The Draft That Sounds Right but Breaks a Rule
Your class is exchanging self-introductions with a partner school in Australia. The draft must be 40-60 words, use clear time expressions, and sound natural in a school email. Your first draft reads: 'Hello. I have visited Australia last summer. I enjoyed very much. I am belonging to the tennis club since last April. My hobby is play tennis. I want to know your hobby. Goodbye.' Your teacher circles four problems but says, 'Do not just make each sentence grammatical; keep the meaning and choose the form a fluent writer would use in this email.' The draft is 47 words. You must revise it without adding a new topic and without going over the word limit.
1. Fix 'I have visited Australia last summer' and 'I enjoyed very much.' Explain the tense choice and the missing element.
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'I have visited Australia last summer' is wrong because 'last summer' is a finished past time and cannot be used with the present perfect. Use the simple past: 'I visited Australia last summer.' 'I enjoyed very much' is wrong because 'enjoy' needs an object; the natural fix is 'I enjoyed it very much' or 'I enjoyed the trip very much.' The correction keeps the meaning and fixes both the tense and the missing object. A fluent writer would not solve the second problem by deleting 'enjoyed'; the verb needs a clear object to sound complete.
2. Fix 'I am belonging to the tennis club since last April' and 'My hobby is play tennis.' Explain why 'belong' is not usually progressive and which form fits after 'is'.
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'I am belonging to the tennis club since last April' is wrong because 'belong' describes a state, not an action in progress; it is rarely used in the progressive. With 'since,' use the present perfect: 'I have belonged to the tennis club since last April.' 'My hobby is play tennis' is wrong because a bare verb cannot follow 'is' as a subject complement here. Use the gerund: 'My hobby is playing tennis.' The reasoning is that the tense must match the time expression, and the complement must be a form that can act like a noun.
3. Which correction is better: 'My hobby is playing tennis' or 'My hobby is to play tennis'? Justify your choice using the idea of a subject complement and natural usage.
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'My hobby is playing tennis' is the better choice. Both 'playing' and 'to play' can appear after 'be,' but after the noun 'hobby,' the gerund is the common, natural complement. 'My hobby is to play tennis' is grammatical but sounds less idiomatic in a short self-introduction. The teacher's instruction is to keep the meaning and sound natural, so the gerund is the safer choice. The exam is testing the ability to choose between two grammatically possible forms by using context and register, not just by remembering a rule.