Hello everyone, I'm learning english and sometimes it's sort of confusing but I like it a lot and my goal is speak it fluently someday. However, I was wondering if you could help me with a couple of sentences? I understand what the two sentences below mean but I'd like to know which of them is grammatically correct. 1.- They pretended they weren't listening to our conversation. 2.- They pretended not to be listening to our conversation. Can they be interchangeable? Which one would be grammatically correct number 1 or 2? Tnanks in advance, any help will be appreciated.
I'm not an English teacher, but..... 1) They pretended that they weren't listening to our conversation. 2) They pretended to not be listening to our conversation. As a native English speaker, these corrections seem to fix what was a bit off in your original sentences.
But don't worry too much unless you're doing an exam, most English speakers do not speak ''correctly.'' Due to different dialectal grammar deviating from the standard, blending of American and British English, and sending messages quicker when texting.
What she said. I've seen non-native-English speakers speak better English than a lot of Americans. Your English is already pretty good. Don't sweat it too much if you're not 100% grammatically correct.
I would say they are both correct, at least enough for a casual converstion. An english teacher would probably disagree, but outside of the classroom no one really cares that much. I would also say the mean the same thing. Again an english teacher might disagee, but no one else would care.
Have to agree with everyone else, it depends where you’re from that determines how you speak. Personally, if I were to use either sentence, I’d pick 1. I’m not sure why, it’s just the way of phrase it, not sure if it’s correct or ‘more proper’. I’m from Scotland and we have a particular way of speaking sometimes that I wasn’t aware of until I watched some YouTube videos on how to speak Scots! For someone who’s learning, your English is very good! I suppose it’s kinda like Danish/Swedish, it’s more or less the same but some things are pronounced differently and maybe arranged differently within a sentence.
