the handbook.

c.c.cookie

Wed, May 28 2014, 11:20 am

Scrabble123 wrote:

Why is this sentence correct? You cannot use past and present future in the same sentence. If anything it would be "if he wanted" which is the answer they were going for in the first place. For the record, "wants" was one of the options also, but I think that one is definitely incorrect.