We both don’t want to be a teacher.
Can “both” be used in a negative sentence?
I don’t know if I need to use “either” or “neither”.
Thank you!!!
That sentence sounds unnatural to me. Using neither would definitely be better.
Neither (one) of us wants to be a teacher.
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This:
Neither (one) of us wants to be a teacher.
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It is correct but sounds better if it was: “We both don’t want to be teachers” or “Both of us don’t want to be teaches”. It also sounds natural as: “neither of us want to be a teacher”.
Neither of us want to be a teacher.
Neither of us want to be teachers. (More natural for me)
We both don’t want to be teachers.
‘We don’t want to be teachers, either’ can be used, for example:
Mary: I don’t want to be a teacher.
Tom (speaking for himself and someone else): We don’t want to be teachers, either.
Naomi: I don’t want to be a librarian. I don’t want to be a teacher, either.
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Thanks a lot, Ozemite.
Ozemite’s first two examples are not grammatically correct, although you may hear people say them.
Just because native speakers say something does not mean it’s grammatically correct or that you should imitate it.
“Neither of us wantS to be a teacher” is the correct grammatical form. “Neither” refers to “neither one of us” in this case — a single person-- and thus requires a verb in the singular form: “wantS.”
In the second example in the first part of the sentence, “Neither of us” similarly refers to “neither one of us” and thus the verb must be singular: wantS.
In the second half of the sentence, it is not grammatically correct to say that “a person does not want to be teacherS” (plural). Obviously that makes no sense.
Instead, “a single person does not want to be a teacher” (singular). Thus, “neither one of us wants to be a teacher” is the correct form.
“Both” refers to both of us – two people – and takes a plural verb: want. (“We both don’t want to be teachers” is correct because the noun, the verb and object match in number: plural noun, plural verb, plural object.)
I hope this clarifies what the correct grammatical forms should be.
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No, it just clarifies American English 