in,on,at的区别

Dr. Tan,

　　(1) The team that/which wins will be champions.

　　Q: The purpose of this exercise is to choose the correct relative pronoun“that”or “which”. The answer provided is both and this I can understand. What really puzzles me is “champions”. Shouldn't it be “champion” instead of “champions” since there should only be one champion?

　　(2a) John stays at the Hilton Hotel when he was in London

　　(2b) John stays at the Hilton Hotel when he is in London.

　　Q: Suppose John is not in London and I want to tell someone where he stayed while he is/was in London. Should I use 2a or 2b? To me, I would think that 2a is correct. However, on a second thought, is it right to use past simple as John is still alive?

　　(3a) I have been playing the piano since I was a child.

　　(3b) I have played the piano since I was a child.

　　Q: What's wrong with using present perfect continuous in this sentence 3a? The answer given to this exercise is 3b instead.

Dear lda,

　　1. You are right. The singular number complement‘champion’refers to the singular number subject‘the team’.

　　2. Sentence (2) refers to a general situation in which the simple present tense is used. Hence (2b) is logial. If the sentence refers to John's stay at the hotel in the past, then the verb should be simple past tense; that is, “John stayed at the Hilton Hotel when he was in London.”

　　3. Grammatically, both (3a) and (3b)are right, but logically, (3a) is a bit ridiculous, if not absurd. How can a person play the piano non-stop? Both sentencse below are correct and rational:

　　(a) Jason has lived here since 1960. (b) Jason has been living here since 1960.

老师：

　　我在英语学习中对介词的用法理解得不好。请解释一下，in, on, at在句中作“在……之中”时，它们三个的区别是什么？

Zhang Xy:

　　in, on, at 作“在……之中”解时，主要决定在连用的名词上。例如：

　　(1) Can you see the child in the crowd?

　　(2) Are you still on the Selection Committee?

　　(3) Tom is a singer at the concert.

《联合早报》

<<<更多来信     <<<中英双语专辑