Could you please help 8-year-old Shanghai boy improve his English?...

IADad

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May said:
Andy:

Daddy wasn't at home this weekend, Mom took my little sister and I to have lunch at the grammy's home. She is our neighbor who took care of me since 6 years ago.
either

"She is our neighbor who has taken care of me for the last six years."

or

"She is the neighbor, who took care of me six years ago."

With the way it's written, I'm just not sure whether she stopped taking care of him six years ago or not.
 

IADad

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We will have a swimming competition this Saturday. I will take part in several items[/SIZE]</SIZE>.[/quote]

I think we'd probably say "events" rather than "items," here....
 

May

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IADad said:
Gold star - only one little thing, that might be a typo - "blossom" should be plural. "They" look like... "blossoms."
Got it!

:) Thank you!

We always forget it sometimes. I will pay more attention in the future.
 

May

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IADad said:
Some tense agreement issues going on here. (oh, and my best wishes and prayers for your father in law.)

I'd say: "My grandpa <U>has been</U> seriously sick with heart disease since yesterday afternoon. "

"My dad went back to our hometown early this morning."

or

"My dad has been back in our hometown since early this morning."
Thank you so much!:)

My father in law is much better now, my husband came back to Shanghai yesterday afternoon.
 

May

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IADad said:
either

"She is our neighbor who has taken care of me for the last six years."

or

"She is the neighbor, who took care of me six years ago."

With the way it's written, I'm just not sure whether she stopped taking care of him six years ago or not.

Thanks a lot!:)

She took care of Andy for the last 6 years, and she will continue take care of him for the next 2 to 3 years.

Maybe Andy can go home and cook his dinner by himself after school in 2 to 3 years. Then we don't need this nanny.

Now Andy can come back home by himself after school already, because it'a only a 5 minutes work without crossroads. But we aren't at home and he can't cook dinner for himself, so he go to nanny's home after school, have dinner at her home.

In addition, there is a little girl at their home, the nanny's granddaughter, she is 6 months older then Andy. They study at the same school. They can do homeworks and play together at their home.

The nanny and her husband are both retired about 6 years ago, when we found them and asked them to help us to take care of Andy after kindergarden/school, they are very happy. Because they felt their granddaughter was very lonely, only one child at home.Her parents need work as us. They are a 5 member family. Grandparents, parents and little girl.

My husband feel we are very lucky that we found this family to help us. They all like Andy. The girl's parents like Andy too.They don't like other nannies just treat it as a job.

:D:D:D
 

May

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IADad said:
I think we'd probably say "events" rather than "items," here....
Got it!

I checked in the dictionary, and found that looks people normally use event in sports, such as:

sporting events
individual sprots

Thank you so much!:)
 

May

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<SIZE size="200">We will have a swimming competition in two days. I will take part in several events.</SIZE>
 

May

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Andy:

There was a firepractice in our school today.It was once a year. We were all escaped sucessfully.
 

IADad

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May said:
Andy:

There was a firepractice in our school today.It was once a year. We were all escaped sucessfully.
I would say that:

There was a fire drill (we say fire drill, apparently the term is firepractice there) at our school today. They happen once a year We all escaped successfully. (I'm not familiar with using escaped as an intransitive verb, not saying it's wrong, just I'm not familiar with using it that way, may be one to look up.)
 

May

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IADad said:
I would say that:

There was a fire drill (we say fire drill, apparently the term is firepractice there) at our school today. They happen once a year We all escaped successfully. (I'm not familiar with using escaped as an intransitive verb, not saying it's wrong, just I'm not familiar with using it that way, may be one to look up.)
Make sense!

Thank you very much!:)

Andy found firepractice out in the dictionary. He saw the word drill too. But he choosed firepractice as he was familar with words fire and practice, while he has no any idea about drill.:D

They happen once a year.------Sounds much better.
We all escaped successfully.------You are right.

Got it, thanks again!
 

May

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Andy:

Mum picked up me today after swimming. Because my grandpa got foot aches these days.

(May: Andy calls his nanny grandma, and call her husband grandpa.)
 

IADad

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May said:
Make sense!

Thank you very much!:)

Andy found firepractice out in the dictionary. He saw the word drill too. But he choosed firepractice as he was familar with words fire and practice, while he has no any idea about drill.:D

They happen once a year.------Sounds much better.
We all escaped successfully.------You are right.

Got it, thanks again!
the whol exercise of practicing what to do in the event of a fire is commonly known as a "Firedrill" in American english. As a matter of fact tthe term is so common it's also used in business to mean something unexpected that takes your entire attention.
 

IADad

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May said:
Andy:

Mum picked up me today after swimming. Because my grandpa got foot aches these days.

(May: Andy calls his nanny grandma, and call her husband grandpa.)
Should be just one sentence...

Mum picked me up today after swimming because Grandap gets foot aches these days.

Can't really explain why "picked me up" is better than "picked up me" but it is...and I'd say "gets" rather than got, because it's present tense...these days. If we were talking about yesterday, I'd use got.

I also dropped the "my" from Grandpa, which could really go either way. I thought it seemed more consistent since he didn't say "my Mum" and it's implied, but it wouldn't be wrong to include it either.
 

May

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IADad said:
Should be just one sentence...

Mum picked me up today after swimming because Grandap gets foot aches these days.

Can't really explain why "picked me up" is better than "picked up me" but it is...and I'd say "gets" rather than got, because it's present tense...these days. If we were talking about yesterday, I'd use got.

I also dropped the "my" from Grandpa, which could really go either way. I thought it seemed more consistent since he didn't say "my Mum" and it's implied, but it wouldn't be wrong to include it either.
Thank you so much! I learned a lot!:)

Have a nice weekend!
 

May

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Andy:

I got up very early this morning because I took part in the swimming competition today.
 

May

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Daddy,Mommy and my sister Jasmine picked me up after chess class together this evening. On the way home,we took some pictures of night scene on Middle Huaihai Rd. It was really very beautiful.
 

May

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Andy:Today, my Grammy is sick too. Now both my grandparents are in the hospital. We worry about them very much. Hope they will be fine soon.[/COLOR]
 

May

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<SIZE size="200">I got a new dictionary. It's an electronic dictionary. I like it very much.</SIZE>