You are right, "daughter to..." is not something that we use in modern English. Instead you would say "daughter of..." For example "over there is Katy the daughter of our manager." The only situation that I would ever think of using "daughter to..." is if I were to write a text based in a historical setting, and even then it's debatable. My advice would be to leave it to Shakespeare :)

All of the above work perfectly well, it's really more a choice which you think would work better for the situation you are applying them to. However as a native speaker I would be more inclined to use either "put aside" or "set aside." Hopefully this is helpful :)

The difference seen here, is the difference between the past simple tense and the past continuous tense. For a good explanation check out the link below; http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/quick-grammar/past-continuous-and-past-simple

The group of birds were flying in the morning. Coldplay was the winner. The majority of the group were drinking coffee. For next time remember that "were" is used when the subject is in plural e.g. birds, they, we. "Was"is used when the subject is singular e.g. Coldplay, I, she. However special attention need to be given to the usage of a group such a family, team or simply group. In these group cases both "was" (singular) or "were" (plural) can be used. "When the group is being considered as a whole, it can be treated as a single entity: “the group was ready to go on stage.” But when the individuality of its members is being emphasized, “group” is plural: “the group were in disagreement about where to go for dinner.”" http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/group.html Hopefully this helped :)

Yes, both these sentences make perfect sense :)

1) Adam's really looking forward to snowboarding next weekend. 2) What does your uncle do for a living? 3) Before we get down to the film shoot, we must agree the budget.

I would stick to what the American told you. Honestly coming from New Zealand I have never really used "coffee shop" before, but just thinking about it makes me think of a Starbucks style of shop, as opposed to the sit down and eat a cooked meal, which is what I associate with the idea of a café. So yeah, stick with what you've been told, but in truth I wouldn't worry about the differnce too much :)