at Mark

Yeah, it's like tongue in cheek or something.

Ariel Sharon has spent more of his life as a soldier than a politician ,and it has often been said that he is better at tactics than strategy.
whats the difference between the 2 words ?
can you interpret the last part of the sentence ?

strategy - essentially the plan... think about looking at a map and deciding what to do.

tactics - the execution of the strategy...  so doing what you planned on doing.

Now... the interesting thing is that tactic (the singular version of tactics) is a little like saying "strategy" except for usually about military purposes whereas you can strategize almost anything, a game, traffic, school, money.  However, when people say tactics (the plural) they are usually refering execution (the doing) of the tactic (stragety).  Additionally a strategy is usually a more broad word while tactic would be a smaller word.  Like... you have a strategy for wining a war, but a tactic to disarm your enemy.... However, that's not set in stone, you could use strategy and tactic (singular) for the same thing sometimes..


Very advanced question again from you, ZJ.

[ Last edited by  MarkAllen at 2008-3-30 02:31 AM ]

so thats to say : he is good at doing things  but poor at planning.

Hi Mark

I've been following this thread and I like how you've illustrated sentence structure and
grammatical patterns by providing descriptive examples.

English is my second language and being dyslexic certainly doesn't help with my writing. I am not really a strong reader. In fact, I don't think I like reading, or maybe I just don't have time to read for leisure given the bulk of academic psych stuff I am required to flip through daily. The urbandictionary came in handy for an email I was writing to an important person. I know I've said this before, but you really should think
about publishing a book - I'll purchase the book for sure!
G

Huisy, thanks for all your encouraging words.  I am curious.  With Chinese presumably being your primary language.  How does dyslexia affect that?  With English speakers it's often letter order which affects dyslexics.

Hi~ nice to meet you!
May I know what's the different between :-
"will" and "would"
"shall" and "should"
"can" and "could"
"may" and "might" ?
In what case I should use them ? Thank you.

Sure!   

There is actually a big difference between these, but a very simple one to understand.

"Will" is stating you are going to do something.  In other words, you are intending to do something.
"Would" is called a conditional.  It's easiest to think of it have a "but" following it.  For example, "I would clean my house, but I'm feeling lazy."  There is a condition on doing it, so it's called a conditional.

"Shall" is stating, again that you are going to do something while "should" - again, is a conditional.  The word "Should" is similar to "would" - but "should" implies that you have an obligation to do something while "would" does not imply an obligation.  In both cases, it depends on something else - so it's conditional.  Example:  "I should stop eating so much mayonaise so that I will lose weight."

"Can" is saying you have the ability to do something.  "Could" is another conditional, so it depends on something else.    "Could" means you have the ability to do something, but whether you do it depends on another factor.  "I could pay my rent if you'd give me a raise."   "I could lose weight, if I stopped eating mayonaise."

"May" implies that you have some permission to do something.  If you say you can do something, you are saying you have the ability to do something.  If you say, you may do something, you are saying you have permission to do something.  Saying "might" means that there is a possibility.  "I might have already won one million dollars in the lottery."  It doesn't mean you have, it means there is a possibility you have.  "Might" and "may" do not as much relate as the other words you paired in daily usage of them.

Does that help?


[ Last edited by  MarkAllen at 2008-9-15 04:29 AM ]

Thank you for the explanation, I did learn something.
But from what I've study is "will", "can", "may", "shall" are used as present tense,
whereas "would", "could", "might", "should" are used as past tense.
So, for example, "will you marry me" or "would you marry me" is the correct one?

I think it will be easier for you if you don't think of it the way you've described prsesent vs. future.  It's not correct.

In fact:

willl - iimplies a future action or choice.
can - implies a present abiility
may - could be the present or the future depending on context.   (By the way, did you notice how I used "could" here?  I said "could...."  then said "depending""  - because it's a conditional.  Meaning there is a condition which will make this the case.
shall - implies a future action or choice.  By the way, "shall" is very rarely used in English.  It's a valid word, but in conversational English, people very rarely say it.  Most people just use "will."

and all the rest, would, could, might, should - they don't imply future or past as much as they imply that there is a condition for the action, choice, or event to happen.

So - don't think of them as future, past, or present... that will just be confusing and not accurate.

thank you very much ~ I think you are a great ENGLISH TEACHER! thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.

hehe... I stumble into this thread and now I have to say it's fantastic....
I'm currently playing English teacher to my housemate who's from Shanghai and I make all the native Aussie slang mistakes when speaking English.

Thanks Mark I will use all your lessons to teach her...

hehe... I stumble into this thread and now I have to say it's fantastic....
I'm currently playing English teacher to my housemate who's from Shanghai and I make all the native Aussie slang mistakes when speaking English.

Thanks Mark I will use all your lessons to teach her...

ekkkk... how did I end up double posting... please delete one I'm still new to this site so I don't know how to delete it... I now sound like I have a stutter on the net

A post so nice, you said it twice.  


I don't know how to delete them either.  I think only you can do that or the admin.  Don't worry about it.

oh you rhyme too.. hehe