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ESL forum > Ask for help > Connectors!    

Connectors!



Jorgelinaac
Argentina

Connectors!
 
Hello Dear teachers,
 
I would like to have your opinion about some sentences I will be presenting to my students. They are adults who are studying Chemistry and/or Physics at university and of course they have English as a subject. They work with articles, they have to get the main idea and within each article there is a grammar point to deal with. In this class, I will show them that in conditional sentences there are more connectors other than "if". So I planned the same sentence with different connectors. I always try to provide them with examples related to the text. For example, the text we are working with is about alternative fuels. Some of them sound odd to me but they may be correct. Have a look at the sentences and really thanks in advance!
 

Pollution will continue as long as we don�t change our minds.

Pollution will continue unless we change our minds.

Pollution will continue provided that we don�t change our minds.

Pollution will continue only if we don�t change our minds.

Pollution will continue on condition that we don�t change our minds

 
 
Jor
 
 
 

25 Sep 2009      





johanne23232
Israel

I would suggest that the �change our minds � expression is a bit problematic...your sentences would sound so much better to me if they ended with "change our mindset" or �change our habits �.....otherwise they are all correct, but some of them would not be used normally in English. For example , you would not use the last one (Pollution will continue on condition that we don �t change our mindset) for something negative, but rather for something positive "Pollution will decrease on condition that we change our habits". The same holds true for the third sentences, with "provided that"....again this would be used for something positive, in my opinion.

25 Sep 2009     



Carla Horne
United States

Hi Jor,
 
The sentences are correct, but I �m not certain that one is saying what you want it to say.
 
           Pollution will continue only if we don�t change our minds.
 
Do you mean that this is the only reason pollution will continue?
 
I hope that i helped. Good luck.
 
Carla

25 Sep 2009     



Zora
Canada

Pollution will continue as long as we don�t change our minds. No or incomplete... unless you were to add, for example:

Pollution will continue as long as we don�t change our minds about/on the effects of fossil fuels have on our environment... // Pollution will continue as long as we use fossil fuels.

Pollution will continue unless we change our minds. Incomplete sentence again, 

Pollution will continue unless we change our minds on the use of fossil fuels.

Pollution will continue provided that we don�t change our minds. Incomplete sentence too..

Pollution will continue provided that we don�t change our minds about the usage of fossil fuels.

.

Pollution will continue only if we don�t change our minds.No.not really..Incomplete perhaps, sounds weird.


Pollution will continue on condition that we don�t change our minds.. Again, not really..


For this sentence I would use "IF" - Pollution will continue IF we don �t change our minds.

25 Sep 2009     



Carla Horne
United States

Maybe I misunderstood you. Were you just asking if they are grammatically correct? (Yes, they are.)  Were you asking if they needed more information? (Depending on what you are doing, they probably do.)
 
Carla

25 Sep 2009     



Jorgelinaac
Argentina

Well, I was asking if they were grammatically correct. I needed some sentences (examples) to explain that there are other connectors other than IF. I know some sentences sound weird, well anyway... I changed them a bit and I think they are ok. Then, I will send it to you!

Thanks very much for your opinions. All the information was really useful to me!
 
kisses from Argentina
 
 
 

26 Sep 2009