Foie Gras

Mar 4, 2015 20:46
　Today, I went to a ramen shop with my juniors. Surprisingly, foie gras bowl was sold at the ramen shop. The shop offers only 5 little foie gras bowls per day, and 4 bowls were already sold at that time. Therefore, I ordered the foie gras bowl and ate foie gras for the first time in forever. The name of the menu was "foie gras bowl," but in fact, there were only one small slice of foie gras and some slices of beef on a rice bowl. The foie gras is maybe very delicious, but it's difficult for me to describe the taste. I thought cheap meats are more suit me than expensive meats because I want to eat a lot of meat.
No. 1　's correction
  • Foie Gras
  • This sentence is perfect! No correction needed!
  • Today, I went to a ramen shop with my juniors.
  • This sentence is perfect! No correction needed!
  • Surprisingly, foie gras bowl was sold at the ramen shop.
  • This sentence is perfect! No correction needed!
  • The shop offers only 5 little foie gras bowls per day, and 4 bowls were already sold at that time.
  • The shop offers only 5 little foie gras bowls per day, and 4 bowls were already sold at that time.
  • The name of the menu was "foie gras bowl," but in fact, there were only one small slice of foie gras and some slices of beef on a rice bowl.
  • The name of the menu was "foie gras bowl," but in fact, there wereas only one small slice of foie gras and some slices of beef on a rice bowl.
  • The foie gras is maybe very delicious, but it's difficult for me to describe the taste.
  • The foie gras wais maybe very delicious, but it's difficult for me to describe the taste.
  • I thought cheap meats are more suit me than expensive meats because I want to eat a lot of meat.
  • I thoughtink cheap meats are more suit me more than expensive meats because I want to eat a lot of meat.
Just a couple of wrong tenses, but that was still great!
kanotown
  • The name of the menu was "foie gras bowl," but in fact, there wereas only one small slice of foie gras and some slices of beef on a rice bowl.
Thank you very much for correcting me! :)

I have one question.
I used the word "only," but I wanted to mean like "one slice of foie gras and some slices of beef were on a rice bowl." I thought "one ... and some ..." are multiple objects, but should I use the word "was" instead of "were"?

You should is "was" if the first thing listed is singular and use "were" if the first thing was plural.

*There was one slice of foie gras and some slices of beef.
*There were some slices of beef and one slice of foie gras.
kanotown
Thank you so much for your informative answer!
I learned new things. :D
No. 2　titanium's correction
  • Surprisingly, foie gras bowl was sold at the ramen shop.
  • Surprisingly, a foie gras bowl was sold at the ramen shop.
    　This "a" is a little hard to explain, and like many native speakers I don't have a good way to explicitly explain my intuition about this very confusing part of English. The best I can do is leave some examples.

    Correct:
    That restaurant serves foie gras. (type of food)
    That restaurant serves hamburger. (type of food)
    That restaurant serves a foie gras dish. (specific item that the restaurant offers)
    That restaurant serves an amazing foie gras dish. (specific item that the restaurant offers)

    Incorrect: That restaurant serves fois gras dish.

    The previous corrector probably missed this because in America it's kind of uncommon for restaurants to sell meals as "bowls," as that's kind of a Japanese cultural phenomenon. But the same logic applies. The categorization I came up with for "type of food" and "specific item" is something that I just came up with and have not stress-tested for border cases, but I think it holds true. I think as with all things the best thing to do is keep reading examples from native sources!
  • The shop offers only 5 little foie gras bowls per day, and 4 bowls were already sold at that time.
  • The shop offers only 5 little foie gras bowls per day, and 4 bowls were already sold at that time.
    　Your original sentence is perfectly fine.
  • Therefore, I ordered the foie gras bowl and ate foie gras for the first time in forever.
  • So I ordered the foie gras bowl and ate foie gras for the first time in forever.
    　I use "so" here because you didn't really give a rigorous reason for choosing the bowl -- it was kind of implied (you wanted to get the bowl because it was the last one), and so "therefore" is a little strong. But it would probably be fine the way you had it, too.
  • The name of the menu was "foie gras bowl," but in fact, there were only one small slice of foie gras and some slices of beef on a rice bowl.
  • The name of the dish was "foie gras bowl," but in fact, there was only one small slice of foie gras and some slices of beef on a rice bowl.
    　Or "the name ON the menu"
  • The foie gras is maybe very delicious, but it's difficult for me to describe the taste.
  • The foie gras may have been very delicious, but it's difficult for me to describe the taste.
  • I thought cheap meats are more suit me than expensive meats because I want to eat a lot of meat.
  • I think cheap meats are more suited for me than expensive meats, because I want to eat a lot of meat.
I like foie gras, but some people think it's disgusting!
kanotown
Thank you so much for your thoughtful corrections and comments! (^^)

I learned the difference between "type of something" and "specific item." I think the foie gras bowl is a specific item that the shop offers indeed. However, for example, beef bowl is very common dish in Japan and there are a lot of restaurant that offers beef bowl, and I think beef bowl is a type of food. In this case, can I say something like "That restaurant serves beef bowl?"

> I like foie gras, but some people think it's disgusting!

Yes, I heard some people don't like the taste and some people think it's cruel. If anything, I like foie gras, but I don't like its price. It's too luxury for me!
titanium
笑　そうですね！In this case, I would say "That restaurant serves beef bowls." Using the plural is more natural to me. Your English is superb! This is a very illogical aspect of the English language.
kanotown
Thank you for letting me know!
I'm so happy about your words. :)
No. 3　Eddie's correction
  • Surprisingly, foie gras bowl was sold at the ramen shop.
  • Surprisingly, foie gras bowls were sold at the ramen shop.
  • The shop offers only 5 little foie gras bowls per day, and 4 bowls were already sold at that time.
  • This sentence is perfect! No correction needed!
  • Therefore, I ordered the foie gras bowl and ate foie gras for the first time in forever.
  • So, I ordered the foie gras bowl and ate foie gras for the first time ever.
  • The name of the menu was "foie gras bowl," but in fact, there were only one small slice of foie gras and some slices of beef on a rice bowl.
  • The name on the menu was "foie gras bowl," but in fact, there was only one small slice of foie gras and some slices of beef on a rice bowl.
  • I thought cheap meats are more suit me than expensive meats because I want to eat a lot of meat.
  • I thought cheap meats are more suitable for me than expensive meats because I want to eat a lot of meat.
kanotown
Thank you very much for correcting my post! :)
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