Subject and Object Questions: ‘Who met you?’/ ’Who did you meet?’– By Professor Mayfair

Hello Professor. When do we say ‘who met you?’ and ‘who did you meet?’? (Marine, France).

Hello Marine and thanks for that very common question we get from students and I’ll try my best to answer it. Take a look at the following sentence. What is the subject and object of the sentence?

- I met Javier

Remember, every sentence has a subject and verb and some verbs have objects. The subject of the sentence is ‘I ‘and the object is ‘Javier’. So if we want to know who ’met’ Javier (who did the action), we ask the question ‘Who met Javier?’ The wh-question word is followed by the verb and then the object. This is called a subject question. Clearly the answer is ‘I met Javier’.

However, if we want to know about the object ‘Javier’, we ask the question using the auxiliary verb ‘do’ in this case ‘did’ followed by the subject ‘you’ and the infinitive form of the verb ‘meet’ at the end. So what’s the question? Yes…, ‘Who did you meet?’

Look at the next example:

- She ate the apple

Here the subject question is ‘Who ate the apple?’ and the object question is ‘What did she eat?’ Obviously the object is a thing, so we use a different wh-question word, in this case ‘what’. We can use other wh-words such as which, where, when, how many and even why. 

Read the full article at http://www.mayfairschool.co.uk/Subject-and-Object-Questions.html

'All' or 'Every' by Professor Mayfair

Q: What is the difference between ‘all’ and ‘every’? They have a similar meaning (I think) but we say ‘all people’ but ‘every person’. (Sasha from Russia)

A: Thanks for your question Sasha, let’s see if we can explain.

All and every can both be used to talk about people or things in general, or about all the members of a group. There is little difference in meaning, but every often suggests ‘without exception’. There is, however, a difference in the structures that are used with these words.

Every is used with singular nouns, to give the same meaning all is used with plural nouns.
Examples = Every child needs love

All children need love

We use all (of) with certain determiners (articles, possessives and demonstratives), but NOT every.

Read the full article: http://www.mayfairschool.co.uk/all-every.html

Mixed Conditionals by Professor Mayfair

I know the rules for the First Conditional, Second Conditional and Third Conditional. I’m not sure about the Mixed Conditional. What is it and what is the grammar?
Maria, Italy

Hi Maria,

Conditionals are fairly easy if you think about the meaning of the verb tenses.
If you understand the first, second and third conditionals, then you know the meaning of the verb tenses.
The rules and grammar don’t help so much from now on.

First Conditional
Tenses are for things that really happen.

“If it rains (present simple), we’ll get (future simple) wet.”

So we use tenses for things that really happen and really will happen.

Second Conditional
We use past tenses for things we don’t believe will happen or are impossible.
We don’t have unreal tenses in English – we use the past instead.

“If I won (past simple) the lottery, I would (will in the past) marry you.”

The speaker is using “won” not “win” because he doesn’t believe he’s going to win the lottery, and he isn’t going to marry you. So don’t believe him!

Third Conditional
We can put a real past tense unreal, by putting it further into the past. We do it with the past perfect.
And we can make the present perfect unreal but using “would”, the past of “will”.
So we can talk about things that didn’t really happen, and are in the past.

Read the full article: http://www.mayfairschool.co.uk/Mixed-Conditionals.html

‘Tell’, ‘Say’ or 'Talk' – By Professor Mayfair

Hello Professor Mayfair. My name is Xiao Peng and I’m from China. Can you tell me the difference between ‘tell’, ‘say’ and 'talk'?

Hello Xiao Peng, this is a common problem for students, but take a look at this:

		Type of clause	Example
	He told me	-that	that I could go home
		-question word	how I can get a job
		-infinitive	to work harder
		-question word+infinitive	where to go
		-noun phrase	the truth
	He said	-‘to’ + object + (that)	to John (that) he was ill
		-(that) + clause	(that) she was at home
		-‘something’ to someone	‘sorry’ to her

N.B. Do not say - He said me…

Read the full article at http://www.mayfairschool.co.uk/tell-say.html

Q: Professor Mayfair, please help me, I am confused. When do I say ‘less’, and when do I say ‘fewer’? (Stefano from Italy)

A: This is a difficult area to explain, Stefano, because there is some disagreement about what is grammatically ‘correct’. To begin with, let’s look at the traditional rules.

LESS is the comparative form of LITTLE, and is used before uncountable nouns when comparing things.
Example = I have little money. You have more money than me. I have less money than you.

FEWER is the comparative form of FEW, and is used before plural, countable nouns when we compare things.
Example = There are 10 boys in this class and there are 15 girls in this class. There are fewer boys than girls.

Read the full article: http://www.mayfairschool.co.uk/less-fewer.html

‘Who’ or ‘Whom’ – By Professor Mayfair

Hello Professor. When can we use ‘who’ and ‘whom’ and what’s the difference between them? (Yaiza, Spain).

Hello Yaiza, well if I had a penny for every time a student asked me that I’d be a very rich professor. It’s not a difficult question but you need to know a few basic things about relative clauses.

We use relative clauses to identify people and things and often give more information about them. For example, look at this sentence:

He’s the boy who broke the window.
Main clause                relative clause

Here, we’re identifying who broke the window, ‘the boy’, and giving the information, ‘broke the window’ and ‘He’s the boy’. The subject is ‘he’ and the main verb is ‘broke’. In the sentence we give two sets of information: ‘He is the boy. He broke the window’. So instead of repeating ‘he’, we relate the subject in the main clause with another subject pronoun, ‘who’, in the second (relative) clause. ‘Who’, is known as a ‘relative pronoun’.

But what about this sentence:

He’s the boy who I saw break the window.
   Main clause                  relative clause

Here there are still two sets of information: ‘He’s the boy. I saw him break the window’. Or ‘I saw the boy break the window’.

What’s the subject of this sentence? To answer this question, what is the main verb? Yes, it’s ‘saw’. So the subject is the person or thing that does the verb i.e ‘I’ not ‘he’. ‘He’ is the object. When we use a relative pronoun for the object, we use informal ‘who’ or the more unusual and formal relative pronoun ‘whom’. So we can say: ‘He’s the boy whom I saw break the window’.  We don’t use ‘him’: ‘He’s the boy whom I saw him break the window’.

Read the full article: http://www.mayfairschool.co.uk/who-or-whom.html

‘Needn't have’ and 'didn't need to' by Professor Mayfair

Q: What is the difference between ‘needn’t have’ and ‘didn’t need to’? (Yuki from Japan)

A: Yuki, this is a good question, and an area that many learners of English find confusing. Let’s look at each form individually, and see what they mean.

Needn’t have
When we say that someone needn’t have done something, we mean that he or she did an action, but that it was unnecessary, or even a waste of time!

Some examples:
‘I needn’t have washed the dishes because there was a dishwasher in the kitchen’
(I washed the dishes, but this was unnecessary because the dishwasher could have done the job)

‘You needn’t have woken me up, I don’t have to work today!’
(You woke me up, but this was not necessary because I do not have to work today)

In both situations, somebody did an action that was unnecessary.

Didn’t need to
When we say that somebody didn’t need to do something, we are simply saying that the action was not necessary. Perhaps they did the action, perhaps they did not.

Some examples:
‘We went to a restaurant, but we didn’t need to pay for the food because the boss paid’

Read The full article: http://www.mayfairschool.co.uk/need.html