what are some common grammar mistakes made at the intermediate/advanced level? can posters give some advice for how to avoid these mistakes?
article abuse.
malapropisms.
colon/semicolon misuse.
mixed tenses in multiple dependent clauses.
comma misconceptions.
etc
re comma and colon/semi-colon abuse, I was talking about grammar, not punctuation. could you give me some examples of errors in chinese mixed tenses in dependent clauses with the corresponding correct clauses? I was looking for some advice on how to improve my grammar, but i don’t really see how i can do that unless i either get a good chinese teacher who can explain such things (not a good chance of that), or find someone here who will correct me.
you3 guan1 comma, colon/semi-colon de cuo4, (In reference to comman, colon/semi-colon mistakes)
wo3 bu4 jiang3 ju4dian3 na4 xie1, (I’m not talking about periods (and) that (stuff))
wo3 jiang3de shi4 wen2fa3 de cuo4wu4. (I’m talking about grammar mistakes)
ni3 neng2 bu neng2 gei2 wo3 yi4 xie1 you3guan1 cuo4wu4 zai4 mixed tenses in dependent clauses de li4zi. (could you give me some about mistakes in mixed tenses in dependent clauses examples)
rang2ho4 ba3 zhe4xie1 li4zi gai3 yi gai3? (and then take these examples (and) correct (them)?)
wo3 yao4 de shi4 gai3shan4 wo3 (de) wen2fa3 de jian4yi4. ((What) I want (is) improving my grammar advice.
chu2le zhong1wen2 lao3shi1, (except for chinese teachers,)
yi2ban4 de zhong1guo2ren2 bu4 liao2jie3 zhong1wen2 wen2fa3. (the average chinese does not understand chinese grammar.)
ta1men shuo1 zhong1wen2 gen1ben3 mei2you3 wen2fa3. (they say chinese doesn’t even have grammar.)
zhi3 kan4 jie3shi4 wen2fa3 de shu1 ye3 bu tai4 you3 yong4.(just reading grammar books also isn’t very useful.)
zhu3yao4 de shi yao4 you3 ren2 gai3 wo3 zi4ji3 jiang2/xie3 de hua4.(the important thing (there) needs (to be) a person to correct my own speaking and writing).
PS urodacus, ni3 dong3 zhong1wen2 ma? zai zhege forum mei yi ge waiguoren hui zhongwen shige comma misconception : ) (PS urodacus, do you know chinese? in this forum, every foreigner has chinese ability is a comma (common) misconception)
I don’t know if you’ll be able to find someone who can/will correct English grammar mistakes using Pinyin but Wow I would like to see it happen because I could learn tons myself.
There is a basic procedure they use here for communicating in Pinyin however and, if I got this right, I believe the procedure is to give the Pinyin first and the English translation after, as I have done below. After the first few lines you expanded on the topic so I can’t give your English translation. I could give mine but it would likely be mistake ridden.
Also, I believe it is preferable to keep the translations as close possible, but as I am stretching the limits of my credibility here already I won’t comment on specifics.
you3 guan1 comma, colon/semi-colon de cuo4, wo3 bu4 jiang3 ju4dian3 na4 xie1, wo3 jiang3de shi4 wen2fa3 de cuo4wu4.
(re comma and colon/semi-colon abuse, I was talking about grammar, not punctuation.)
ni3 neng2 bu neng2 gei2 wo3 yi4 xie1 you3gua1 cuo4wu4 zai4 mixed tenses in dependent clauses de li4zi. rang2ho4 ba3 zhe4xie1 li4zi gai3 yi gai3.
(could you give me some examples of errors in Chinese mixed tenses in dependent clauses with the corresponding correct clauses?)
wo3 yao4 de shi4 gai3shan4 wo3 (de) wen2fa3 de jian4yi4.
