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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4027 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes  Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 1 of 28 20 August 2014 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I came across this construct:
"The problem was that I kept repeatedly having to tell her.." Is this legit? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5207 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 28 20 August 2014 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am not a grammar expert. I'm just a native English-speaker. Yes, it is, in my opinion, correct. You don't say what's bothering you about this sentence but if it is the word "repeatedly", "repeatedly" modifies the phrase "having to tell her". "Repeatedly" could also be repositioned after "having to tell her" and not change the meaning. Positioning "repeatedly" in front of "having to tell her" serves to slightly emphasize this action of having to tell her several times.
Edited by iguanamon on 20 August 2014 at 1:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4027 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 3 of 28 20 August 2014 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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The phrase "having to" is making me uncomfortable.
"...I kept telling her." Fine "...I kept having to tell her." Ughhh. Similarly, "....I kept needing to tell her" bothers me, but I am fine with "...I kept needing her". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Paco Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 4222 days ago 145 posts - 251 votes Speaks: Cantonese* | Message 4 of 28 20 August 2014 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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On one hand, I guess it makes us feel uncomfortable because we do not see it often. I
have heard and seen it. I do it. I keep doing it. I have to do it. I keep having to do it. Do these make it more comfortable to you? On the other, I always think the more appropriate way to convey the same message is I have to keep telling her. I think I should better avoid inflecting "have to" as it is more of a set phrase. But I am not a dictionary or reference grammar. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4027 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 5 of 28 20 August 2014 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Aha. I think what is bothering is "kept + having to".
"I keep having to do it." sounds fine, but "kept + having to" confuses me, "kept" is past tense, but I feel "having to" indicates present tense. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6542 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 6 of 28 20 August 2014 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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It doesn't. I think you need to learn the impersonal verb forms properly.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5075 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 7 of 28 20 August 2014 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | ||
Rephrase it like this: "I continued to have to [do something]" and it should make much more sense. Kept just means "continued" and English often uses gerunds [having] instead of infinitives [to have], especially before other infinitives ([to tell] in this case). Impersonal verbs have nothing to do with it. R. == 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 3997 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 8 of 28 22 August 2014 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find the example quite inelegant. Furthermore, to qualify “keep having to” by “repeatedly” is awkwardly redundant. Uh ... at least I think so!
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