选自公众号“简洁的原理”文章
A primary schoolteacher's conversation with the mother of one of her students has gone viral because of the topics they discussed. Snapshots of the WeChat interaction show the mother complaining that it is too early for the teacher to be discussing pregnancy and anatomical differences between boys and girls to a class of 9-year-olds; she even said she would raise the issue with the headmaster.
点评
我们看这部分文字:
it is too early for the teacher to be discussing pregnancy and anatomical differences between boys and girls to a class of 9-year-olds
需要调整或修改的地方有两处:
(1)discussing pregnancy and anatomical differences between boys and girls
我们都知道,discuss的用法是discuss sth或者discuss sth with sb。这个用法跟第二点相关。
先讲pregnancy and anatomical differences between boys and girls。这个地方很容易把pregnancy and anatomical differences连在一起读,其实却是pregnancy和anatomical differences between boys and girls两件事情。要区分清楚也简单,anatomical前面加个定冠词the。
discussing pregnancy and the anatomical differences between boys and girls
(2)to a class of 9-year-olds
上面讲到了discuss的用法是discuss sth或者discuss sth with sb。所以,这儿要用,最好把to改为with。
it is too early for the teacher to be discussing pregnancy and the anatomical differences between boys and girls with a class of 9-year-olds
另外,时态还是用一般式比较合适:to be discussing改为discuss。
it is too early for the teacher to discuss pregnancy and the anatomical differences between boys and girls with a class of 9-year-olds
回到标题,供参考:talk to/with sb about sth