22 August 2014

PREVIOUS GRAMMAR QUESTION

A visitor to southeast asia must to remember taking their anti-malaria medicine regular to be affective preventing them from sickness and it would spoil the trip.

1. Noun-pronoun agreement: 

"A visitor" and "their/them" do not agree. The easiest solution is to make the noun plural ("visitors"); otherwise the pronouns should be singular ("his/him" or "her/her").

2. Capitalization:

"Southeast Asia" is a proper noun, so it needs to be capitalized.

3. Modal + verb: 

After a modal such as "must", use the verb name, not the infinitive (i.e. "must remember").

4. Infinitive/gerund: 

In this sentence, since it is not a matter of remembering something from the past, the correct form after "remember" is the infinitive (i.e. "remember to take").

5. Word form: 

Since "regular" is modifying the "take", it needs to be in the adverbial form ("regularly").

6. Word confusion: 

The word we need here is "effective" not "affective".

7. Missing words: 

The words "for it" are missing after "regularly", and the word "at" is missing before "preventing".

8. Parallel construction: 

The conjunction "and" joins two phrases that are objects of "preventing", so they should be parallel. Here is one possibility: "preventing them from getting sick" and "spoiling their trip".

9. Word form:

We often use the phrase "anti-malaria medicine", but since "anti-malaria" is modifying a noun, it should be in the adjectival form ("anti-malarial").



Possible solution

Visitors to Southeast Asia must remember to take their anti-malarial medicine regularly for it to be effective at preventing them from getting sick and spoiling their trip.

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