Bilingual Learning Sentence Patterns —— Core and Essential 600 English Sentence Patterns

Author: Wen Wen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: This book will address our common difficulties, meet our shared needs, and realize our collective dreams. It offers a correct understanding of English and truly reveals the intrinsic patterns of the English language, simplifying the complex and making the difficult easy. Starting with simple English knowledge, it progresses step by step. It encourages truly thinking in English to comprehend, perceive, express, and learn English, achieving a natural transition from "Chinese" to "English." It breaks the conventional way of learning English by using the "dual-shaping" method to filter out "known" and "unknown" elements; through "bidirectional" learning, it ensures knowledge is integrated and applied effectively, saving time and effort.
To learn English well, there are three key points to focus on:
1. Pay attention to the special functions of English vocabulary.
2. Master a large number of English idioms and improve your ability to use them.
3. Continuously accumulate various English sentence patterns.
English sentence patterns can be complex. If you do not understand and master their usage, you may misinterpret sentences and severely hinder your English learning. For example, consider the sentence:
"But that I saw it, I could not have believed it."
If you are unfamiliar with the pattern [But that + clause (affirmative verb) — main clause (containing could for the subjunctive mood)], translating it word by word would result in:
"However, I did see it, and I could not have believed it."
This translation is incorrect. Understanding it according to the pattern yields the correct translation:
"If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it."
From this example of understanding and translation, it becomes clear how important it is to master English sentence patterns. Therefore, when learning English, we must pay attention to continuously accumulating common English sentence patterns and deliberately imitate them to familiarize ourselves with their usage.
The purpose of writing this book is to help readers understand and master various flexible and diverse English sentence patterns, thereby improving the precision of their comprehension and application of English.
Key Features of the Book:
(1) Use the method of association and contrast to link a sentence pattern to its antonym. For example:
"The country is badly short of wheat." (This country is extremely short of wheat.)
The pattern here is [Subject + be + short of...]. We can think of its opposite meaning: [Subject + be + long on...], such as:
"He is long on good ideas." (He has plenty of good ideas.)
(See Book P. 84)
(2) Pay attention to sentence patterns where the negative meaning shifts, such as:
"You should not give up hope because you have met with some difficulties."
This is a [not... because...] pattern. If translated word by word, it would be:
"Because you have met with some difficulties, you should not give up hope."
This is clearly incorrect. The correct translation is:
"You should not give up hope because you have met with some difficulties."
The negative word "not" in the verb negates the clause that follows, not the negation itself. This is the characteristic of the negative meaning shifting in sentence patterns. Pay attention to this when learning to avoid logical errors.
(See Book P. 32)
(3) Use comparative methods to group sentence patterns with different structures but the same meaning for easy comparison and memorization. For example:
"He is as brave as any man alive." / "He is as brave as a man ever lived." / "He is the bravest man who ever lived."
These three sentences have different structures but the same meaning, all translating to:
"He is the bravest man in the world."
(See Book P. 331)
(4) Use comparative methods to group sentence patterns with similar structures but different meanings for deeper contrast. For example:
"All but one of the thieves were caught." (All thieves were caught except one.) / "It was all but impossible to climb back into the boat." (It was almost impossible to climb back into the boat.)
Both sentences contain "all but," but their meanings are completely different.
(See Book P. 189)
(5) The book is rich in examples. Most sentence patterns in the book are grouped, totaling 230 groups (over 600 patterns). Each group provides typical sentences with Chinese and English translations for better understanding and mastery. Additionally, the patterns are analyzed and explained in detail, with annotations where necessary.