2007年11月7日 星期三
The funeral
I attended my cousin funeral last Friday. Before he was cremated, there were many ceremonies had to do. For example, on Thursday night, there were three exorcists spent almost three hours intoning a lot of Taoist scripture for him. We believed that scripture could make his soul become better because he died of cancer with extremely painful on his body and mentality. All family, relatives and cousins held a wake, where the body of the deceased was displayed in its casket. The funeral began at 5:15 am in Friday morning. My cousin's close friends and classmates expressed their condolences for him. Everyone was very sad and sorry for him. I saw many people that their eyes with a lot of tears. They thought that he was a twenty-one-year young man but passed away soon. After cremating, his sister held the ashes and everybody also went to the columbarium. His ashes were placed into a niche in an Ashes Wall. The funeral ended at 13:15 pm.
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Possessive form is required in the first sentence: "my cousin's funeral".
This main clause in the second sentence is unnatural English: "many ceremonies had to be performed" is natural.
The third sentence contains an inappropriate usage of the existential form "There were". This sentence has a definite subject, and that subject should be first in the sentence: "Three exorcists spent almost three hours..." You use "there were" in sentences designed to tell the reader that something or someone existed -- e.g., "There were three strange men in the first room I entered, the room in which my cousin's body was laid out. I soon realized that they weren't run-of-the-mill strangers who attend funerals because they're fascinated by death or because they want to exploit your emotional distress. I realized that they were exorcists when I finally heard them chanting Taoist scripture" -- not in sentences designed to tell the reader that someone or something did something.
The clause "he died of cancer with extremely painful on his body and mentality" is also most unnatural. The first part is fine, but the prepositional phrase that begins with "with" is nonsense. It would be better to say either "He died of cancer. His death was extremely painful, both emotionally and physically" or "He had an extremely physically and emotionally painful death".
"All family, relatives and cousins" is strange. Just say "His family held a wake attended by everyone in the family".
"0n Friday morning" -- ALWAYS! Never, never, never in Friday morning".
"I saw many people that their eyes with a lot of tears" is just clumsy and unnatural. "Many of my cousin's friends and classmates were crying" or "Tears were streaming down the faces of many of my cousin's friends and classmates" would be natural.
"They thought that he was a twenty-one-year young man but passed away soon" is pure nonsense. This isn't what they thought. He was a 21-year-old man and he did die too soon.
The next sentence is unnatural. It should be: "After the cremation, his sister took his ashes to the columbarium, a structure lined with small vaults in which urns containing cremation remains can be stored forever. Everyone went with her." I had to look up the word "columbarium". I've never seen it before. I doubt that you have either.
The structure of your story is fine. The content is clear enough, but your English is unnatural in just about every sentence. You need to spend a lot more time reading and thinking about how to use this language if you want to be able to tell people, without being embarrassed, that you have a university degree in "Applied English" .
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