Four rules, all looking at the wrong word
A second-year student has finished a five-item cloze on a homestay passage and scored 1 out of 5. Her teacher reads the four wrong items.
- 「I ( have gone / have been ) to Australia twice.」 She chose 「have gone」. Her note: 「『gone』 sounds more natural before 『to』.」
- 「There ( is / are ) a lot of people in the hall.」 She chose 「is」. Her note: 「『a lot』 is one thing, so singular.」
- 「I have ( a little / a few ) friends in Australia, so I never feel lonely.」 She chose 「a little」. Her note: 「I wanted to say 『少し』, and 『a little』 is 『少し』.」
- 「The train was ( so / such ) crowded that I could not sit down.」 She chose 「such」. Her note: 「『crowded』 is a long word, so 『such』.」
The teacher says: 「You are not guessing at random. You are using four different rules, and every one of them looks at a word that does not decide the answer.」 The student answers, 「So I should learn more rules?」
1. Diagnose each of the four errors: what did she look at, and what should have decided the answer?
Read the worked answer
1. have gone / have been. She looked at the word after the gap. The deciding facts are outside the gap: 「twice」 counts completed visits, and the speaker is in Japan while speaking, so she is not 「gone」 to Australia. Experience counted up to now = have been. 「have gone」 means the person is away and not here now.
2. There is / are a lot of people. She looked at 「a lot」. The verb agrees with the real noun after 「a lot of」: people is plural, so are. Test by substitution - 「a lot of water」 takes 「is」, 「a lot of people」 takes 「are」.
3. a little / a few. She translated 「少し」. Translation cannot decide this, because 「少し」 covers both English words. Countability decides it: friends can be counted (one friend, two friends), so a few.
4. so / such. She looked at word length. The deciding question is what follows the gap: 「crowded」 is an adjective with no noun attached, so so + adjective + that. 「such」 needs a noun phrase: such a crowded train.
2. Rewrite her approach as one short checklist she can run in the exam, and show how each of the four items falls out of it.
Read the worked answer
The checklist (two questions, in this order):
- What word comes immediately after the gap - a noun, an adjective, or nothing? This settles so/such and enough.
- Is the noun after the gap countable and plural? This settles a little/a few, is/are, and many/much.
Running it:
- Item 1: the gap is followed by 「to Australia」, not a noun. Neither question applies, so go to meaning: does the sentence count experiences up to now (been) or describe someone who is away (gone)? 「twice」 forces been.
- Item 2: 「a lot of」 + plural noun people → are.
- Item 3: plural countable friends → a few.
- Item 4: adjective, no noun → so.
Three of the four items are answered without knowing any rule beyond a question about the word next door. That is why 「learn more rules」 is the wrong response: she needs fewer rules, applied to the right word.