(I was looking for some advice on how to improve my grammar,)
After this it goes wonky with conversation about books not being useful and such. This will confuse most of us. It’s better to stick to the procedure I think: One sentence - one translation, next sentence - next translation.
but i don’t really see how i can do that unless i either get a good Chinese teacher who can explain such things (not a good chance of that), or find someone here who will correct me.
chu2le zhong1wen2 lao3shi1, yi2ban4 de zhong1guo2ren2 bu4 liao2jie3 zhong1wen2 wen2fa3. ta1men shuo1 zhong1wen2 gen1ben3 mei2you3 wen2fa3. zhi3 kan4 jie3shi4 wen2fa3 de shu1 ye3 bu tai4 you3 yong4. zhu3yao4de shi yao4 you3 ren2 gai3 wo3 zi4ji3 jiang2/xie3 de hua4. PS urodacus, ni3 dong3 zhong1wen2 ma? zai zhege forum mei yi ge waiguoren hui zhongwen shige comma misconception : )
bob, i will clean up my pinyin and translations as you suggested. i don’t usually come to this forum, so i didn’t know there was a preferred method for posting pinyin and translations, but your way is clear and makes sense. i was looking for help with improving my grammar in CHINESE. because this is a learning CHINESE forum. i think urodacus must have made the same assumption as you. PS- have you been to chinesepod.com? check it out. it’s an awesome site for learning chinese, although i think they might only use simplified characters. anyway, lots of audio with vocab explanantion at many different levels. but no one to correct grammar : (
I lay down for my nap and in a semi-dream state the brain pan wanders over our exchange and it occured to me that you were probably talking about learning Chinese not English. I rushed back here hoping I could straighten it out before you caught me up. Guess I was too late. 
Anyway, yes the one sentence one translation thing works well. They usually put it in parenthesis as well. I will check out the site you recommended as well as post here the English grammar terms I translated ages ago when I thought I was smart enough to learn how to discuss English grammar in Mandarin.
Done. Wow. Awesome. The linguistic equivalent of a trip to the moon. The most incredible thing in the entire universe. My new obsession. A gift from the heavens. Honestly, WOW! that is good. I have had it on for hours already. Thanks so much for that.
[
You won’t likely be able to use the boring dribble posted below because it was intended to be used the other way, and you’ll likely know most of it already, but here it is for what it is worth…
Grammar Vocabulary
Adjective - xing2rong2ci2
Active - zhu3dong4
Adverb - fu4ci2
Answer - hui2da2
Auxiliary Verb - zhu4dong4ci2
Be Verb - be dong4ci2
Clause - zi3ju4
Complete/full answer - wan2zhen3 de da2an4
Contraction - suo1xie3
Form - xing2shi4
Simple Form - jian3dan1 xing2shi4
Past form - guo4qu4 xing2shi4
Ing form - ing xing2shi4
Past participle - guo4qu4 fen1ci4
Grammar - wen2fa3
Information Question - xun4xi2yi2wen4ju4
Information Question Word-xun4xi2yi2wen4ju4
Main Verb - zhu3dong4ci2
Negative Answer/ sentence/ question - Fou3ding4 de hui2da2/ ju4zi/
wen4ti2
Noun - ming2ci2
Object - shou4ci2
Or question - huo4 wen4ti2
Parts of Speech - ge4zhong3ci2lei4
Passive - bei4dong4
Past Progressive - guo4qu4jin4xing2shi4
Phrase - ci2zu3
Plural - Fu4shu4 de
Preposition - jie4xi4ci2
Present Perfect - xian4zai4wan2chun2shi4
Present Perfect Progressive - xian4zai4wan2chun2jin4xing2shi4
Present Progressive - xian4zai4jin4xing2shi4
Sentence - ju4zi
Short answer - duan3 de hui2da2
Simple Future - wei4lai2shi2
Simple Past - guo4qu4shi2
Simple Present - xian4zai4shi2
Singular - dan1shu4 de
Statement - cun2xu4shou1ming2/ chen2shu4ju4
Subject - zhu3ci2
Transitive Verb - ji2wu4 dong4ci2
Verb - dong4ci2
Verb Tense - dong4ci2shi2tai4
Yes/No Question - dui4bu2dui4/shi4bu2shi4 yi2wen4ju4
i know some of the terms- but reading over them is a good review. keep up the good work.
