1. Become accustomed to make our revenue through printed products
Professor Zhu Shida (ZS): This sentence is wrong because of the erroneous use of the infinitive “to make” following the phrase “accustomed to.” As now, “accustomed to” means used to or in the habit of; it is followed by eithea noun or a participle phrase. For example: The farmer is accustomed to hard labor; She is accustomed to jogging daily. When we use the phrase “used to,” it follows the same rule: She has gotten used to jogging daily. So, the right way to say this is: We have become accustomed to making our revenue through printed products
Native speaker Steven Sandor (SS): The professor’s explanaion is precise and correct. I have nothing to add to this. The only way to avoid needing a participle phrase would be to completely rewrite the sentence as, We usually earn our revenue through printed products. However, this substantially changes the meaning.
2. Kindergarten students
ZS: Don’t you thnk this combination is funny? In Chinese, “xuesheng” applies to all who study. However, in English, you have pupils, students and scholars. Student, emphasizing the idea of studying, applies to any one who loves to sty, but especially to someone attending a higher school, college or university. For instance, They are students from the Fudan University. Pupil, emphasizing personal supervision by a teacher, applies to a child in school or some one studying privately with a teacher. For instance, He is a pupil of the third grade in an elementary school. So, obviously the combination of “kindergarten students” is not right. It would be better to say: ndergarten kids or simply kindergarteners. So, you may see how important that we think in English when we write.
