What part of speech is “tomorrow” in this sentence “A Swiss watch will be as fascinating tomorrow as it is today due to its precision”?
Thanks a lot,
In this case it means: “in the future.”
I am curious to know why that would be useful information.
Curiosity is, of course, a crucial factor in knowing what information would be the best. So I would like to say to you that I want to know what part of speech “tomorrow” in that sentence is because I want to category whether or not it is like this pattern :
As adjectiveas <pronoun/noun> + verb+…
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Because I have never come across such a pattern:
As adjectiveas <pronoun/noun> + verb+…
Curiosity is, of course, a crucial factor in knowing what information would be the best. So I would like to say to you that I want to know what part of speech “tomorrow” in that sentence is because I want to rate whether or not it is like this pattern :
As adjective[noun]as [pronoun/noun] + verb+…
1- Install ZumoDrive on as many computers as you like. You will have instant access to all of the documents and media that’s stored on ZumoDrive, no matter which computer you used to store it.
2-There is no file size limit on ZumoDrive. You can store as large of files as your operating system allows.
Because I have never come across such a pattern:
As adjective[adverb] as [pronoun/noun] + verb+…
The complete structure is basically “the watch will be as fascinating tomorrow as it is fascinating today”, but the second “fascinating” is left out to avoid the repetition. The word tomorrow is an adverb, but it’s not an essential part of that structure, and can be left out. Instead of tomorrow, you could use another expression of time like Wednesday, on your birthday, in the future, etc.
In all the languagesI speak I have never asked myself what part of speech “tomorrow” is. It is just tomorrow.
But if you think about it you will realize that when it qualifies an action “I go tomorrow” it is an adverb and when it qualifies a noun “tomorrow morning” it is an adjective. Surely this is so in all languages.
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But I would like to say how I can write well if I don’t realise the proper forms of patterns? And it is sure if I can’t write well, I will not speak well.
Or should I keep the idioms in my mind?
In addition, if the learner wants to test to a standard test, he need to know those patterns very well.
Is there any another good way better than this for getting a more rapid progress ?
Huge exposure to the language (listening and reading) is the only way, in my experience, these patterns can form.
Jamie {{{ Huge exposure to the language (listening and reading) is the only way, in my experience, these patterns can form.}}}
But we live in an environment where English is so rarely spoken that anyone hardly finds another person to practise with. In the other hand, I think the grammar language is quite difficult, especially if a learner studies only from the online lessons and books.
NB: Some people say “I’m afraid that I’m no use for advice on books.”
I hope you see my difficulty. There really is nothing better than speaking a language - you can pick up many good habits very easily. If anyone learns from books, his accent will be horrible and people won’t understand him!
Grammar, on its own, should be an aid to understanding the structure of the language, but if the ability to speak the language is not there, it is like trying to learn to drive a car without ever sitting in one.
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Absolutely. Listen and read and you learn. Output activities (speaking and writing) follow naturally; you don’t need to practise them to become good at them (strange but true).
This is completely my experience with French. I got where I am today by listening to lots of things I like and reading lots of things I like. Not by speaking or writing. And I don’t think my French accent is too bad; French people can certainly understand me with no problem. And I’m getting to the stage where I can understand pretty much everything I hear.
Listening and reading got me there.
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Imy, I don’t agree. I know for sure from my own experience that speaking and writing improve naturally with continued input exposure. I don’t need to habitually practise these things to become better at them. For the life of me I can’t explain why, it just happens!
I can go for weeks without speaking or writing a word of French. Then I am in France speaking with someone. And I am noticeably better than I was the last time. How do you explain this? My only activities in the interim period were listening to podcasts and reading books, marking and reviewing vocabulary when I felt like it. Words and phrases that I didn’t know before magically pop out of my head without searching for them. The same is true for writing.
I really can’t explain it, but this language learning business is fascinating stuff…
If I ever had any reason to ask myself these questions (i.e. if not my “grammar intuition” immediately told me the answer), I’d consult a dictionary, for instance this one:
Interesting that this dictionary lists tomorrow as a noun and adverb.
In those languages which I know and in which nouns have gender, “tomorrow” has no gender, suggesting to me that in those languages at least, tomorrow is not a noun.
Note also that in English all nouns that I can think of can take an article. “Tomorrow” does not. We have “the morrow”, the day after tomorrow", but no “the tomorrow” (nor the today nor the yesterday). Now in the plural this is different, we can speak of our tomorrows and our yesterdays, but not in singular, or so it seems to me.
If I think about this subject all, which won’t be very often, I will consider “tomorrow” an adjective or an adverb, but not a noun.
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Yes there are some cases where tomorrow acts like a noun, as in your examples. However, to me, in most cases, tomorrow functions like “early” or “now”.
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