[quote=“bob”]:lol:I lay down for my nap and in a semi-dream state the brain pan wanders over our exchange and it occured to me that you were probably talking about learning Chinese not English. I rushed back here hoping I could straighten it out before you caught me up. Guess I was too late.
[/quote]
ditto… i am not able to help you learn chinese, i am a beginner myself.
i did not look at the forum title, just read the post ! sorry.
disregard my input then, i was barking up the wrong tree.
relative / adjectival clauses (word order).
thanks for your reply jack. could you give me an example of an adjectival clause with a typical mistake in word order with the corresponding correction?
Y3ihou4 wo3men5 peng4mian4 zai4 tong2yi2 ge5 mai4dan1lao2
(Later we [will] meet at the same McDonalds [that we met at last time])
I don’t know why I post this. It isn’t wrong. It has adverb clause in it though. I suppose since I just “learned” it I wanted to write it down somewhere as an aid to retention. Feel free to ignore or not as per the dictates of your own unique perogatives etc.
It doesn’t sound right to me, although the usual disclaimers about how I’m not a native speaker apply as always.
The [color=red]“zai4” phrase for location [/color]should generally go before [color=blue]the verb [/color]in Standard Chinese.
women* yiHou [color=red]Zai tonG YI Ge MaiDANGlaO [/color][color=blue]PengMian[/color].
The only verbs you can strictly use a “Zai” phrase after are verbs like “Zhu” for “live [at a place]”, if I recall the exhortations of earlier Chinese teachers correctly.
It’s fairly common for people to “forget” about handling the location or time clauses until it’s too late (i.e., you’ve already spoken or written the verb). Coincidentally this is a bad habit you have to re-learn for simultaneous interpreting – it’s really handy to be able to scramble around in Chinese to take a time or place on the END of a sentence since English so commonly does this. The work-around is to conclude the first clause and then add, “shIJIAN Shi…” [the time is/will be] or “DIdian Shi” [the place is/will be]. But it’s awkward, if grammatically acceptable, and not “real” Chinese – just a workaround for that specific situation. You would sound funny if you started doing that all the time in your conversations.
Having said all that, it’s entirely possible that the language is shifting to allow this construction, just as grammar changed radically in the early 20th century with increasing exposure to Western languages.
[quote=“ironlady”] neous interpreting – it’s really handy to be able to scramble around in Chinese to take a time or place on the END of a sentence since English so commonly does this. The work-around is to conclude the first clause and then add, “shIJIAN Shi…” [the time is/will be] or “DIdian Shi” [the place is/will be]. But it’s awkward, if grammatically acceptable, and not “real” Chinese – just a workaround for that specific situation. You would sound funny if you started doing that all the time in your conversations.
Having said all that, it’s entirely possible that the language is shifting to allow this construction, just as grammar changed radically in the early 20th century with increasing exposure to Western languages.[/quote]
It is a little late to start worrying too much about that in my case I’m afraid Ironlady 
Anyway, What you are saying is that if you rattle along in Engnese and say “yiHou Women PengMian” and then realize that you should have put the adverb clause “before” the verb you can still rescue yourself by saying "yiHou women5 PengMian DI1dian Shi4 tonGyI ge4 maIDANlaO.
Hope that’s right.
I wrote the original sentence as dictated to me by my wife at the end of a tiring day in a taxi on a piece of tissue paper that I stole from Mcdonalds. Later when I was looking for the note I realized that, yes, I had blown my nose on it and stuck it in my back pocket. Lots of room for error there I imagine.
As always. 
If you need that kind of a save in a casual situation, you’re free (in terms of time and content) to say anything you like, so I’d rather say something like, “women* yiHou PengMian…Zai MaiDANGlaO keyi ma*?”
The thing with simultaneous interpreting is that you can’t add anything the speaker didn’t say and you have to keep up with what he’s saying while you’re dealing with the “missing” time or date bit, so using a very awkward expression in Mandarin is better than losing the whole thread entirely. But I’d say “don’t try this at home, kids.” 