mMy dog is lost

I have being kept a dog for over 2 (two) years. It is black, which has named with and is named (*or* and he is named) xXiaohu. It hasd not come back since in the Friday evening last week last Friday evening.

I am very missing it miss it very much and I feeling so nervous about that. I hope that it is still alive and can come back soon.

COMMENTS:

Very good! You did a great job but I made some corrections to help you think of new and more fluent ways to structure your sentences. We can review these together during our next lesson, but I will also explain here:

1) Capitalize the first letter of a sentence, especially a title.

2) "I have kept a dog" is correct; in this sentence you can use the Present Perfect verb tense of "keep". No need to use "being". 

3) When writing in English, we always spell the number if the number is small (this depends on preference, but it is always true for numbers less than ten).

4) This can also be more simple than how you wrote it: "It is black, and it is named Xiaohu" (the first letter of a name is always capitalized). Or, another way to write it simply is "It is black, and his name is Xiaohu". Sometimes simple is best :)

5) We can discuss and practice this idea during our next lesson, but an easier way to phrase this idea of "the Friday last week" is simply to say "last Friday". Think of it as: the last Friday that has passed. It is more common for us to say this in English.  We often say "last Friday" or "next Saturday", etc.

6) Remember the order of adverbs - adverbs are after the verb. Just like "I like ___ very much", we would say "I miss ___ very much". So we could say "I like him very much" and we would say "I miss him very much."

Also, just a final note, often in English we will call our pets "he" or "she", instead of "it". This is sometimes a preference, but usually because it is living and we have a close relationship with our pet, we will give it more 'personhood', using "he" or "she". (e.g. I miss *him* very much, *He* is black, and *his* name is Xiaohu).

I corrected a few things and I have many comments to explain, but please do not be discouraged, you have done a great job! We can also review some verb tenses together during the next lesson. Good work!  加油！

First notebook entry: Introducing myself

I am learning English, because I want to study and work in USA, and make friends from USA.
My Native language is Chinese, and I grew up in China.
I enjoy playing football.

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Notes:

Hi Albert! Nice introduction! :)

Some comments about my corrections:

1) In written English, ALWAYS add a space after the comma ( , )

2) In the format "I enjoy ____", the second verb will always have an "ing" ending. For example, "I enjoy reading", "I enjoy cooking", or "I enjoy playing football". 

I hope this helps, and if you have any other questions you can send me a message and I will be glad to help you.

Hi, the formatting in the comments is difficult to understand, so I will add my comments and explanations for my corrections here:

1) "Last entry written by me" = "The last entry that I wrote" -

This is two different changes. The first is that in English we always specify the noun with an article, using either "the" or "a". Especially in writing, we would say "the entry" or "an entry". Since you are referring to a specific entry, you would use "the."  The second change is difficult to explain, simply because it comes down to normal English usage versus other languages.

Technically what you wrote is correct, but it is not something a native-speaker would say. It is not common for us to use the format "[verb]ed by [someone]", such as you wrote "written by me", or for more examples we would never say "the picture painted by Michelle" or "the chair sat on by me". This is what we call "passive voice", and it usually sounds a little awkward to a native ear. Instead, we would use the "active voice", which would be (using the previous examples): "The entry that I wrote", or "the picture that Michelle painted", or "the chair that I sat on". The structure that we would use follows the structure: " [noun] that [someone] [verb past tense]" .

Also, just as a final note, it is very common, especially in spoken English, for speakers to drop the "that", and instead simply say "The last entry I wrote", or "the picture Michelle painted, or "the chair I sat on".

2) I moved the phrase "a family party" earlier in the sentence to make it easier to understand. Try to keep each "unit" of the sentence together, such as "when I organise a family party" and "together with mummy and daddy". Before you had placed "together with mummy and daddy" inside the 'unit' that is "when I organise a family party".

I tried to explain the corrections in detail so that you can learn and understand the grammar rules. For you these are more advanced rules, so don't worry if they are difficult to understand, sometimes even native English speakers have trouble with these! :)  I hope this was helpful, and if you have any questions you can message me and I will be glad to help you more! Great job and I wish you a Merry Christmas with your family!

Christmas - part 1

Hello there,

I trust you are well and had a great weekend!

Last entry written by me, The last entry that I wrote wasn't corrected by anyone. There are three posibilities of such a situation:

Possibility 1- more plausible - my English is impeccable and you had nothing to correct.
Possibility 2 - implausible - my entries are so boring that you cannot stand reading it.
Possibility 3 - you do not like Paris Hilton and the title scared you.

On this occasion, I would like to convey thanks, from the bottom of my heart for the people who corrected my previous entries. I would like to let you know that all your advice are invaluable for me.

With regard to the fact that Christmas is comming, I decided to write only about Christmas and Polish traditions for a few weeks. I strongly believe that you will find this topic interesting and it will encourage you to read it.

I am a very lucky person, who is a member of really big family. When I organise a family party, together with my mummy and daddy a family party, I am always responsible for helping in cooking meals, supporting my dad with all the cleaning activities and preparing the table. When the family comes, we spend the entire day eating and talking at the table. I have to confess that when I was younger I didn't enjoy spending time with the whole family but now, when I am a little older I like it and it is not boring for me any more.

Yesterday, I started all prep work for Christmas. When you have a big family, you have to dedicate much time for buying gifts for your relatives. I love buying on the Internet. I Poland we have one portal, using which you can buy literally everything, much cheaper than at the shops. I spent whole Saturday looking for gifts and other useful gadgets for Christmas such as: covers with Santa for cutlery and pillows and decorations for cakes.

I have a gut feeling that this Christmas will be outstanding :)

To be continued ...