Tagged: possessives

The human’s wife is an alien

In my opinion, artificial intelligence should be kept away from humans’ civilisation.

OK, here are two specimens – a human (Bill), and an alien (Zarka). If I talk about the human, I’m talking about the gentleman on the left. If I talk about the alien, I’m talking about the lady on the right.

humanalien

Bill and Zarka

We can say that the human’s nose is longer than the alien’s nose, and the human’s neck is thicker than the alien’s. Also, since the alien has no body hair, we can assume that the alien is interested in human hair.

Let’s look at the grammar.

  • I use the possessive when I’m talking about a particular human (Bill) or a particular alien (Zarka). I could also be talking about a specific group of humans or aliens.
  • On the other hand I don’t use a possessive when I’m talking about all humans (their hair). The alien is interested in the phenomenon of hair as it grows on all humans, everywhere.

When you’re using ‘human’ as a noun modifier, stop and think! Are you referring to an individual human or a specific group of humans? Or are you talking about all humans? Only add the possessive if your reader knows exactly which human (or specific group of humans) you are referring to.

@eapguru

Pronunciation by George

flag-of-indonesia Indonesians hate to add ‘s’ to plurals, possessives and third person verbs. In Bahasa Indonesia these grammatical features are produced in other ways.

It’s also extremely unusual in Bahasa Indonesia to see two or more consonants together, which is often what happens when you add ‘s’ to the end of a word:

  • Mike’s (possessive, 2 consonants together)
  • expands (third person, 3 consonants together)
  • texts (plural, 4 consonants together!)

Pronouncing this final ‘s’ is difficult for Indonesians and for some reason embarrassing, rather like when English people attempt to pronounce the French ‘r’.

But if you want to communicate well, and if you want a good score for pronunciation in IELTS speaking, then you had better start producing the ‘s’ at word endings!

In this video, former student George does his best to put ‘s’ in all the right places. I’ve added a scoring feature to help you follow his ‘performance’!

A good way to practice ‘s’ is to record yourself, and then listen back following a tapescript. Focus on the ‘s’ in particular. Exaggerate it. Make it longer and louder. In the IELTS test make sure the examiner can hear it!

@eapguru