Indian grammar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Indian_English may get you there.

It helped me when I was editing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English#Grammar is especially good.

Which part of India are they from? It's got about 14 major languages and lots of minor ones.

It can make a big difference (think of Swedish vs French, for instance).

If they're Hindi or Bengali speakers, and you are okay with sharing the stories with me in strict confidentiality, I can probably help, fast.

Most Indian languages don't have articles, but "one" is sometimes used for an indefinite article. "One girl was walking" or "One elephant was walking" instead of "A girl" or "An elephant..."

PM me if you like.

Tsu Dho Nimh said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Indian_English may get you there.

It helped me when I was editing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English#Grammar is especially good.

Click to expand...

I checked it out... I agree. That's a remarkable compilation.

I wrote a rather lengthy reply in the original thread, which you can read here.

I don't know how helpful this is, but at least in Tamil, the language spoken in Tamil Nadu in India (south-east) and Sri Lanka, I had a lot of trouble explaining articles (an, a, the) to my kids.

The reason was because when they say it, they use "one," for a/an, and "this" for the, when they are speaking English.

So they will say, "Yesterday I saw one boy go into one shop. This boy, very poor." Or something like that, instead of, "Yesterday I saw a boy go into a shop. The boy was very poor."

Also, because in India most people know SOME English, they've learned it incorrectly in a lot of cases, just because they've learned it from other people. At least where I was they used that grammar because they had grown up hearing it and saying it - a VERY hard habit to break.

Furthermore, in Tamil at least, the direct translation really is "this" or "one."

I hope that helps!