Some notes on writing in English

In the following, I have collected instructions concerning the most frequent language errors in your learning diaries. I would like to give you individual feedback about language, too, but it is very time-consuming. Thus, I will use the following error codes:

A articles
PE possessive expressions
VT verb tense
PN person and number (in verb forms)
WO word order

If some codes occur frequently in your learning diary, try to study and practise that feature!

Articles a, an, the

These are hard for all people (like Finns!), who don't have articles in their own language. The default rule is that you should use articles always - dropping them is exception.

When to use a/an?

These articles are used

when you talk about something first time and it is not yet known to the reader: "I tried an ES application... The applications was..."
when you refer to any single thing, e.g. "A user can load a file..."

Imagine always, if you could add word "one" or "any" before the noun. Exceptions: There are some concepts - especially abstract things, or liquids - which you cannot measure in numbers. "Science is all my life." "I hate cold weather." You can use article "the" instead, if the matter is already definite and known in the context. If you talk about liquids, you can often use "some" before noun. For example "I wanted some coffee, but the coffee was too hot". Notice that plural forms cannot have article a/an. When you talk about them first time, you just have to skip the article. "I saw cats and dogs. The cats were black-and-white"

When to use "the"?

This article is used very often, for example

when you have already mentioned something and it is now definite, known to the reader. (See above)
when you talk about generally known things "The Finns are shy"

It is hard to give exact rules which would cover all cases, and it remains as a matter of art at least for me!

Possessive (genitive) case

This case of nouns and pronouns expresses ownership, origin, or possessive relation. "My cat is very wise." "The origin of life is unknown." There are two ways to form possessive case: s-genitive and of-genitive. There is no absolute rule, which one to prefer, but generally

s-genitive is used for people and animals, expresses owner.
of-genitive is used for inanimate (not living) things, often expresses quality, attributes, parts.

However, you can use both forms for animate possessors, if you want to put different emphasis: "the name of the dog was Musti" emphasizes "name", while "the dog's name was Musti" emphasizes "dog". For inanimate thing, s-form is possible for familar nouns like "The book's cover was missing". However, s-form is not possible

after prepositions "at the top of the stairs" (not "at the stairs' top")
with nouns expressing groups "a lot of people", "a collection of books"

In some word compositions, you don't need any genitive form at all: "A pizza maker" (="a maker of pizzas"), "a marketing director".

Notice that in many other languages the genitive is used more often in composed words. For example "database" (not "data's base" or "base of data"). Similarly, some expressions which require genitive form in your native language, may have totally different construction in English, e.g. "Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky" (expressing author).

Remember also genitive forms of pronouns: my/mine, your/yours, her/hers, his, its, our/ours, their/theirs. ("My car is black" vs. "The balck car is mine.")

Verbs

Tenses

A tense (Latin tempus) is a form of a verb which indicates time:

present tense "It is nice"
past tense "It was nice"
present perfect tense "It has been nice"
past prefect tense "It had been nice"
future tense "It will be nice"
conditional tenses: "It would be nice", "It could have happened"

In Russian, there is only one tense for past and it can be hard to decide, which tense to use in English. In scientific writing, you manage most of time with two tenses: present and present perfect. "N.N. [reference] introduces another approach..." "N.N. [reference] has studied the problems in another context...". These expressions refer that the results are still available or that the research is still going. You need past tense and past present tense, when you describe something, which has happened once in past: "I tried several expert systems", "The idea was originally introduced by N.N."

Notice that several common verbs are irrelugar!

Person and number

In most languages, verbs have different forms according to person (First, Second, Third) and number (Singular, Plural). In English, only be-verb has different forms for all cases. Usually it is enough to remember that the third singular (she, he, it) requires s-form in present tense ("She reads a book"), and all the other forms are similar (I read, we read, you read, they read). The same holds for present perfect tense: "She has read a book" vs. "I have read a book." In past and past perfect tenses the forms are similar (I had read, you had read, she had read).

Remember that in negative expressions the main verb is always without s. "She doesn't read the book")

Word order in sentences

The basic order is following:

SPOMPT = Subject Predicate Object Manner Place Time

Note that some time expressions are adverbs of frequency (always, never, usually, ...). They are put directly before the main verb. If the main verb is "be" and there is no auxiliary verb, then they are put behind "be". If there is an auxiliary verb, then before "be". Examples:
"I often go swimming after classes"
"I am always tired after classes"
"We are usually here in summer"
"I have never been to Lapland"

Miscellaneous

Pronouns

These pronouns are sometimes mixed:

this - these
that - those

Missing be-verb and "and"

In Russian you can sometimes skip be-verb, but in English you cannot. Maybe the same holds for "and" in lists? Example:
"There cats, dogs" instead of "There are cats and dogs"

Idea

Language checking system would be a great topic for ES project work! You could use your own learning diaries as data, where you collect the typical errors (e.g. of native Russian speakers). The system doesn't have to recognize all errors, but e.g. ask to check all suspectable parts. I recommend this topic especially for those, who have problems in writing correct English - you would have double benefits: as a result you would get a system to assists you and during the project work you would also learn a lot!

Some links

If you find a good English grammar or a writing guide, give the link, please!